The Sudan Liberation Movement/Army ( Ḥarakat Taḥrīr Al-Sūdān; abbreviated SLM, SLA, or SLM/A) is a Sudanese rebel group active in Darfur, Sudan. It was founded as the Darfur Liberation Front by members of three indigenous ethnic groups in Darfur: the Fur, the Zaghawa, and the Masalit, among whom were the leaders Abdul Wahid al Nur of the Fur and Minni Minnawi of the Zaghawa.
Formation
General Omar al-Bashir and the National Islamic Front headed by Dr. Hassan al-Turabi overthrew the Sudanese government led by Ahmed al-Mirghani in 1989. A large section of the population in Darfur, particularly the non-Arab ethnicities in the region, became increasingly marginalized. These feelings were crystallized by the publication in 2000 of The Black Book, which detailed the structural inequity in the Sudan that denies non-Arabs equal justice and power sharing. In 2002 Abdul Wahid al Nur, a lawyer, Ahmad Abdel Shafi Bassey, an education student, and a third man founded the Darfur Liberation Front, which subsequently evolved into the Sudan Liberation Movement and claimed to represent all of the oppressed in the Sudan.
2008 Sun Air hijacking
In August 2008, a local Sun Air Boeing 737 carrying 100 passengers including 5 crew members, was hijacked by members belonging to the Sudan Liberation Movement or SLM. The regional flight operated by the private Sudanese airlines Sun Air was enroute from Nyala, South Darfur to Khartoum when it was diverted by the Darfuri rebels to the oasis town of Kufra, in the far south of Libya. SLM leader Abdelwahid al-Nur who lived in Paris at the time, denied his involvement in the hijacking and condemned the rebels' use of hijacking to bring attention to their cause. SLA field commander Ibrahim al-Hillo suggested the Boeing hijackers could be al-Nur sympathizers as the SLA had started to break up at the time of hijacking. The 95 passengers were eventually freed unharmed and the 5 crew members were also released. Al Nur said of the hijacking that Khartoum was attempting to manipulate the hijacking news as a tactic to draw attention away from the government's earlier attack on the Kalma refugee camp which killed 70 civilians. Kalma camp is located near the Nyala airport. The hijackers were detained by Libyan authorities. While the government attack occurred close to the hijacking, it didn't appear to be a motive for the hijacking.
Libyan involvement
Before the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi during the Libyan Civil War (2011), the Libyan Armed Forces were known to support at least parts of the SLM/A, such as the SLA-Unity. In turn, elements of the SLM/A reportedly became involved in the Second Libyan Civil War, fighting for different factions there in exchange for money and equipment. The SLM/A-Minnawi allied itself with the Khalifa Haftar-aligned Libyan National Army (LNA), and fought alongside it in the Battle of Derna (2018–2019), losing several fighters in combat for the town. On 12 January 2019, SLM/A-Minnawi clashed with the Chadian CCMSR rebel group (an enemy of the LNA) at Gatroun in southern Libya. Later that month, the SLM/A was accused by the CCMSR of aiding a LNA offensive in southern Libya.
Groups and factions
Main factions
In 2006, the Sudan Liberation Movement split into two main factions, divided on the issue of the Darfur Peace Agreement: