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Nimeiri as the leader of the communist-affiliated Free Officers group to

power in 1969. In 1971, Abdel Khaliq Mahgoub was alleged to have been

involved in a failed communist-backed coup against Nimeiri; he was

arrested and executed.

AbdEl Wahid MohamEd AhmEd al-NuR (b.1968). Lawyer and

Chairman of the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army, a Darfur rebel

group. Born in 1968 in Zalingei, west Darfur, he founded the SLM while

studying law at the University of Khartoum. As the conflict in Darfur

escalated in 2001, the SLM created a military wing, the Sudan Liberation

Army, with its forces concentrated around Jebel Marra. Abdel Wahid’s

SLM/A declined to sign the Darfur Peace Agreement in 2006 and has

since remained outside various peace processes. In recent years, the SLA

has fractured and many of its more senior figures have either formed

their own rebel factions or defected to other rebel groups. Living in exile

in Paris, Abdel Wahid’s influence has waned, but he is said to remain

popular in IDP camps in Darfur and Chad.

Abd al-Rahman Muhammad Ahmad al-Mahdi (1885–1959). A

dominant figure in Sudanese politics from the time of the First World

War until his death in 1959. The posthumous son of Muhammad Ahmad

al-Mahdi, he assumed his father’s spiritual mantle, becoming the leader

of the Ansar following the death of the Khalifa Abdallahi. The authorities

of the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium treated him circumspectly because

of his lineage and influence. To allay their suspicions, he denounced

neo-Mahdist uprisings and convinced his followers to support Britain

against Turkey during the First World War. In return for his support, the

government allowed him to regroup his Mahdist followers into a religious

order and to develop his family’s estate on Aba Island, on the White Nile.

In 1945 his supporters founded the Umma Party under his patronage. In

the decade leading up to independence in 1956, he was strongly opposed

to union with Egypt (as advocated by the Nationalist Unionist Party,

the other major political party at that time) and campaigned for the full

The Sudan Handbook, edited by John Ryle, Justin Willis, Suliman Baldo and Jok Madut Jok. © 2011 Rift Valley Institute and contributors independence of the Sudan.

(www.riftvalley.net).