The visit this week of the Chairman of Sudan’s Sovereign Council and Commander of the Army, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, to his patrons in Riyadh is not only an attempt to advance a ceasefire in the devastating civil war in his country—in which more than 150,000 people have been killed, including millions of refugees and internally displaced persons—but also an expression of an increasingly intensifying regional struggle for influence between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Saudi Arabia, which is hosting al-Burhan and promoting itself as a central mediator to end the war, tends to identify with him and with the official Sudanese army. From Riyadh’s perspective, stability in Sudan is a clear security and strategic interest: concern over the spread of extremism, cross-border crime, and instability along the Red Sea coast—an area Saudi Arabia seeks to develop as a tourism and economic anchor as part of Vision 2030.
By contrast, the United Arab Emirates is perceived as supporting, directly or indirectly, the rival RSF forces, and frames its involvement in Sudan as part of a struggle against Islamist actors, foremost among them the Muslim Brotherhood. Although Saudi Arabia shares hostility toward the Muslim Brotherhood, it views the possibility of Emirati dominance in Sudan and along its coasts as a destabilizing scenario that could even threaten the balance of power in the Red Sea.
The disagreements between the two neighboring Gulf states, which have already been exposed in other arenas—chief among them Yemen—take on a particularly sharp dimension in Sudan: a struggle for influence in a strategic, resource-rich country with a critical geographic location. For al-Burhan, rapprochement with Saudi Arabia is also an attempt to counterbalance the support his rivals receive from the United Arab Emirates and to enlist political—and possibly even military—backing.
Israel also has significant interest in developments in Sudan. Israel seeks to realize the “normalization agreement,” whose implementation has been delayed in part due to the civil war in the country. As in Yemen, in this conflict as well it would be best for Israel not to choose sides between Riyadh, with which it seeks to sign a normalization agreement, and Abu Dhabi, with which Israel already has normalization. The prolongation of the civil war in Sudan further weakens the Sudanese state and enables various actors such as Iran and Russia to gain a foothold in the country.
Thus, the war in Sudan has long since gone beyond the boundaries of an internal conflict and has become a quiet arena of regional contestation, in which Saudi Arabia and the Emirates do not confront each other directly, but operate on opposite sides of the conflict and fuel it.
The visit this week of the Chairman of Sudan’s Sovereign Council and Commander of the Army, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, to his patrons in Riyadh is not only an attempt to advance a ceasefire in the devastating civil war in his country—in which more than 150,000 people have been killed, including millions of refugees and internally displaced persons—but also an expression of an increasingly intensifying regional struggle for influence between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Saudi Arabia, which is hosting al-Burhan and promoting itself as a central mediator to end the war, tends to identify with him and with the official Sudanese army. From Riyadh’s perspective, stability in Sudan is a clear security and strategic interest: concern over the spread of extremism, cross-border crime, and instability along the Red Sea coast—an area Saudi Arabia seeks to develop as a tourism and economic anchor as part of Vision 2030.
By contrast, the United Arab Emirates is perceived as supporting, directly or indirectly, the rival RSF forces, and frames its involvement in Sudan as part of a struggle against Islamist actors, foremost among them the Muslim Brotherhood. Although Saudi Arabia shares hostility toward the Muslim Brotherhood, it views the possibility of Emirati dominance in Sudan and along its coasts as a destabilizing scenario that could even threaten the balance of power in the Red Sea.
The disagreements between the two neighboring Gulf states, which have already been exposed in other arenas—chief among them Yemen—take on a particularly sharp dimension in Sudan: a struggle for influence in a strategic, resource-rich country with a critical geographic location. For al-Burhan, rapprochement with Saudi Arabia is also an attempt to counterbalance the support his rivals receive from the United Arab Emirates and to enlist political—and possibly even military—backing.
Israel also has significant interest in developments in Sudan. Israel seeks to realize the “normalization agreement,” whose implementation has been delayed in part due to the civil war in the country. As in Yemen, in this conflict as well it would be best for Israel not to choose sides between Riyadh, with which it seeks to sign a normalization agreement, and Abu Dhabi, with which Israel already has normalization. The prolongation of the civil war in Sudan further weakens the Sudanese state and enables various actors such as Iran and Russia to gain a foothold in the country.
Thus, the war in Sudan has long since gone beyond the boundaries of an internal conflict and has become a quiet arena of regional contestation, in which Saudi Arabia and the Emirates do not confront each other directly, but operate on opposite sides of the conflict and fuel it.