commander

EXCLUSIVE

Siddiq Ander has accused RSF leader Hemedti of running the paramilitary group like a family business and suppressing dissent.

Senior commander Siddiq Ander says he has defected from Sudan‘s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), according to exclusive video footage obtained by Al Jazeera.

The footage, published on Friday, shows Ander accusing relatives of RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as “Hemedti”, of tightly controlling the group’s finances, weapons, troop movements and military promotions.

Ander’s exit follows a string of high-profile defections this year, with some commanders leaving alongside hundreds of fighters.

“It has become clear to us beyond any doubt that we were serving a purely family-based project controlled by Hemedti’s relatives in every aspect, money, weapons, fighters’ movements and the granting of ranks,” Ander said.

“Anyone who speaks out and tells the whole truth faces expulsion, imprisonment or a hidden death.”

Hemedti’s brother, Abdul Rahim Hamdan Dagalo, serves as the RSF deputy commander.

Senior commanders break ranks

A wave of defections has seen several senior RSF commanders leave the group this year, including Lieutenant Colonel Mohammed Azraq al-Fanjari, who announced on October 8 that he was leaving, along with 300 officers and soldiers and 30 military vehicles.

Al-Fanjari also urged other fighters to abandon the RSF, expressing regret over the suffering caused by the war.

His announcement came after the September 25 defection of Al-Tayeb al-Wahidu, who joined the enemy Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) with 50 fighters in Omdurman, across the Nile from the capital, Khartoum, according to The Sudan Tribune.

Al-Wahidu cited abuses within the RSF as his reason for leaving.

Earlier, in May, Brigadier Ali Rizqallah, known as Savannah, announced his departure.

Yet another senior commander, Major General al-Nour Ahmed Adam, known as al-Qubba, joined the SAF in April and was publicly welcomed by Sudanese leader and military chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.

Al-Qubba’s departure followed disagreements over military appointments within the RSF leadership, the Tribune reported.

Sudan’s war erupted in April 2023 after a power struggle between the army and the RSF, including disagreements over plans to integrate the paramilitary group into the regular military.

The conflict has since displaced about 13 million people and pushed parts of the country into famine.

The latest defections come as both sides increasingly use drones in attacks that have caused mounting civilian casualties.

On October 26, strikes hit a market and residential area in Nyala, an RSF-controlled city in South Darfur.

Emergency Lawyers, a Sudanese rights group, reported more than 100 deaths, although other medical organisations recorded lower figures.

The United Nations says drone strikes have become the leading cause of civilian deaths in Sudan’s war.

Magic Johnson is relentlessly positive, a quality that has served him well as a player, a businessman and even while living with HIV since 1991.

The former Lakers great generally keeps his social media comments upbeat. Yet, a last-second mental lapse Sunday by one of the five professional sports franchises Johnson co-owns prompted him to tweet the equivalent of a distress signal.

“I’m in total disbelief my Commanders had such poor clock management in today’s overtime game against the Giants. All we had to do was kick the field goal and we would have won the game!”

The tweet ended with an emoji of a man facepalming, conveying Johnson’s exasperation over the last play of Washington’s 27-27 tie with the New York Giants.

The Commanders were at the Giants 24-yard line with 12 seconds to play, no timeouts and the clock running. What needed to be done was obvious: Quarterback Jayden Daniels takes a snap, spikes the ball and the field-goal team trots out.

Nope. Daniels took a snap, danced around, was tackled and the clock expired.

Head coach Dan Quinn ripped off his headset and slammed it to the ground. Daniels stood on the field looking stunned. Johnson, who acquired 4% of the team when his pal Josh Harris bought it for $6.05 billion in 2023, vented on social media.

Johnson’s public comments are usually motivational gems such as “When you face a crisis, you know who your true friends are.” Or “Life doesn’t stop because something happens to you.” Or “I’m the one who will take chances, not worry about the backlash.”

When the Commanders lost their first two games this season, Johnson stayed silent. When they upset the Seattle Seahawks two weeks ago, Johnson took to his keyboard to congratulate the team, tweeting a photo of himself in a luxury box.

The last time he had expressed frustration about the Commanders on social media was three years ago, shortly after Harris became majority owner and Johnson had chipped in $240 million as a limited partner. On Oct. 5, 2023, he tweeted “Tonight the Commanders played with no intensity or fire. We didn’t compete in the first half and got down 27-3 heading into halftime. It was too big of a hole to climb out of and that is why we ended up losing 40-20.”

This time, he didn’t need nearly as many words. Quinn and Daniels both took responsibility for the lapse.

“The right call is honestly, we can go clock it early and don’t put ourselves in that spot,” Quinn said. “That’s my responsibility.”

Added Daniels, whose nonchalance after getting tackled seemed to indicate he thought his team had a timeout: “We’ve got to stop the clock. We’ve got to know the situation. We’ve got to relay that as an offense. It starts from everybody, from the top down. Ultimately, you know, it’s on me.”

For his part, Johnson could turn his attention to another of the teams in which he has a financial interest: the Dodgers, who lost Game 1 of the National League Championship Series to the Milwaukee Brewers on Sunday. He remained mum about that game, having last posted several congratulatory tweets when the Dodgers sailed through the NLDS against the Atlanta Braves last week.