[3][4] He came to power in 1989 when, as a brigadier general in the Sudanese Army, he led a group of officers in a military coup that ousted the democratically elected government of prime minister Sadiq al-Mahdi after it began negotiations with rebels in the south; he subsequently replaced President Ahmed al-Mirghani as head of state.

[7] In March 2009, al-Bashir became the first sitting head of state to be indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC), for allegedly directing a campaign of mass killing, rape, and pillage against civilians in Darfur.

[13][14][15] During his presidency, there were several violent struggles between the Janjaweed militia and rebel groups such as the Sudanese Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) in the form of guerrilla warfare in the Darfur region.

Two months later, the Forces of Freedom and Change alliance (which holds indirect political power during the 39-month Sudanese transition to democracy), Hamdok, and Sovereignty Council member Siddiq Tawer stated that Bashir would be eventually transferred to the ICC.

[33] Al-Bashir was born on 1 January 1944 in Hosh Bannaga,[34] a village on the outskirts of Shendi, just north of the capital, Khartoum, to a family that hails from the Ja'alin tribe of northern Sudan.

He also has a second wife named Widad Babiker Omer, who had a number of children with her first husband Ibrahim Shamsaddin, a member of the Revolutionary Command Council for National Salvation who had died in a helicopter crash.

[47] On 16 October 1993, al-Bashir's increased his power when he appointed himself President of the country, after which he disbanded the Revolutionary Command Council for National Salvation and all other rival political parties.

[52] From 2005 to 2010, a transitional government was set up under a 2005 peace accord that ended the 21-year long Second Sudanese Civil War and saw the formation of a power-sharing agreement between Salva Kiir's Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) and al Bashir's National Congress Party (NCP).

This economic downturn prompted cost of living riots that erupted into Arab Spring-style anti-government demonstrations, raising discontent within the Sudanese Workers' Trade Union Federation (SWTUF).

Ms. Oakley called a meeting of key aides and a consensus emerged: Contrary to what the Administration was saying, the case tying Al Shifa to Mr. bin Laden or to chemical weapons was weak.

[63] At the same time, Sudan worked to appease the United States and other international critics by expelling members of Egyptian Islamic Jihad and encouraging bin Laden to leave.

[67][68] From the early 1990s, after al-Bashir assumed power, Sudan backed Iraq in its invasion of Kuwait[69][70] and was accused of harboring and providing sanctuary and assistance to Islamic terrorist groups.

In late 1994, in an initial effort to reverse his nation's growing image throughout the world as a country harboring terrorists, Bashir secretly cooperated with French special forces to orchestrate the capture and arrest on Sudanese soil of Carlos the Jackal.

The US demand list also encouraged Bashir's regime to move away from activities, such as hosting the Popular Arab and Islamic Congress, that impinged on Sudanese efforts to reconcile with the West.

The Sudanese insisted that an offer to extradite bin Laden had been made in a secret one-on-one meeting at a Fairfax hotel between Erwa and the then CIA Africa Bureau chief on condition that Washington end sanctions against Bashir's regime.

In a joint opinion piece in the Washington Post Outlook Section in 2003, Carney and Ijaz argued that in fact the Sudanese had offered to extradite bin Laden to a third country in exchange for sanctions relief.

Ijaz conveyed his findings to US officials upon his return, including Sandy Berger, then Clinton's deputy national security adviser, and argued for the US to constructively engage the Sudanese and other Islamic countries.

[90] Since 1968, Sudanese politicians had attempted to create separate factions of "Africans" and "Arabs" in the western area of Darfur, a difficult task as the population were substantially intermarried and could not be distinguished by skin tone.

[104] On 29 June 2004, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell met with al-Bashir in Sudan and urged him to make peace with the rebels, end the crisis, and lift restrictions on the delivery of humanitarian aid to Darfur.

President al-Bashir said the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), a Darfuri rebel group, had attacked Khartoum three years ago using Libyan trucks, equipment, arms, ammunition and money.

[121] Al-Bashir in his speech said that his government's priority was to end the armed rebellion and tribal conflicts in order to save blood and direct the energies of young people towards building Sudan instead of "killing and destruction".

Following the indictment Al-Bashir visited China,[137] Djibouti,[138][139] Egypt, Ethiopia, India,[140] Libya,[141][142] Nigeria,[143] Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and several other countries, all of which refused to have him arrested.

[139] The new warrant included the court's conclusion that there were reasonable grounds to suspect that al-Bashir acted with specific intent to destroy in part the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa ethnic groups in the Darfur region.

[169] In 2015, Sudan participated in the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen against the Shia Houthis and forces loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh,[170] who was deposed during the 2011–2012 Yemeni Revolution.

[171] Reuters reported that "The war in Yemen has given Omar Hassan al-Bashir, a skilled political operator who has ruled Sudan for a quarter-century, an opportunity to show wealthy Sunni powers that he can be an asset against Iranian influence – if the price is right.

African astronomy received a massive boost when South Africa was awarded the majority shares of the Square Kilometre Array, the world's biggest radio telescope.

[188] On 5 November 2019, the Forces of Freedom and Change alliance (FFC), which holds indirect political power during the 39-month Sudanese transition to democracy, stated that it had reached a consensus decision in favor of transferring al-Bashir to the ICC after the completion of his corruption and money laundering trial.

[30] In the following days, Sudanese transition period Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok and Sovereignty Council member Siddiq Tawer stated that al-Bashir would be transferred to the ICC.

[31][32] On 11 February 2020, Sudan's ruling military council agreed to hand over the ousted al-Bashir to the ICC in The Hague to face charges of crimes against humanity in Darfur.

[190] On 26 April 2023, the Sudanese Armed Forces stated that al-Bashir, Bakri Hassan Saleh, Abdel Rahim Mohammed Hussein and two other former officials were taken from Kobar Prison to Alia Military Hospital in Omdurman due to the conflict that erupted earlier that month.