From Hissène Habré to Hemedti: From Rebel Commander to Rival State Power Part 1 — The Rise of Hab

06:26 PM October, 07 2026

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From Hissène Habré to Hemedti: From Rebel Commander to Rival State Power

Part 1 — The Rise of Habré and Hemedti

Dr. El-Tahir El-Faki

African political history contains a recurring pattern: men who begin at the margins of the state, build armed organizations outside the conventional military structure, and eventually move toward the centre of national power.

The stories of Chad’s Hissène Habré and Sudan’s Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, belong to different historical periods and political environments. They should not be treated as identical cases. Yet their trajectories provide an important framework for examining how armed power can evolve into a direct challenge for control of the state.

Habré: From Rebel Commander to President:
Hissène Habré emerged from the prolonged conflict that had destabilized Chad after independence. He became one of the prominent commanders of the northern rebellion and eventually led the Forces Armées du Nord (FAN).
His rise was shaped not only by domestic conflict but also by the geopolitics of the region. Libya under Muammar Gaddafi was deeply involved in Chad, while France and the United States regarded Habré as an important counterweight to Libyan influence. Human Rights Watch documents substantial American and French support for Habré, including covert American assistance before his seizure of power.

Habré briefly became part of the political establishment. In 1978 he was appointed defence minister in the Transitional Government of National Unity, headed by Goukouni Oueddei. But the coalition collapsed, and Habré returned to armed confrontation.

In 1980, Libyan intervention forced Habré out of N’Djamena. He retreated, reorganized his forces and eventually returned with external support. On 7 June 1982, Habré’s forces captured N’Djamena and he became the dominant political authority in Chad.

This was the critical transformation: the rebel army became the foundation of the national government.

Habré subsequently sought to consolidate power through a highly centralized political and security system. His FAN became the core of the national armed forces, while the Documentation and Security Directorate became the regime’s principal instrument of political repression. Human Rights Watch’s research documents widespread political killings, systematic torture, arbitrary detention and persecution during his rule from 1982 to 1990.

Habré’s experience therefore illustrates the first stage of the process: a commander from outside the established political order can use military organization, political fragmentation and external alliances to move from rebellion to national power.

Hemedti: From the Periphery to Khartoum
Sudan’s Hemedti followed a different route, but with a comparable movement from the periphery toward the centre.
Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo emerged from the armed conflicts of Darfur and eventually became the most prominent commander of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a powerful paramilitary organization that developed under Omar al-Bashir’s government.

The RSF was formally established in 2013 and became an important component of Sudan’s security architecture. Unlike a conventional political party, its principal source of power was armed organization. Over time, the RSF developed substantial autonomy and an independent political and economic base.

The fall of Bashir in April 2019 changed Hemedti’s position dramatically. A commander who had previously operated largely within the security structures of the old regime became one of the most influential figures in the post-Bashir political order.

Hemedti became deputy chairman of the Sovereignty Council, while Abdel Fattah al-Burhan became chairman. For a period, the two military leaders were partners in the political transition. They also jointly participated in the October 2021 military takeover that disrupted the civilian-led transition.

But partnership contained fundamental contradiction. Sudan now had two major armed centres of power: the Sudanese Armed Forces under Burhan and the RSF under Hemedti.
The question was no longer simply who would govern Sudan. It was also who would control the instruments of coercion on which the state itself depended.

The proposed transition toward civilian government brought this contradiction into sharper focus. One of the most difficult issues was the integration of the RSF into a unified national army. Disagreement over the timetable and command structure became one of the central disputes between Burhan and Hemedti.

In April 2023, that dispute exploded into full-scale war. Reuters describes the conflict as a power struggle between the SAF and RSF, rooted partly in disagreements over military integration, control of the armed forces, civilian government and competing economic interests.

Two Different Journeys, One Central Question:
The comparison with Habré therefore begins not with their personalities, ideologies or ethnic backgrounds, but with the structure of power.

Habré demonstrated how a rebel commander could transform an armed movement into a national government.

Hemedti’s trajectory represents a different and unfinished stage: an armed organization became powerful enough to challenge the conventional army and to claim a central role in determining the country’s political future. There is, however, a crucial difference.

Habré captured the capital and became president. Hemedti has not captured the Sudanese state.

The Sudanese conflict remains a struggle between competing centres of armed power, rather than a completed transfer of state authority.

That distinction matters.

The historical question raised by Habré is therefore not whether Hemedti will become another Habré. History rarely repeats itself in such a simple way.

The deeper question is whether an armed organization created outside the conventional state structure can successfully transform military power into durable national political authority—and, if it does, whether that authority can ultimately be separated from the armed force that created it.

That is where the story of Habré ends and the unresolved Sudanese question begins.

Part 2 will examine the Habré experience after the seizure of power—and what his eventual overthrow may reveal about the limits of building a state around an armed organization.

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