Iranian Revolutionary Guard Previously Trained Sudanese Islamic Militias
From CNSNEWS.com:
Strategic Outpost
Iran is OPEC's second-largest oil producer. Sudan also has significant oil reserves and, with the end of a two decade-long north-south civil war is becoming an increasingly important source.
Bashir seized control in a 1989 military coup and under him Sudan followed Iran's 1979 example by declaring itself an Islamic regime.
Bashir's Sunni Muslim regime soon established good relations with Iran's Shi'ite government. Researchers say the link-up in late 1991 resulted in members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard training fundamentalist militias set up by Khartoum.
"In early 1992 Sudan emerged as a strategic outpost and key part of the infrastructure for Iran's export of the Islamic Revolution throughout the Near East and Africa," according to counter-terrorism expert and author Yossef Bodansky.
Relations between the two later cooled, in part because of theological differences.
Under President Mohammed Khatami (1997-2005), Iran pursued less openly extremist policies, while Sudan in the second half of the 1990s sought to ease tensions with the West, for instance negotiating the departure of al-Qaeda terrorist leader Osama bin Laden, who was based in Sudan from 1991 to 1996.
Now, with both governments under fire in the international community, they appear to be moving closer together again.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki during a meeting with Bashir this week praised what he called positive trends in bilateral relations.
He said the two countries could also contribute to ensuring greater effectiveness of the two blocs to which both belong - the Organization of the Islamic Conference and the Non-Aligned Movement.
Read the whole story: Under Fire From the West, Iran and Sudan Cozy Up.