Coup attempt thwarted in Sudan, says military

Sudan’s army chief was among several people arrested in a coup plot, the country’s military said yesterday, shortly after reports emerged of at least a dozen high-ranking army officers and Islamists being taken into custody in the conspiracy. This was the second coup plot reported this month in Sudan, where talks between the military and the country’s pro-democracy movement have dragged out over the final and crucial part of a power-sharing deal for the nation’s transitional period.

Earlier in July, the military council that took over the country after ousting longtime autocrat Omar Al Bashir in April, said it arrested at least 16 active and retired military officers over an attempted coup. Late Wednesday, a brief statement from the military said the county’s chief-ofstaff, Gen Hashem Abdel Muttalib Babakr, was among those arrested over the alleged plot.

The statement said the plot aimed to sabotage the power-sharing deal between the military council and the protest movement. Babakr was appointed chief-of-staff just days after Al Bashir’s ouster following months of street protests against the president’s 30- year rule. Since April, Babakr had appeared loyal to Gen Abdel Fattah Burhan, the head of the ruling military council, and only last week visited Egypt with a top-level Sudanese delegation.