Director of General Intelligence: The real battle is in the media fields, not on the battlefields ✍️ Muhammad Othman Al-Radi
When I was present at the memorial service of the late Professor Abboud Seif Al-Din, Director of Radio Belady, which was honored by the presence of the Director General of the Sudanese General Intelligence Service, Lieutenant General Ahmed Ibrahim Mufaddal.
Some sentences included in General Mufaddal's speech before the memorial ceremony caught my attention and I chose them as the title of my article which is in your hands and before your eyes today.
In reality, the real battle is not the battle on the ground between the Sudanese army and the rapid support militia, while the fierce battle is the media battle because it has the most influence on the ground.
Any war anywhere on the planet that ignores the role of the media is doomed to terrible defeat and obvious losses, and any war that keeps the media in mind will inevitably be its ally.
Look at the wars around you and follow the media coverage of all warring parties, and you will certainly find that the media arsenal is superior to the combat arsenal because they prepared for the media war before thinking about drones, tanks and troop transports.
A visit to social media sites and you will come across various carefully prepared psychological warfare material contents from expert houses who have excelled and innovated in creating media content, whether true or false, but its effect is effective and spreads like wildfire.
Sudanese media colleagues have not witnessed a war like the one we are witnessing now, and the culture of war is a new culture for us, so we have not mastered the art of managing it, unlike countries that have experienced long wars, which have gained in a long and many experiences in how to create combat multimedia content that fits all types of combat models.
It is extremely important to prepare and train media colleagues on how to manage this war, to enable the combat media battalion to report on what is happening on the battlefields, at every moment.
We cannot accept in any way that the media link in the war is one of the weakest links. In some cases, it is even completely non-existent. This is regrettable, unacceptable and unjustified, whatever the justifications.
Filling the war media vacuum is an absolute necessity imposed on us by the exceptional circumstances in which we are currently living. It is necessary to establish a media body called the Supreme Council of Security Media, through an intelligent partnership between the media and the security services with their various units and formations, whose purpose is to immediately inform the leaders and public opinion makers.
The conviction of the Director General of the General Intelligence Service, Lieutenant General Ahmed Ibrahim Mufaddal, in the role and influence of the media is considered the real launching pad and the first nucleus for the formation of this joint body, and it has become one of the most important priorities.
It is necessary to organize internal and external training courses to prepare media colleagues to handle war media, because it is a professional media job that requires unconventional skills, in order to ensure the media in conditions of peace and war, and the battle has many facets that require different relationships from time to time.
It is necessary to establish a combat media training center and assign competent and experienced trainers in the field of military media. It is preferable to use trainers from outside Sudan, especially those from countries that have experienced long wars and have experience in this field.
