Population: Sunni Muslim 70%, indigenous beliefs 25%, Christian 5%

Islam and the state: Sudan is governed by an Islamist government which came to power in 1989 after a military coup backed by the National Islamic Front. The country has been wracked by a 20-year civil war pitting the northern, Muslim government against rebels from the Christian and animist South. Negotiations to end to the war have not stopped the fighting and the famine that comes with it.

Militant Islam: Osama Bin Laden was based in Sudan during the late 1990s before he was asked to leave and moved to Afghanistan. The Islamist ideology that underpins the Khartoum government has led Sudan to offer shelter and support radical Islamic groups in the region. Since September 2001, Sudan has attempted to come out of international isolation by pursuing talks to end the war and by co-operating with US intelligence services on security issues.