• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

Sudan - 4th Civil War - Regional Players

Sudan was at the center of long-lasting permanent crises. It was characterized by frequent armed conflicts. When a conflict breaks out in one of these countries, be it Egypt, Libya, Chad, the Central African Republic, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea or Saudi Arabia, the neighboring country was always affected as well. Israel's normalization process with Sudan in the last three years built relationships with both Army chief Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and RSF leader Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti.

Pro-Army

• Egypt's military regime in tends to see Sudan's military government as an ally. With Cairo supporting al-Burhan and Abu Dhabi backing Hemedti, Egypt and the UAE are not on the same page. Egypt had a long history with Sudan, and not just as a trading partner. Egypt and Sudan had similar cultures, and the relationship of some Sudanese elites was close with Egypt. In the Pharaonic era, Sudan was part of Egypt and called itself Nubia. For a short time, however, the Nubians also ruled Egypt, and later both countries were under British colonial rule. Egypt wants to bring Sudan into its camp in the conflict over Ethiopia's giant GERD hydroelectric dam. Hemedti accused Egypt of colluding with al-Burhan and sending fighter jets and soldiers to help the Sudanese military. Egypt supports Burhan and sees the Sudanese army reflecting the Egyptian army as the only institution that can maintain the stability of Sudan. Egypt sees Hemedti as an upstart mercenary. The Egyptians are very fiercely opposed to Hemedti.

• Turkiye warned that if any forces moved to Libya from Sudan they would be targeted. Supposedly there was a plan for such an event, with forces being sent from Libya, via Khalifa Haftar. So a scenario was chosen, "which was calming down, dialogue, and a ceasefire – whatever it may be – to save what can be saved."

• Chad had a culture of hospitality and cannot hermetically seal its border. The country was already hosting more than 500,000 refugees. An ongoing war could have a lasting impact on the entire Sahel region, including trade between the two neighbors. Traditionally, there had been a lot of border traffic between Chad and Sudan, such as the flow of herders grazing their flocks on both sides of the border.

• Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed visited Sudan in January 2023 and met army commander Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the de facto head of state. The two discussed the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, which Egypt fears could cut into its Nile water supply, and a border dispute over the fertile region of el-Fashaga.

  Iran fully restored diplomatic ties with Sudan’s military government in July 2024, ending an eight-year rupture instigated by Saudi Arabia. In separate meetings, Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, Sudan’s military ruler, received the credentials of Iran’s new ambassador, Hassan Shah Hosseini, and dispatched a Sudanese ambassador to Tehran, Abdelaziz Hassan Saleh. Ahead of the ceremony Sunday, Iranian diplomats and operatives already had rented dozens of apartments in Port Sudan—at a time when Western and Arab states mostly have withdrawn their embassies from the country. Additionally, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps dispatched several cargo flights to Sudan, allegedly bringing attack drones and other weapons.

Pro-RSF

• The United Arab Emirates was accused of being behind the April 2023 events in Sudan. Social media users circulated a recording attributed to the former head of Sudanese intelligence, Salah Gosh. The UAE allegedly established a 'command centre' in Abu Dhabi with the aim of replacing the army with the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo. Sudanese Army's Chief of Staff, General Kamal Abdel Marouf, said the initial change in Sudan began with a "Masonic conspiracy from within the system, and from camel-herding countries in the Gulf that sponsored the change, as well as foreign countries that relied on some wandering individuals in Europe who claim to be activists but are actually political traders."

  In 2022 Sudan’s military authorities and two UAE-based companies signed a $6bn preliminary agreement for the construction of the Abu Amama port, located on the Red Sea. For the UAE, this large project was part of a wider policy in the Red Sea and Africa, with the Emiratis attempting to expand their sphere of influence, and build up a network of strategic outposts, of which Abu Amama would be a critical node. The UAE’s interests were in controlling ports in the Red Sea. The UAE had political and economic interests in the Red Sea, and it’s expanding into central and west Africa. The Emiratis had played a game of supporting both Hemedti [Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo] and [Abdel Fattah] al-Burhan over the past couple of years. The Emiratis developed a two-pillar approach of supporting two strongmen, which was never going to be a sustainable approach. Hemedti was copying many UAE narratives about Islamism, basically equating Burhan with political Islamism.

• Russian involvement in Sudan primarily benefited Dagalo, the main recipient of Moscow’s weapons and training.

• Wagner, the Russian mercenary group, had been supplying Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces with missiles to aid their fight against the country’s army, Sudanese and regional diplomatic sources told CNN. Satellite imagery supported these claims, showing an unusual uptick in activity on Wagner bases. Both Russia and the Libyan general may have been preparing to support the RSF even before the eruption of violence. Wagner operated a gold processing plant in Sudan. Following the 23 August 2023 assassination of Evgeniy Prigozhin, the status of Wagner operations remained unclear.

  Early in the crisis, reports surfaced that the Russian Wagner Group was lending tactical support to the RSF. Marcel Plichta, a research fellow at the Centre for Global Law and Governance, said that “there are claims on the use of Wagner aircraft or Wagner-operated airfields to lift material to the RSF, in particular portable surface-to-air missiles. From a military perspective, this niche capability was highly valuable to the RSF because al-Burhan controls the regular military’s air force and the RSF lack strong anti-aircraft capabilities”.

  But Plichta cautioned that Wagner was still not a decisive force in this battle. “The number of contractors currently active in Sudan was small compared to the tens of thousands of RSF and SAF personnel. The founder of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, benefits from portraying it as more influential than it is. It was important to not overestimate the strength and influence of this group, as much as it was important to not downplay the harm it brings to civilians,” he said.

• In Libya, the Wagner-backed general, Khalifa Haftar, controls swathes of land. Satellite images analyzed by CNN and open-source group “All Eyes on Wagner” show one Russian transport plane shuttling between two key Libyan airbases belonging to Haftar and used by the sanctioned Russian fighting group. If Hemedti looks like he’s getting the upper hand in the struggle against Burhan, the Emiratis could come and support him more forcefully, and maybe not too directly, so perhaps through a surrogate like Khalifa Haftar,

• Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates became Hemedti's powerful friends after he sent RSF forces to back them against Iran-aligned rebels in Yemen’s civil war.

• Eritrea’s authoritarian leader, Isais Afwerki, invited, RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo to meet ostensibly yospeak about bilateral relations. What was actually discussed behind closed doors was unclear. Some observers expected Eritrea to get more directly involved in Sudan’s conflict if violence eventually reaches or destabilises Port Sudan. Eritrea had longstanding relationships with a number of powerful tribes in eastern Sudan, such as the Beni Amer, Beja and Rashida. In the early 2000s, Eritrea backed those tribes when they waged an armed rebellion against the government of former Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.

With seven international borders, Sudan’s violence had the potential to spill into many other countries. From a GCC perspective, the risks of the crisis having destabilising effects on the Gulf and Egypt are particularly concerning. GCC officials want to see the Arab League and its members step up diplomatic efforts aimed at winding down this violence before it spirals further out of control. The Biden administration had been coordinating its diplomatic efforts with the so-called Quad countries [Saudi Arabia, UAE, UK, US] on efforts to establish a civilian government in Sudan. The Americans outsourced Sudan’s transition to regional partners [chiefly Saudi Arabia and the UAE].