The Spring of the General Intelligence Service
By Azmi Abdelrazek
Here I am, walking down one of Khartoum’s streets — the very street that, almost a year ago, witnessed fierce fighting. I touch the ground lightly. A car races down the road, a vegetable vendor passes by with his horse cart, and a beautiful little girl laughs joyfully as she playfully pokes a red balloon that soon slips from her tiny fingers and soars into the sky of a city returning to the embrace of its homeland. I whispered to myself: My God! Children again, after fear. Suddenly, the streetlights flickered to life, as if singing like the artist Arki, who refused to leave his home in Omdurman, chanting in his mystical way: “Before you, the sunset, at the mouth of time…”
Someone gently patted my shoulder. In a voice that reached my heart before my mind, he said: “Careful — one of the heroes of the Dignity Battle was martyred here.” He began telling me about those days when this street witnessed the final clashes between our forces and the militia; how the men held their ground with patience and faith; how the soil mixed with blood; how this very tree grew from the body of a martyr whose luminous blood still nourishes our lives. You can imagine him, moments before uttering the shahada, igniting his comrades’ spirits with that now-famous rallying cry: “Amn ya jann!” — “Secure it, soldier!”
My friend, perhaps you need to understand the price of return, the cost of liberation — to know that there are men you may never see, yet they are all around you: carrying your burdens, protecting your shop, your phone, your kind neighbor, your beloved, the smiling nurse, the city that now sleeps in peace, the mosques that echo with calls of Allahu Akbar. Life has returned, thanks to these heroes, by the grace of God.
As you cross the Manshiya Bridge and the Nile’s breeze caresses your face, know that these cascading lights are the rays of dawn — and say with conviction, “The morning brings your sunshine, my homeland.” Say it with certainty: We were there, and now we are here. The same scene unfolds in Jabal Moya and Jili, Takina and Makarka, Hilla Foug and Sennar, Al-Qutaynah, Umm Rawaba, and Madani. You can travel anywhere — by car, by bus, or even by raksha if you like — fearing only the traffic police or a wandering mosquito.
And as General Ahmed Ibrahim Mufaddal continues to lead the General Intelligence Service after renewed confidence in his command, one feels a deep sense of reassurance. Every officer and soldier in this service embodies patriotism and selflessness. Most — if not all — have not taken a single day off since the war began. They work tirelessly so you can stroll safely along Nile Street, travel peacefully to Fadasi, Gedaref, or Port Sudan, and return unharmed to El-Obeid. There is always someone awake so that you may sleep safely — someone you may never know, but who surely knows you, perhaps even patting your shoulder as that anonymous officer or soldier once did to me.
The role of the Intelligence Service in the Dignity Battle was monumental. Its leadership — between General Mufaddal, his deputy, and others unknown — operates in perfect harmony, understood by the wise without words. Since the oath of Jabal Sirkab and to this day, the Service has carried out precise operations, infiltrations of rebel fronts, and coordination efforts that successfully dismantled the ethnic alignments the Dagalo family tried to engineer — spending millions of dollars, bribes, and luxury cars to do so. This war, after all, is not against a tribe or lineage, but against those who took up arms, attacked civilians, looted villages, and committed atrocities. What we need now is a unified national narrative — one that affirms Sudan does not reject peace, but rejects aggression, and that it is confronting a malicious foreign project aimed at dividing it under deceptive slogans and cunning disguises.
Praise be to God, the General Intelligence Service has returned more cohesive, mature, and confident — casting its protective shadow over the nation’s security and the sanctity of life. It dispels fears, regulates the state’s rhythm, and shields it from infiltration and unregulated foreign presence. The comrades of the martyr Omar Al-Numan, those who came before him and those who followed, continue to work with the same integrity — without political or partisan agendas, with professionalism and devotion. Despite attempts to demonize them during the feverish revolutionary period, to weaken the protective cordon and unleash chaos, time has proven that these men guard the state, not a party. The Service has emerged from its ordeal more steadfast, more faithful to its national mission.
These events remind us of the series “The Spring of Córdoba” and of Al-Mansur Ibn Abi Amir in Andalusia — the man who rose in a time of turmoil and transformed the Umayyad Caliphate there into an administrative marvel. He organized the army, restored public confidence, and under his rule, Córdoba flourished so greatly that his era became known as “The Spring of Córdoba.”
Such a parallel might well apply to the leadership of the army and intelligence today. Al-Mansur was never flamboyant in presence, but ever-present in action — governing from behind the curtain with a wise civilian mind and a vigilant security spirit. Andalusia became a beacon of knowledge, order, and dignity under his rule. Likewise, just as The Spring of Córdoba symbolized renewal and stability, Sudan today yearns for its own security spring — led by men who understand that the homeland endures only through sacrifice, and that its dignity and renaissance are the highest calling.
