Dialogue and Chaos: Toward Defining the Term 'Militia'

Abdullah Ali Ibrahim argues that there is no law or convention preventing an army from employing militias to face challenges. Those who describe the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) as 'militias'—like the 'Samoud' movement, which claims the Ingaz (Salvation) state was a breeding ground for tribal militias for its own security purposes—fail to see that the RSF is a different beast. The 2017 law establishing it made it a second army, or in the words of Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo 'Hemedti' himself, a 'Republican Guard.' Imam al-Shafi'i said, 'Knowledge is a hunt and writing is the shackle.' Writing is terminology, and terminology is 'the scarcest commodity in the Khartoum market,' to use a common local expression. This scarcity has made the elite dialogue, which the international community awaits to heal the nation from war, nearly impossible. Ideas among this elite are scattered, lacking the 'shackle' of terminology, thereby blocking the path to even defining their disagreements and turning the discourse into chaos. The past two weeks have seen a season of debate over the term 'militia' after Darfur Governor Minni Minnawi threatened to rebel against the state if it continued to form more militias. It seems what enticed critics of General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan’s state to use the term was the threat itself, combined with recurring tropes about militias and their origins as a condemnation of the Ingaz and Burhan’s current government as incubators for militia proliferation, rather than a deep, encompassing look at the term itself. We will present here the fallacies surrounding the term that have permeated war rhetoric, turning 'militia' into a form of political disparagement rather than a concept of sociology and military strategy. Is it accurate to label our irregular armed groups in Sudan as 'militias'? We begin by questioning the accuracy of applying the term 'militia' to tribal armed entities that rise with the state to suppress rebellion against it at the 'cheapest price.' This question raises an old issue in anthropology: 'translating culture,' or the ability of one language and culture to convey the precise meanings and nuances found in the study of another. Using 'militia' to refer to these armed institutions makes them appear as an alien body imposed from above—the state—rather than having origins within the tribe as a socio-political organization. This foreign word, by its mere alienness, might lead one to believe that only the state is capable of inventing militias due to an appreciation of their dangers and benefits, as if the tribe were devoid of its own purposes for militarization or lacked systems for self-defense and aggression against others. Is the creation of militias religiously prohibited in war strategy? There is no law or convention preventing an army from employing militia services to face its challenges. Article 1 of International Humanitarian Law treats the regular army and militias as being on equal footing. Furthermore, Article 4(1) of the 1929 Geneva Protocol urges that prisoners from both be treated equally. Experts note that the use of militias has increased as the environments of military operations have changed. No matter how well-equipped, manned, or armed an army is, it needs support from outside forces. If we were to forbid the army from using militias, we would be narrowing the vast military and logistical possibilities it could invest in during war. What justifies their employment in remote areas and hideouts is that the members are 'the sons of the land.' The Sudanese army disbanded its allied militias, the 'Awlad Qamari' in the Northern State, in November 2025 after public frustration over their abuses. These were desert nomads recruited by the army under the name 'Strategic Reform Battalion' and equipped to patrol the desert and remote outposts north of Dongola to seal routes for illegal migration, leveraging their innate knowledge of desert paths. In another context, it suffices to say that the U.S. military today contracts with private military companies to perform 30 percent of its military tasks, especially in logistics, maintenance, and services, to free itself for other duties. Are militias a cat's paw for the government or do they have an original cause? When we say that tribal armed factions are state-made militias, we characterize them as merely a cat's paw fighting not for themselves, but as proxies for a government. This is not entirely true. The Baggara tribes of South Kordofan and Darfur have been mobilized into militias fighting alongside the government since the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) began its war in 1983. The base of this movement was southern tribes, led by the Dinka, who have historical resource conflicts with the Baggara in the border region between Northern and Southern Sudan. The guerrilla wars of the Southern national movement changed the nature of these tribal conflicts by prioritizing national agendas over tribal ones and disrupting the traditional mechanisms of interaction between Northern and Southern tribes. Academic researchers Suliman Baldo and Ushari Mahmoud saw no reason for the Rizeigat Baggara to rise with the government against the SPLM in 1987—a mobilization that ended in the unfortunate massacre of Dinka in the city of El Daein—other than the government dragging them into its war. However, the Rizeigat had a different view. They feared the SPLA, composed primarily of Dinka, would move its activity to the border area between them—the Bahr al-Arab region between Darfur and Bahr el Ghazal—the Rizeigat's main pasture and water source during the summer. The presence of those forces would block Rizeigat movements south of Bahr al-Arab. Thus, the government did not come to them in vain; they had their own grievances. Are militias mercenaries? Following the foreign term applied to these armed tribal entities is the reputation of government funding and mercenarism. However, this funding is not always the primary factor. During the Sadiq al-Mahdi government (1986–1989), a group was formed from the Misseriya, known as the 'Murahil.' Those who see tribal militias solely as a government invention might not believe the 'Murahil' warriors, who deny the government has any hand in funding them or any authority over them. The standard rule is that the one who pays and arms has the upper hand, but the 'Murahil' say they receive their pay from what they loot. Because the government does not fund them, it cannot control their captives or loot, leading the 'Murahil' to ransom captives from their own communities. We might dismiss the 'Murahil' claim as a cover for their involvement with the government, but the context of tribal military institutions suggests such self-help is normal. You hear this same logic today from traditional 'Faz' (tribal call-to-arms) groups, such as those led by Ali Rizkallah (Savannah), who recently broke with the RSF. He stated in a widely circulated video that his contract with the RSF was based on 'Faz'—that they came to him out of necessity, not as organic members. Therefore, the RSF is not obligated to provide them with medical care, training, or arms. Everything is at their own expense; he even told them that whoever is wounded in the war he chose to join with the RSF is responsible for his own recovery, and if he dies, his family will bury him. Whoever wants to continue is welcome; whoever objects can leave. Thus, the best way to minimize the loss of meaning caused by 'cultural translation' is to name political and social systems by their specific local names. Such naming acknowledges that these systems are free from the history and implications of the foreign term. Moreover, it opens the door to recognizing the systems within their own historical and social fabric. Among the Rizeigat, for instance, this armed group is known as 'Al-Uqda.' This implies they have a special history and traditional functions, negating the suspicion that they are merely instigated tools. The 'Al-Uqda' system, which may exist under other names, is an indigenous armed entity of the Sudanese tribe that has persisted in the Sudanese outback where the state's reach is limited. Ignoring these contexts causes researchers to mistake the tribal military institution for a foreign construct rather than an internal function. Overlooking the contexts of tribal military institutions also leads to ignoring their symbols and rhetoric, such as the 'Hakamat'—the poet-singers who incite the fighting spirit of the tribe. Their role is present in every clash. Researcher Abdelwahab Abdelrahman observed their activity in the Misseriya-Dinka/Ngok conflict after 1964. They are the bloody voices that, to raise the fervor of their warriors, would mock their own corpses or perform rituals to enflame the desire for war. Paying attention to the Hakamat and their role in ritualized killing provides important testimonies about the dynamics of the tribal military institution. Did the Ingaz invent militias in war? The Sudanese state, even before the Ingaz, followed the same pattern of fighting rebellion at the lowest cost by supporting irregular armed groups. This is a deeply rooted historical pattern where the weak state allies with lower social and political systems, like tribes, to eliminate its opponents in the margins. We see this in the relationship between the state and the Kababish tribe in North Kordofan, as well as the Mahdist state and the British administration's use of tribal forces against Sultan Ali Dinar. Are the Rapid Support Forces 'militias'? It is misguided to describe the RSF as 'militias' in the same sense as the Ingaz's tactical use of tribal groups. The RSF is a different beast; the 2017 law made it a second army, or a 'Republican Guard.' It had no subordination to the military except in emergencies. The military command was vested in the President of the Republic, who alone could decide on its merger. Every indication suggests that the independence of the RSF was exactly what Hemedti wanted, as confirmed by his interview with Al-Taher Hassan El-Tom on 'Sky 24' after the law was passed, where he stated the RSF is not a 'militia' but an army. What the Ingaz did was far more dangerous by creating a second army, thereby breaking the armed forces' monopoly on weapons. That is a different story. It is attributed to the Prophet Muhammad that he said, 'Worship during the Harj (chaos) is like a migration to me.' When asked what Harj was, he said, 'Killing.' Producing the expected dialogue about the crisis in Sudan through terminology, now that killing has become rampant, will be an act of worship during the chaos.