Major General Dosa Issa al-Tayeb al-Tijani, a commander and co-founder of the Sudan Liberation Army faction led by Darfur Governor Minni Arko Minnawi (SLA-MM), has announced his defection from the Joint Force and his decision to join the Sudan Founding Alliance, known as Tasis, with 220 personnel and 22 combat vehicles.
Dosa said on Tuesday that his decision to join the alliance and work alongside commander Suleiman Sandal Haggar followed 25 years of struggle alongside prominent leaders who, he said, had made significant contributions to Sudan’s survival as members of the Sudan Liberation Movement.
He pledged to work with his new allies to advance a unified political project under the Tasis banner. He said his move, together with the fighters accompanying him, marks a new chapter in Sudan’s liberation struggle and efforts to build a country founded on equality and justice.
Tasis is a coalition that includes the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North faction led by Abdelaziz al-Hilu, and allied political and armed groups. In 2025, the alliance established a parallel administration, known as the Government of Peace, to govern territories under its control. The administration is not internationally recognised as Sudan’s national government.
Sandal, who leads a faction of the Justice and Equality Movement, welcomed Dosa’s defection in a separate statement seen by Radio Tamazuj.
He said he was pleased with the development and his meeting with Dosa, whom he described as someone he had known from the battlefield rather than through urban political circles.
Sandal said the move would strengthen their ability to work as a united team towards the alliance’s objectives, particularly by harnessing the potential of young people, whom he described as the hope and architects of the future.
The defection comes amid shifting alliances among Sudanese armed movements, including factions that signed the 2020 Juba Peace Agreement. The Joint Force, which comprises armed movements allied with Sudan’s army, has fought against the RSF during the war that began in April 2023.
The Joint Force could not immediately be reached for comment.
and then