SUDAN - 'Umar Hassan Al-Bashir.

Bashir was born of a farming family in the small Arab village of Hosh Bannaga, northern Sudan, in 1944. He received his primary education in Hosh Bannaga. His family later moved to Khartoum, where he completed his secondary education.

Bashir joined the Army at a young age and studied at a military academy in Cairo. He quickly rose through the ranks and became a paratrooper. Later, Bashir served with the Egyptian Army when it went to war with Israel in 1973.

Military Career: When he returned to the Sudan, Bashir was put in charge of military operations against the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), the military arm of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) in the southern half of the country. The SPLM and SPLA were founded and headed by Dr. John Garang, a prominent figure of the African Dinka Tribe.

Becoming a general by the 1980s, Bashir took command of a military coup d'etat in June 1989 which overthrew the democratically elected PM Sadeq al-Mahdi. Gen. Bashir immediately banned all political parties, repressed the press, and dissolved parliament. He then became chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council for National Salvation (a newly established body with legislative and executive powers over the country), and assumed the posts of head of state, PM, chief of the armed forces, and minister of defence.

Bashir then established an Islamist regime as he formed an alliance with Dr. Hassan al-Turabi, the leader of the National Islamic Front (NIF), who became the regime's Islamist ideologue. Turabi was behind the introduction of Shari'a law in the north in 1991. In 1993 Bashir dissolved the Revolutionary Command Council for National Salvation, concentrating power in his own hands. Bashir was elected president in 1996, and Turabi became speaker of parliament. A new constitution was drawn up and some opposition activity was permitted.

In 1999, however, a power-struggle between Bashir and Turabi worsened, as the military ruler accused the Islamist ideologue of trying to control the regime. In late 1999, Bashir dissolved parliament and declared a state of emergency, after Turabi tried to give parliament the power to remove the president and to reinstate the post of PM.

Turabi was later imprisoned, accused of treason after signing a peace deal with the SPLM. The peace deal, through which Turabi was trying to regain control, was scrapped and fighting between Khartoum's Army and the SPLA escalated.

President Bashir won re-election in 2000. Members and supporters of Bashir's ruling National Congress Party (NCP) filled the parliamentary seats. The opposition boycotted the general elections, accusing Bashir and his NCP of vote-rigging. He has since managed to remain Sudan's absolute ruler, despite his indictment by the ICC in The Hague in March 2009.

Governance: As he allied himself with Dr. Turabi and the latter's National Islamic Front (NIF), Bashir in 1991 began a systematic programme to make northern Sudan an Islamic state. For his part, Turabi was leading a coalition of Islamist groups from other Arab countries in an effort to turn his movement into a trans-national entity.

Bashir applied the Shari'a and a new Criminal Code over northern Sudan in 1991, enforced by Muslim judges and a newly created Public Order Police. Garang's SPLM was strongly opposed to that and SPLA's fighting with the Khartoum Army intensified. Already by late 1990, Garang had sided with a US-led alliance then being built up to liberate Kuwait from Saddam's Iraq. (Saddam's Sunni/Ba'thist regime's armed forces had invaded Kuwait in August of that year). Through that shift, the SPLM and SPLA had begun receiving aid from the US and other Western powers - while Bashir had sided with Saddam's camp in the Arab world.

On Oct. 16, 1993, Bashir's powers increased when he made himself president of, after which time the Revolutionary Command Council for National Salvation was dissolved. The executive and legislative powers of the council were given to Bashir. In 1996 he was later elected president, with a five0year term. In 1998, Bashir and the Presidential Committee put into effect a new constitution.

In 1999, Bashir and parliament passed a law which allowed limited political associations in opposition to Bashirs regime and his supporters to be formed, although these groups failed to gain any significant access to governmental power. For their part, the opposition groups themselves were divided and failed to form a coherent front against the regime.

Earlier in 1999 Bashir had offered the US the arrest and extradition of Usama bin Laden, who was then based in Sudan, and detailed intelligence data about his Qaeda network. But US officials denied that any such offer was ever made. In 1998, the US had bombed al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory near Khartoum which was allegedly producing chemical weapons for bin Laden. But the US had failed to provide any evidence or to allow an independent committee to verify those claims. Sudan was subsequently one of the seven states put on the US State Department's list of international terrorism sponsors.

Bashir spoke out against the 9/11 Qaeda attacks in the US. Despite Bashir's efforts, Sudan remains monitored by the US in regard to it terrorist activity.

Sudan is best known for its North-South war which raged for 22 years until the CPA was signed on Jan. 9, 2005. Millions of southerners had been displaced, starved, and deprived of education and health care. Because of those actions, various international sanctions had been placed on Sudan.

The situation in Sudan had become more complicated in February 2003, when a rebellion against Khartoum began in Darfur. The war in Darfur continues to rage, despite numerous truce and peace efforts.