MEE: Mossad Chief Met Sudanese Counterpart on Munich Summit Sidelines

By Staff, Agencies

Mossad director Yossi Cohen held talks with Sudanese intelligence Chief Salah Gosh in Munich in February, according to a senior military source talking to London-based Middle-East Eye.

According to the online publication, the meeting was brokered by Gulf states in order to facilitate a Gosh attempt to take over power from embattled Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.

According to MEE, Gosh also met with a number of European intelligence chiefs, who confirmed with the Munich security conference that both men attended.

Gosh, who, as a student, was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, has been a ubiquitous figure in Sudanese intelligence for the past forty years.

He was head Sudan's powerful national security agency NISS between 2004 and 2009, then became al-Bashir's national security adviser.

He was arrested in 2012 on suspicions of attempting a coup, but was then released and pardoned. He went into oil and gas, and established strong ties to the Gulf.

He was re-appointed as head of NISS in February 2018.

He was one of the main players in establishing Sudan as a partner in George Bush's 'War on Terror,' despite being considered a 'state sponsor of terror', notably by arresting foreign militants transiting through Sudan.

Al-Bashir has been facing months of unrest in Sudan, as cost of living raises in a country slapped with sanctions, and hit by endemic conflict, economic mismanagement and curtailment of basic freedoms.

In December last year, Gosh himself claimed that Mossad had infiltrated the protests.

"The protests are about much more than bread price," the NISS told a Sudanese press he had himself curtailed the day before.

Despite al-Bashir doing everything he can to re-establish order in the country, it looks like his mission has failed, with Arab support withering.

Al-Bashir is at the mercy of the larger Arab powers - Egypt, Saudi Arabi, and the Emirates - who have often used him as a diplomatic errand boy.

The regional press has been uncharacteristically sympathetic to the protesters in Sudan, showing perhaps that its elites are ready for a change of leadership in Khartoum.

There have been repeated rumors of meetings between Sudanese and “Israeli” officials over the last few months, as the “Israeli” entity pursues a policy of rapprochement with Arab and African states.