Flanked by two national flags and dressed in military uniform, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, leader of the military coup in Sudan last month, presided on Nov. 14 in Khartoum over the first session of the country’s new Sovereign Council, a contested body he had appointed three days earlier that acts as a disputed and temporary head of state.

Gathered around him were all the other members of the council, which notably excludes any representative of the Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC), the wide political alliance that had shared power with the military before the takeover. Among those who did return to the table, however, were commander of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, as well as El Hadi Idris, Malik Agar and Taher Hajar of the Sudanese Revolutionary Front (SRF), an umbrella of former rebel groups.

The composition of the council’s meeting table was the final testament to the sides that Sudan’s different rebel groups have taken on the putsch, and the confirmation that rebel leaders who were integrated into the transitional bodies through its civilian side following the 2020 Juba Peace Agreements have decided to place their bets on allying with the military. Still, the opposition of Sudan’s two most powerful rebel groups, whose activity was hard to justify amidst a transition, also means there exists some armed resistance to the coup.

“The division amongst armed groups vis-a-vis the coup mainly comes from their foundational ground and in fact is more or less consistent with their behavior since the beginning of the revolution in December 2018,” civil society activist Hamid Khalafallah noted. “There are different degrees around how committed these are to the cause they fought for and to the communities they claim to represent,” he told Al-Monitor.