Bashir: a host to terrorists who rules with an iron fist

In his whitewashed palace beside the Nile, President Omar al-Bashir has ruled Sudan with consummate guile and ruthlessness for almost two decades. A dour, heavily-built soldier, notable for his lack of charisma, General Bashir (64) rose through the army and overthrew an elected government in Sudan to seize power in 1989. With his purely military background, Mr Bashir was widely seen as a puppet of Sudan's Islamist extremists. For his first decade in power, he ruled in alliance with Hassan al-Turabi, Sudan's leading Islamist ideologue. Mr Bashir turned Khartoum into a haven for anti-Western radicals. Carlos the Jackal, the nihilist terrorist, lived there for three years. Mr Bashir armed and trained ruthless Ugandan rebels, styling themselves the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), who specialised in abducting children and turning... [read full story]