The Timing is Right, Finally, for Sudan

By Ambassador Alberto M. Fernandez

Ambassador Alberto M. Fernandez is Vice-President of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). He was a career Foreign Service Officer with the Department of State for three decades specializing on the Middle East and Africa and served as the Coordinator for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications until his retirement in 2015.

As with comedy, timing is everything for the politics of being a state sponsor of terrorism. Political considerations, as much as supposed improvements in counterterrorism efforts, saw Cuba, North Korea, and Libya removed in recent years from the U.S. State Department list of state sponsors, while Sudan has remained.

Sudan was placed on the list in 1993 for very good reasons.  Not only was it hosting Osama bin Laden and a range of Islamists and jihadists, but the Sudanese government was actually involved in facilitating ambitious terrorist attacks outside its borders, such as the failed attempt to assassinate Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Addis Ababa in 1995.  The plot by Egyptian Islamic Jihad, led by Ayman al-Zawahiri, was abetted at a very high level by Sudanese authorities.  

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