Sudan and the Iran-Israel Confrontation: A Fragile State in the Shadow of a Regional Storm

Edited by: Widad WAHBI

The escalating confrontation between Iran and Israel is raising fears of a broader regional conflict, with potential fallout well beyond the Middle East. One of the most vulnerable countries to this shifting geopolitical landscape is Sudan, already devastated by a brutal internal war between the national army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). In this volatile context, Sudan risks becoming a secondary arena in a confrontation it neither initiated nor can control.

Iran has maintained deep historical ties with Sudan’s former Islamist regime, particularly during the Al-Ingaz era under former President Omar al-Bashir. Over the years, Iran provided Khartoum with military support, drones, weapons technology, and training for security forces. In exchange, Sudan served as a transit hub for smuggling arms to Gaza, a role that led to Israeli airstrikes on Sudanese territory targeting facilities linked to Iran.

At several points, Sudan leveraged its ties with Tehran as a diplomatic bargaining chip, notably by allowing Iranian warships to dock on the Red Sea, much to the dismay of its Gulf neighbors. However, mounting economic pressure and regional isolation eventually pushed Khartoum to cut ties with Iran in 2015 and join the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen.

The outbreak of full-scale war in Sudan in 2023 has reshuffled those alliances. General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan’s leadership, politically backed by Islamist networks, has sought external military support to counterbalance RSF forces. In this context, old channels with Tehran have been revived, resulting in a formal resumption of diplomatic ties and the reported delivery of Iranian military aid, including arms and drones.

This renewed alignment raises urgent questions: Will Iran use Sudanese territory or airspace as a strategic asset in its standoff with Israel? And conversely, will Israel once again consider Sudan a hostile actor aligned with Iranian ambitions and respond accordingly?

The intersection between Sudan’s civil war and the Iran-Israel conflict is becoming increasingly pronounced. Should the Middle Eastern conflict escalate further, the Horn of Africa could be drawn into a broader confrontation. Sudan, already suffering from state collapse, could find itself unintentionally embedded in a conflict far beyond its capacity to manage.

The risk is not hypothetical. With its fragile institutions, fractured military landscape, and geopolitical isolation, Sudan may well become a theater of indirect confrontation, used by external powers for strategic leverage. A nation torn apart from within now faces the added threat of being absorbed into a regional chessboard, where its sovereignty is tested by conflicts not of its making.