\n Sudan's new military leader resigned on Friday just a day after being sworn in, as the country's army rulers insisted they would pave the way for a civilian government.\n<\/p>\n
\n The head of Sudan's new ruling military council, General Awad Ibn Ouf, announced his departure after being sworn in late Thursday following the ouster of long-time president Omar al-Bashir.\n<\/p>\n
\n His move came shortly after the council's political chief Lieutenant General Omar Zain al-Abdin told Arab and African diplomats at a meeting broadcast on state television: \"This is not a military coup, but taking the side of the people.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n Ouf's departure was an apparent sign of confusion among the northest African country's new leaders after Thursday's ousting of iron-fisted Bashir.\n<\/p>\n
\n But there was jubilation at the news on the streets of Khartoum.\n<\/p>\n
\n Tens of thousands of protestors had kept up a vigil at the army headquarters in the Sudanese capital Friday angrily demanding that the military make way for a civilian government.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"I hereby announce my resignation as head of the Transitional Military Council,\" Ibn Ouf said in an address to the nation, announcing he had chosen General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan Abdulrahman to replace him.\n<\/p>\n
\n He said he trusted in Abdulrahman's \"experience and suitability I trust to bring this ship to a safe shore\".\n<\/p>\n
\n The Sudanese Professionals Association which has spearheaded the nationwide protest campaign hailed Ibn Ouf's departure as \"a victory of the people's will\".\n<\/p>\n
\n The demonstrations against Bashir's 30-year rule first erupted in December, triggered by a tripling of the bread prices in one of the world's most impoverished countries.\n<\/p>\n
\n But vast crowds have been thronging outside the army headquarters since Saturday in unprecedented scenes.\n<\/p>\n
\n Many were preparing to defy a night-time curfew for the second time, denouncing Ibn Ouf's leadership as a military coup.\n<\/p>\n
\n - Call for aid -\n<\/p>\n
\n That was denied by Abdin who said the transitional military council, due to stay in power for two years, would \"open dialogue with political parties\".\n<\/p>\n
\n There \"will be a civilian government and we will not intervene in its composition,\" he vowed.\n<\/p>\n
\n He also appealed to foreign diplomats for \"your donations, as we have some economic issues,\" alluding to fuel and food shortages.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"The role of the military council is to protect the security and stability of the country,\" Abdin added.\n<\/p>\n
\n Thousands of men and women, dressed in white, again braved the searing Sudanese heat on Friday to offer prayers outside the sprawling army complex which has become a focus point of the protests since Saturday.\n<\/p>\n
\n The imam leading the prayers was draped in the Sudanese flag.\n<\/p>\n
\n The police said 16 people had been killed in live fire in Khartoum in the past two days, without elaborating.\n<\/p>\n
\n Hussein Mohamed, an elderly man from Omdurman, said he was attending the protest for the first time in response to a call to hold Friday prayers there.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"It is too, too hot but I'm impressed by what our young men and women are doing here,\" he said. \"I'll surely come again.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n - 'Transition may be shorter'-\n<\/p>\n
\n Bashir, who took charge in the northeast African country in a 1989 military coup, remained in custody Friday, but Abdin said the council would never extradite him or any other Sudanese citizen.\n<\/p>\n
\n The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued two arrest warrants against Bashir for suspected genocide and war crimes.\n<\/p>\n
\n The military council had announced a two-year transition period, but Sudan's UN envoy told the Security Council in New York that this could be shortened \"depending on developments on the ground and agreements between stakeholders\".\n<\/p>\n
\n Protesters have defied repeated deadly attempts by riot police and the feared intelligence services to crush their movement.\n<\/p>\n
\n But when Bashir's overthrow was finally announced on Thursday in an address to the nation by Ibn Ouf, it was met not with joy but anger.\n<\/p>\n
\n Protest leaders dismissed the transitional military council as the \"same old faces\" from a regime which led the country into multiple conflicts, worsening poverty and ever-widening social inequality.\n<\/p>\n
\n Thursday's announcement meant \"we have not achieved anything\", said one protester, who gave his name only as Adel.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"We will not stop our revolution. We are calling for the regime to step down, not only Bashir.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n Analysts said Bashir's overthrow in a \"palace coup\" made the transition to democracy in Sudan a more distant prospect.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"The power struggle within the security cabal that took power yesterday is just beginning,\" said Alex de Waal, a Sudan specialist at Tufts University.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"Bashir had kept their rivalries and ambitions in check; his removal brings in its wake an unregulated uncertainty.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n - Calls for restraint -\n<\/p>\n
\n Multiple world powers have made calls for a peaceful transition.\n<\/p>\n
\n Washington urged the military council \"to exercise restraint and to allow space for civilian participation within the government\".\n<\/p>\n
\n The European Union urged the army to carry out a \"swift\" handover to civilian rule.\n<\/p>\n
\n Britain's Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt has said that a two-year transition overseen by the military \"is not the answer.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n \"We need to see a swift move to an inclusive, representative, civilian leadership,\" Hunt said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sudan's new military leader resigned on Friday just a day after being sworn in, as the country's army rulers insisted they would pave the way for a civilian government. The head of Sudan's new ruling military council, General Awad Ibn Ouf, announced his departure after being sworn in late Thursday following the ouster of long-time […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-41040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n