“The Management of Savagery” Between ISIS and the Rapid Support Forces

By Obeid Ahmed Murawih

A host of a talk show on an Arab satellite channel once asked me how I explain the scenes shown in several videos following the Rapid Support Forces’ (RSF) entry into the city of El-Fasher, where fighters appeared to revel in killing unarmed civilians while chanting “Allahu Akbar.”

I told him this behavior is rooted in the very nature of the war being waged against the Sudanese army and people. It is not a war aimed at forcing the army to accept political conditions, nor is it an armed rebellion seeking power, wealth, or other demands—types of conflicts Sudan has known since before its independence in 1956. Rather, it is a war of aggression against the Sudanese people, designed to force them from their homes and lands, drive them into displacement and exile, and replace them with others from within and outside the country. In essence, it is a war of aggression and settler expansion.

I pointed out that from the very first day of this current war, RSF fighters engaged in extreme violence, killings, rapes, kidnappings, and enforced disappearances against civilians in Khartoum State, followed by other states. They then “developed” these methods into mass killings and ethnic cleansing in West Darfur (El Geneina) and in Al-Jazira State (Wad Al-Noura). This produced the world’s largest displacement crisis, with the number of internally displaced persons and refugees reaching thirteen million, according to UN agencies.

I noted that practicing this “savagery,” documenting it, and disseminating it—by the “savages” themselves—was intentional. Its purpose was to terrorize civilians into fleeing before RSF fighters arrived, without resistance, abandoning their homes and leaving behind their savings and vehicles to be seized as “spoils” by the new invaders. These invaders also committed “enslavement” and sexual captivity against thousands of women and girls. What I am describing has been thoroughly documented by international media, human rights organizations, and research and investigative centers at several American universities.

After the interview, my mind went back to the days of the Islamic State’s war in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). I remembered the image of the Jordanian pilot Muath al-Kasasbeh, whom ISIS captured in 2014, locked in an iron cage, and burned alive—broadcasting the footage on social media. I also recalled the images of severed heads, and how all these acts were accompanied by chants of “Allahu Akbar.”

At that time, we understood that ISIS operated under a comprehensive strategy known as “The Management of Savagery,” which assumed that by practicing and broadcasting such brutality on social media, they could force people to flee and instill terror in those who resisted them, making them think twice before confronting them.

The resemblance between the behavior of ISIS during the height of its power and the conduct of RSF fighters in Sudan is striking. Both commit atrocities and justify killing and looting in the name of justice or Islam. Both permit themselves to spill civilian blood under the pretext of upholding truth, and to seize people’s property and women under the guise of spoils and captivity.

This strange nature of the war in Sudan—ongoing since April 2023—is why the world remains either deliberately blind to its reality or unaware of its true nature. At times, it is dismissed as a struggle for power between two generals; at other times as a war between two parties (the army and the RSF); and yet again as a battle against “remnants” of the former Islamist regime. But the truth has nothing to do with any of that, except superficially. The RSF’s actions in El-Fasher have exposed what the “international community” has tried to ignore for more than thirty months.

For thirty months, the world has been captive to misleading narratives about what is happening in Sudan. This is because one critical aspect of the war—the non-military dimension—has not been adequately exposed. This dimension is overseen, funded, and orchestrated by the United Arab Emirates. As part of its media and diplomatic deception campaign, the UAE has not only worked to impose a specific narrative and polish the image of its military and civilian allies, but has also actively smeared the Sudanese army, its allied forces, and the civilian groups supporting them. It has labeled them with terms drawn from a pre-prepared lexicon—descriptions that apply only to the UAE’s own allies. In doing so, it embodies the proverb: “She accused me of her own affliction and slipped away.”

The world—Arab and non-Arab—must now recognize that it is turning a blind eye to a looming evil in Sudan called the Rapid Support Forces. The only viable solution to contain this threat is to designate the RSF a terrorist organization, disarm it, prosecute its leaders for ethnic cleansing and war crimes, and condemn its sponsors and financiers. Camps must be established for its members just as the world did for ISIS after its defeat, allocating the “Al-Hol Camp” in Syria for that purpose. This should continue until every foreign mercenary fighting in Sudan is either tried or returned home, and until the fate of Sudanese members of the militia is determined. Otherwise, this cancer will not stop at Sudan’s borders; it will spread throughout Africa, and neither Europe nor the rest of the world will be spared.