KHARTOUM/PORT SUDAN (Reuters) -The Islamist movement toppled in Sudan's uprising in 2019 could support an extended period of army rule as it eyes a political comeback after deploying fighters in the country's war, according to some of its leading members.

In his first media interview in years, Ahmed Haroun, chairman of the former ruling National Congress Party (NCP) and one of four Sudanese wanted by the International Criminal Court, told Reuters that he foresaw the army staying in politics after the war, and that elections could provide a route back to power for his party and the Islamist movement connected to it.

More than two years of war between Sudan's army and the RSF has caused waves of ethnic killings, famine and massive displacement, drawing in foreign powers and creating what the United Nations has called the world's biggest humanitarian crisis.

While the RSF remains entrenched in its western stronghold of Darfur and parts of the south and there is no sign of a stop to the fighting, the army has made major advances in recent months, gains that Islamist operatives say they helped bring about.

Army leaders and former regime loyalists have played down their relationship, wary of the unpopularity of ousted ex-leader Omar al-Bashir and his NCP allies. But the army's recent advances have allowed the Islamist movement to entertain a return to a national role, according to accounts from seven of the movement's members and six military and government sources.

The NCP is rooted in Sudan's Islamist movement, which was dominant in the early Bashir era during the 1990s when the country hosted Osama bin Laden, but has long abandoned hardline ideology in favour of amassing power and wealth.

The movement's resurgence could cement the reversal of Sudan's pro-democracy uprising that began in late 2018, while complicating the country's ties with regional players suspicious of Islamist influence - including hardening a split with the powerful United Arab Emirates.

In a sign of the trend, several Islamists and their allies have been appointed since last month to the cabinet of Kamil Idris, the technocratic new prime minister named in May by the........

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