Role Sudan Played in Somalia’s Conflict: Sudanese State Policy and the Deliberate Protraction of the Somali Civil War (1991–2006)
This report examines the role of the Government of Sudan, then dominated by the National Islamic Front (NIF) under the ideological leadership of Hassan al-Turabi, in the Somali Civil War following the collapse of the Siad Barre government in 1991.
The evidence suggests that Sudan’s involvement went beyond conventional regional competition or support for a particular Somali faction. Khartoum pursued two interconnected objectives: first, to exploit Somalia’s political fragmentation by supporting actors capable of prolonging the civil war; and second, to use the collapse of the Somali state as an opportunity to expand Sudan’s model of political Islam and cultivate Islamist movements capable of reshaping Somalia’s political order.
In this sense, Sudanese policy evolved from supporting armed factionalism to promoting an ideological Islamist alternative to Somalia’s traditional political structures.
The result was a prolonged process in which Somalia moved from a conventional clan-based power struggle into an increasingly internationalized Islamist conflict.
1. The Strategy: Factional Favoritism to Fuel Chaos
Following the 1991 collapse of Siad Barre’s regime, the Somali state disintegrated. The main rebel movement, the United Somali Congress (USC), rapidly divided along political, clan and leadership lines, most notably between Ali Mahdi Mohamed and General Mohamed Farah Aidid.
Instead of supporting a comprehensive national reconciliation process or a government capable of restoring national institutions, Sudan’s NIF regime became involved in Somalia’s emerging factional conflict.
Khartoum identified General Aidid and his Somali National Alliance (SNA) as an important vehicle through which it could influence the balance of power in Somalia.
Sudanese assistance was not necessarily intended to enable Aidid to establish a stable and unified Somali government. Rather, by strengthening one of the principal combatants, Sudan contributed to an environment in which neither rival could decisively defeat the other.
2. The Islamist Dimension: Sudan and the Transformation of Somalia After 1991
The most important and often overlooked dimension of Sudanese involvement was ideological.
The collapse of the Somali state created an unprecedented political vacuum. For Hassan al-Turabi and the NIF, this represented an opportunity to expand the influence of political Islam into Somalia and the wider Horn of Africa.
Turabi was not simply a domestic Sudanese politician. By the beginning of the 1990s, he was attempting to position Sudan as an international center for Islamist movements. His government promoted political Islam beyond Sudan’s borders, while Khartoum became a meeting point for Islamist organizations and militants from across the Muslim world.
Somalia consequently became an important arena for this ideological expansion.
The post-1991 period saw the rapid militarization of Islamist organizations, particularly al-Ittihad al-Islami (AIAI). Contemporary reporting described al-Ittihad as an organization modeled partly on the international Muslim Brotherhood and operating across Somali-populated territories. It established military training facilities and sought to build an Islamist political and military base in Somalia.
It is important, however, to distinguish between Somalia’s different Islamist currents. Al-Islah had stronger historical connections to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, while al-Ittihad al-Islami was more closely associated with the ideological current represented by Turabi and his Sudanese Islamist project. Research on Somali political Islam describes al-Ittihad as being closer to Turabi during this period, while al-Islah was more skeptical of Turabism and maintained stronger links to the Egyptian Brotherhood.
Therefore, Sudan’s role should be understood not simply as “creating the Muslim Brotherhood in Somalia,” but as helping create the political, ideological and organizational environment in which Islamist movements could expand rapidly after the collapse of the Somali state.
3. Hassan al-Turabi and the Emergence of an Islamist War in Somalia
The significance of Hassan al-Turabi becomes particularly important when examining the transition from the first phase of the Somali Civil War to the emergence of organized Islamist warfare.
Turabi’s political model sought to achieve political transformation through the gradual penetration of state institutions and society by organized Islamist movements. This approach became influential among Somali Islamists. Later research explicitly describes al-Ittihad’s strategy as a “Turabi” model: rather than immediately attempting to govern the entire state, Islamists would seek influence over strategic institutions, particularly religious and judicial structures, while gradually expanding their political authority.
After 1991, however, parts of the Somali Islamist movement pursued a considerably more militant approach.
Al-Ittihad attempted to establish territorial control in several parts of Somalia. In the northeast, the organization temporarily seized Bosaso in 1992 and fought forces associated with Colonel Abdullahi Yusuf and the Somali Salvation Democratic Front (SSDF).
After being militarily defeated in the northeast, the movement shifted much of its operational activity toward southern Somalia, particularly the Gedo region around Luuq and Doolow. Al-Ittihad subsequently developed a substantial presence there and became involved in armed conflict with the Somali National Front and other forces.
This is significant because it demonstrates that the Islamist conflict was not simply a later phenomenon associated with Al-Shabaab. It was already developing during the first years of the civil war.
The armed Islamist campaign therefore represented a second front in Somalia’s post-1991 collapse: alongside the clan-based struggle for political power, an ideological struggle emerged over whether Somalia would become an Islamic state governed according to the political Islamist model promoted by movements influenced by developments in Sudan and elsewhere.
4. The 1992–1993 Islamist Offensive and the Expansion of the Conflict
The emergence of al-Ittihad in the early 1990s represented a fundamental change in the nature of the Somali conflict.
In 1992, Islamist militants were no longer simply preaching or providing social services. They were attempting to establish territorial control and impose their political-religious project through armed force.
The organization attempted to establish itself in areas including Bari and Nugaal in the northeast, while subsequently establishing a major operational base in Gedo in southwestern Somalia.
In Bosaso, al-Ittihad attempted to establish control over a major commercial center before being defeated and expelled by SSDF forces.
In Gedo, the organization subsequently established itself around Luuq and Doolow and developed military infrastructure. By the mid-1990s, Gedo had become one of the principal centers of militant Islamist activity in Somalia.
The organization also became part of a wider transnational militant environment. Al-Qaeda operatives entered Somalia during this period, and research indicates that they provided training and strategic assistance to al-Ittihad and other Somali militants. A shared training presence subsequently developed in Gedo.
This does not mean that every military operation undertaken by al-Ittihad in Somalia was directly commanded by Hassan al-Turabi. The evidence does not establish that level of operational control.
The stronger historical argument is that Turabi’s Sudan provided an ideological model, political network and regional environment in which Somali Islamist organizations could organize, expand and militarize.
That distinction is important because it makes the argument considerably more defensible.
5. Sudan’s Connection to the Islamist Infrastructure
Sudan’s influence was not restricted to weapons or political contacts.
Sudanese Islamic organizations were active in Somalia during the early 1990s. Sudanese religious and humanitarian organizations operated in Somali cities, while Sudanese-linked Islamic institutions provided social assistance and religious services.
Contemporary reporting noted links between al-Ittihad and Sudanese Islamic organizations, including al-Da’wa al-Islamiyya, which operated feeding centers and clinics in Somalia.
This created an important mechanism of influence:
humanitarian assistance → religious institutions → ideological influence → political organization → military mobilization.
The collapse of the Somali state made this particularly effective. With government institutions absent, organizations capable of providing food, education, security and religious services could acquire substantial local influence.
This helps explain why the Islamist movement was able to survive military defeats and repeatedly reorganize itself.
6. From Al-Ittihad to the Islamic Courts
Sudan’s Islamist influence did not disappear after al-Ittihad suffered military defeats.
Instead, the movement’s remnants and personnel became incorporated into Somalia’s evolving Islamist political infrastructure.
Former al-Ittihad figures later became involved in the development of Islamic courts in Mogadishu. Hassan Dahir Aweys, one of the prominent figures associated with al-Ittihad, subsequently became an important leader within the Islamic Courts movement.
By 2006, a coalition of Islamic courts had developed into the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), which seized control of Mogadishu and large parts of southern Somalia. Human Rights Watch notes that the Islamic Courts had longstanding roots in Mogadishu and that various clan-based Islamic courts had operated for years before forming the ICU.
Sudan again became a central diplomatic venue.
In June 2006, the Somali Transitional Federal Government and the Islamic Courts Union met in Khartoum for negotiations. Later that year, additional Islamic Courts representatives travelled to Sudan for talks.
Khartoum therefore played a role at both ends of this ideological trajectory: Sudan had been associated with the expansion of Islamist networks during the early post-1991 period, and fifteen years later Sudan became the diplomatic arena in which the Islamic Courts confronted Somalia’s internationally recognized transitional government.
7. The Evolution of Sudanese Strategy
Sudanese involvement in Somalia can therefore be divided into three interconnected phases.
Phase I — 1991–1993: Factional and Military Intervention
Sudan cultivated relationships with Somali armed factions and contributed to the militarization of the post-Barre conflict. The principal objective was to establish influence within a fragmented Somalia while preventing the emergence of a political order hostile to Khartoum’s interests.
Phase II — 1992–1998: Islamist Expansion
The collapse of the Somali state created an opportunity for Sudan’s Islamist model to spread. Al-Ittihad al-Islami became one of the principal vehicles for militant political Islam in Somalia. It attempted to establish territorial control in areas including the northeast and Gedo and fought Somali factions opposed to its project. The ideological connection to Turabi’s Sudan is particularly important during this phase.
Phase III — Late 1990s–2006: Institutionalization of Political Islam
Following military defeats, Islamist networks adapted. Rather than continuously attempting to conquer and govern large territories, former militants increasingly embedded themselves within religious, commercial, educational and judicial structures.
This eventually contributed to the development of Islamic courts and, ultimately, the Islamic Courts Union.
The ICU’s emergence in 2006 therefore did not occur in a political vacuum. It was the culmination of more than a decade of Islamist organizational development that had begun during the collapse of the Somali state.
8. Sudan’s Broader Strategic Objective
The evidence therefore points to a broader Sudanese strategy than simply supporting General Aidid.
Khartoum had two complementary interests in Somalia.
First, Sudan benefited strategically from a weak and divided Somalia. A fragmented Somalia could not emerge as a strong regional competitor or effectively challenge Sudanese influence in the Horn of Africa.
Second, Sudan sought to expand an Islamist political model beyond its borders.
Hassan al-Turabi viewed Sudan as the nucleus of a broader Islamic political project. His establishment of the Popular Arab and Islamic Conference in 1991 demonstrates the international scope of this ambition.
Somalia’s collapse created ideal conditions for such a project.
The absence of a functioning central government meant that political Islam could compete directly with clan-based political structures, while foreign Islamist networks could enter Somalia with relatively little institutional resistance.
Consequently, Sudan’s policy toward Somalia should be understood as a combination of strategic destabilization and ideological expansion.
9. The Long-Term Consequences
The consequences were profound.
Somalia’s original conflict after 1991 was primarily a struggle among armed political and clan factions for control of the state.
The introduction and militarization of political Islam added an entirely different dimension.
This transformation made Somalia’s conflict substantially more difficult to resolve.
The defeat of al-Ittihad did not eliminate the ideological infrastructure it had helped establish. Former members and associated figures moved into other Islamist organizations and institutions, eventually contributing to the development of the Islamic Courts movement.
The subsequent emergence of Al-Shabaab therefore cannot be understood solely as a product of the Ethiopian intervention of 2006. Its organizational and ideological antecedents reach back into the militant Islamist mobilization that emerged during the first years following the collapse of the Somali state.
Conclusion
Sudan’s involvement in Somalia after 1991 should therefore be understood as a long-term strategy with both geopolitical and ideological dimensions.
In the first phase, Khartoum supported Somali actors involved in the armed struggle and contributed to the continuation of the civil war.
In the second phase, the Sudanese Islamist establishment associated with Hassan al-Turabi helped create an international environment in which Somali political Islam could expand rapidly.
Al-Ittihad al-Islami emerged as one of the most important militant Islamist organizations of the period, attempting to establish territorial control in parts of northeastern and southern Somalia and engaging in armed conflict with organizations such as the SSDF and the Somali National Front.
In the third phase, surviving Islamist networks adapted themselves into religious, judicial and political institutions, eventually contributing to the rise of the Islamic Courts Union.
Thus, Sudan’s role was not limited to supporting one Somali warlord or one political faction.
It helped transform the Somali conflict itself.
What began in 1991 as a struggle over the remnants of the Somali state gradually became an internationalized conflict involving political Islam, transnational jihadist networks and competing regional powers.
Hassan al-Turabi’s Sudanese Islamist project was an important part of that transformation.
The strongest historical formulation, therefore, is not that Turabi personally commanded every Islamist military campaign in Somalia. Rather, his Sudanese Islamist regime helped establish the ideological, organizational and international environment in which militant political Islam became a major force in post-1991 Somalia.
The wars fought by Islamist forces in places such as Bari, Nugaal and Gedo should consequently be examined as part of this wider transformation of Somalia’s conflict—not merely as isolated local or clan confrontations.
Source Note
The report incorporates source references identified in the supplied draft, including contemporary reporting and research associated with the Los Angeles Times, Sudan Tribune, United Nations Peacekeeping, The Washington Post, Somali Public Agenda, Library of Congress, Cambridge University Press, Human Rights Watch, The Guardian, the Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP), and the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point.
Specific claims should be checked against the underlying publications before formal academic or legal use.
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