Sudan's war and the wider Red Sea region as an arena of Gulf and Egyptian rivalry and cooperation, covering support for the warring Sudanese parties, Red Sea security arrangements, ports and corridors in the Horn of Africa, and Gulf financial and political influence there.
Sudan has been a covert front in the Saudi-UAE rivalry and a focus of competing GCC institution-building, as Riyadh and Cairo work to preserve a unified Sudanese state, while the Red Sea has become an active front: the Houthis have seized Yemen's western Red Sea coast and Mayyun Island near Bab el-Mandeb, and since early October 2026 Saudi Arabia and the UAE have moved into a pragmatic rapprochement that reopened direct security coordination on Yemen and the Red Sea.
This topic page tracks the launch of the Saudi-Sudanese Joint Strategic Cooperation Council under MBS and Burhan, Saudi support for Burhan, Egypt's strategy to weaken the RSF through defections and prevent fragmentation within the Quintet political track, Cairo's management of the UAE dimension, the UAE's expanding Somaliland and Berbera export-corridor play and Saudi concern over Israel's plan for a naval base at Berbera, Saudi-Egyptian Red Sea security coordination including the MBS-Sisi talks in Cairo on 15 September 2026, and Prince Faisal and Araghchi's exploration of Iranian leverage to ease the Saudi-Houthi conflict.
Essential for Horn of Africa analysts, Red Sea shipping desks and Gulf-Africa policy strategists.
