From Charles Taylor to Hemedti: From Rebel Power to Rival State Dr. El-Tahir El-Faki

08:00 PM September, 22 2026

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Africa’s history of armed movements contains a recurring political dilemma: what happens when a rebel leader moves from fighting the state to attempting to become the state؟ The trajectories of Charles Taylor in Liberia and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo—Hemedti—in Sudan offer two important cases. Their histories are different, and they should not be treated as identical. Yet both demonstrate the difficult transition from military power and territorial control to political authority and state-building.

Charles Taylor launched the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) in December 1989, invading Liberia from Côte d’Ivoire. Within months, the movement controlled large areas of the country and advanced toward Monrovia. Liberia subsequently entered a prolonged civil war involving several armed factions and regional intervention.

What distinguished Taylor’s movement was its attempt to create an alternative governing structure in territories controlled by the NPFL. Research on rebel governance describes the NPFL as controlling most of Liberia between 1990 and 1992 and establishing administrative institutions in its stronghold of Gbarnga. Yet the same research argues that these institutions were closely connected to patronage, commercial interests and Taylor’s effort to consolidate personal authority.

Taylor eventually made the transition from rebel commander to elected president. After years of war and peace negotiations, Liberia held elections in July 1997, and Taylor won the presidency. His victory, however, did not end the country’s political crisis. Renewed rebellion, international pressure and allegations concerning his involvement in the Sierra Leone conflict eventually led to his resignation in August 2003 and exile in Nigeria.

The Taylor experience therefore illustrates a critical distinction: winning political office is not necessarily the same as transforming a rebel movement into a stable state institution. The movement may enter government while retaining the organisational culture, networks and power structures developed during war.

Hemedti’s trajectory presents a different but related challenge. The RSF emerged from Sudan’s earlier paramilitary structures and became a powerful component of the country’s security architecture. Following the fall of Omar al-Bashir, the RSF became one of the principal centres of military power alongside the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF). Their partnership ultimately collapsed into war in April 2023.

The subsequent conflict transformed the RSF from a powerful military organisation into a territorial authority controlling substantial parts of western Sudan. By June 2026, UK government reporting assessed that the RSF controlled much of western and southern Sudan, including Darfur and significant areas of Kordofan, while the SAF controlled most of northern, eastern and central Sudan.

The more consequential development was the RSF’s movement toward parallel political institutions. In April 2025, Hemedti announced a rival “Government of Peace and Unity” in areas under RSF control. In July 2025, the Sudan Founding Alliance (TASIS), led by the RSF and allied groups, formally announced an alternative government, with Hemedti appointed chairman of its 15-member presidential council. The coalition described its proposed system as inclusive, democratic and decentralised.

This marks a significant transformation:
rebel or paramilitary force → territorial control → administration → parallel government → claim to national political authority.

Yet the Taylor experience demonstrates why the transition is so difficult. A military organisation can seize territory, collect revenues and establish administrative structures, but state-building requires institutions that can function beyond the armed movement and beyond the authority of its leader.

That is now one of the central questions surrounding Hemedti and the RSF. Can territorial control be converted into durable institutions؟ Can a military coalition become a political organisation؟ Can parallel administration evolve into legitimate national governance؟ And can authority become institutional rather than remaining dependent on military power and personal networks؟

The comparison with Taylor is therefore less about predicting Hemedti’s fate than about identifying a recurring African political pattern.

Charles Taylor moved from rebel commander to president but could not consolidate a stable political order. Hemedti has moved from paramilitary commander toward the construction of a rival governing authority while Sudan remains divided by war.

The historical lesson is that controlling the state and building the state are two different political projects. The first can sometimes be achieved through military force. The second requires institutions, legitimacy, administration and a political settlement capable of surviving the individuals and armed organisations that created it.

For Sudan, the ultimate question is therefore not simply who controls more territory. It is whether competing centres of armed power can ever be transformed into one functioning national state.

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