How Sudan’s precarious revolution could fall prey to old elites and regional interference

The noise outside must have been deafening. All week, Sudan’s generals had heard the repeated call “just fall, that’s all,” eventually yielding to it by toppling Omar al-Bashir, Sudan’s military dictator, and placing him under arrest.

But as night fell on Friday, the chants wafting through the windows of Khartoum’s military headquarters were directed at them. 

Hundreds of thousands, more than at any other time during the protests, had gathered to prevent the revolution they had begun from being stolen by the men in uniform on the other side of the wall.

“Fall, again,” the crowds shouted, furious that the ruling military council had chosen Lt Gen Awad ibn Auf, Mr Bashir’s feared defence minister…