Al-Burhan Signs Decree Formally Removing Hemedti from TSC — Malik Agar Named Deputy as RSF's State Standing Collapses

Sudan's head of state and SAF Commander-in-Chief Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan on May 19, 2026 signed a constitutional decree formally removing Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (Hemedti) from his position as Transitional Sovereignty Council (TSC) deputy and appointing Malik Agar — leader of the SPLM-N (Agar faction) and signatory to the 2020 Juba Peace Agreement — as his replacement. The decree consummates the legal chain set in motion by al-Burhan's May 18 executive order derecognizing the RSF as a state institution and stripping RSF members of government payroll access. With the TSC removal, Hemedti loses his last formal claim to any role in Sudan's constitutional governance framework; he is now defined in Sudanese law exclusively as a rebel commander. The appointment of Malik Agar — a former Blue Nile insurgent who reconciled with the SAF-aligned transitional government under Juba — is a deliberate political signal: SAF will absorb armed movements that negotiate and disarm while treating the RSF as a military target with zero political standing. Agar's SPLM-N (Agar) controls South Kordofan's Nuba Mountains and parts of Blue Nile State, making his integration into the TSC a stabilizing gesture in areas where SAF and SPLM-N previously clashed. The symbolic and legal dimensions of Hemedti's removal are significant: the TSC deputy position gave RSF a nominal constitutional claim that was used in Jeddah and Quad peace framework negotiations to argue for power-sharing arrangements. That argument is now foreclosed in Sudanese law. International Crisis Group's 'Divided Sudan, Elusive Peace' brief (May 2026) noted that SAF's maximalist position — total military victory — was hardening; the TSC removal is its clearest legal expression. The United States and Quad partners have not publicly responded to the decree, but the US-proposed 90-day humanitarian truce framework implicitly assumed both parties retained negotiating standing — a premise Burhan has now formally invalidated for the RSF.