— Ahmed Abdelwahid 

Within days of the war breaking out between Sudan’s army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on 15 April 2023, Saudi Arabia presented itself as a mediator seeking to halt the fighting, stop it spreading and stand at an equal distance from both sides. The claim carried weight because Jeddah sits across the Red Sea from Port Sudan, because the kingdom evacuated thousands of foreign nationals by sea in the war’s first weeks, and because Riyadh had the money, the access and the American backing to convene both camps. As the war dragged on, the kingdom moved closer to the army, and the European Foundation for Democracy (EFD), a Brussels think tank, now lists Saudi Arabia among the army’s primary foreign supporters.

Saudi Arabia remains a member of the Quad that mediates Sudan’s war. The European Centre for Strategic Studies and Policy (ECSAP), also in Brussels, has documented executive flights between Riyadh and Port Sudan and cited reports of Saudi artillery deliveries to the army, and Pakistani security sources told Reuters in April that a $1.5 billion arms deal for the army stalled when Saudi Arabia withdrew its financing.

It has led a military coalition in Yemen since March 2015 without dislodging the Houthis from Sanaa. In the Horn of Africa, the Soufan Center wrote in August 2026 that Saudi Arabia and Egypt had “thrown their weight behind Eritrea, and by extension the TPLF,” to counter Ethiopia’s push for access to the Red Sea, through diplomatic mediation and infrastructure investment. Saudi Arabia has not announced a position on the latest fighting in Tigray and tried earlier this year to ease tensions between Ethiopia’s federal government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), Al Jazeera reported on 13 October.

Jeddah talks, Riyadh flights and a stalled $1.5 billion deal

The Jeddah talks were the most prominent diplomatic track opened after the war began. The army and the RSF signed the Declaration of Commitment to Protect the Civilians of Sudan in Jeddah on 11 May 2023, binding both to protect civilians and allow humanitarian access, but the truces that followed collapsed under mutual violations and later rounds faltered. In September 2025 the mediation moved into a wider format, the Quad of the United States, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt, which proposed a three-month humanitarian truce leading to a permanent ceasefire and a nine-month transition.

On 14 July 2026, ECSAP published an investigation into non-commercial executive flights between Riyadh and Port Sudan, naming aircraft operated by Alpha Star Aviation and Sky Prime Aviation on flights between December and February. The report carries no individual author, does not name the tracking service it relied on and does not publish the underlying records.

ECSAP cited an Intelligence Online report of 13 February 2026, based on unnamed security sources, that Saudi Arabia had transferred three batteries of M777 155mm howitzers, with ammunition and training, to the army through Port Sudan. Neither government has confirmed the transfer.

The think tank also traced commercial explosives from India that were routed through Jeddah Islamic Port in January 2026 to a Sudanese company it links to the army’s Defence Industries System. ECSAP said the transit “does not, in itself, establish that the Saudi authorities were aware of its ultimate end use,” and in an earlier report, on 26 May, it said a chlorine shipment had passed through Jeddah to Sudan without the Saudi authorities’ knowledge.

The July report argued that Saudi support strengthens the Al-Baraa Bin Malik Brigade, which fights alongside the army. The United States describes the brigade as the armed wing of the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood, which the State Department designated a terrorist organisation in March 2026, after sanctioning the brigade itself in September 2025.

The UN humanitarian office estimates that 33.7 million people in Sudan will need assistance in 2026. Army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan rejected the Quad’s truce plan on 23 November 2025, calling it “the worst yet,” and on 7 October 2026 he ruled out talks with the RSF and vowed to retake all the territory it holds.

On 20 April 2026, Reuters reported, citing two Pakistani security sources and a diplomatic source, that Islamabad had put on hold a $1.5 billion sale of weapons and jets to Sudan after Saudi Arabia dropped plans to finance it and signalled that the deal should be terminated. One of the sources said Saudi financing ended after a March meeting in Riyadh between Sudan’s army leaders and Saudi officials.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman hosted Burhan in Jeddah the same day, and official readouts from both governments described talks on Sudan’s security, stability and territorial integrity without mentioning the deal, Al-Monitor reported.

Eleven years in Yemen and an Islamist ally in Sudan

Saudi Arabia has led an Arab coalition in Yemen since March 2015, in the declared cause of restoring the internationally recognised government after the Houthis seized Sanaa. The Houthis still hold the capital and most of the populated north, the coalition has fractured, and Riyadh has held direct talks with the movement since 2022, including a Saudi delegation’s visit to Sanaa in April 2023.

Riyadh’s closest Yemeni partner against the Houthis has been the Yemeni Congregation for Reform, Islah, a mix of Islamist, tribal and political currents with long ties to the kingdom. Islah was “the first party to support the intervention” in 2015, and its members fought in the resistance forces in Taiz and elsewhere, according to a 2021 analysis by Mutahar Al-Sofari for the Washington Institute.

The EFD set out the tension between these alliances and Riyadh’s declared opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood in a policy paper by Sara Senno and Elisabetta Arba published on 23 October 2026. The paper traces the Islamist presence in Sudan’s army to the purges that followed the 1989 coup, when officers close to the National Islamic Front replaced about 1,500 who were dismissed in 1993, and says Sudan’s Islamists keep links with the Muslim Brotherhood. It lists Saudi Arabia, with Egypt, Türkiye and Iran, among the army’s foreign backers, and says Saudi and Egyptian support for an army fighting alongside a US-designated group, while both governments oppose the Brotherhood, “creates a contradiction within the Quad itself.”

Eritrea’s ports, a 15-state maritime alliance and 5,000 Somali recruits

Eritrea holds the Red Sea ports of Assab and Massawa, while Ethiopia, landlocked since Eritrean independence, depends on Djibouti for its outlet to the sea, and the two countries have been in rising tension over that access as Egypt and Ethiopia remain at odds over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. The TPLF, which fought Eritrea during the 2020–2022 Tigray war, has since drawn closer to Asmara in opposition to Addis Ababa, which is the alignment the Soufan Center referred to. Saudi Deputy Foreign Minister Waleed Al-Khereiji met President Isaias Afwerki in Asmara on 12 February 2026 to discuss bilateral cooperation and the role of Red Sea states in regional security, a day after the Saudi foreign minister visited Addis Ababa, Geeska reported. The Soufan Center wrote in August that Riyadh would prefer Eritrea to retain its Red Sea access.

Saudi Arabia’s Defence Ministry announced a Multinational Maritime Defence Alliance on 30 July 2026, and the alliance was formally launched in Jeddah on 13 August, with 15 states signing its joint declaration and 13 of them fully joining, according to Al Jazeera. Sudan, Somalia, Djibouti, Egypt and Yemen are among the first signatories; Eritrea is not, which leaves room for bilateral arrangements outside the alliance. The alliance took shape after two senior Houthi officials said on 28 February 2026 that the group would resume missile and drone attacks on Red Sea shipping in support of Iran, after a pause under a deal with US President Donald Trump.

Somalia signed a military cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia in Riyadh on 9 February 2026. Kenya’s The Standard reported in July, citing the Somali outlet Caasimada, that 5,107 recruits, about 2,000 of them from Puntland, were in a nine-month programme at two camps in Galgaduud region, figures the federal government has not confirmed, and that a Saudi military delegation had visited the camps.

Somali media reports say Saudi Arabia is financing the programme, and instructors from Romania, Ukraine, South Africa and Colombia reportedly took part, Ethiopia Insight reported in September, adding that about 3,000 soldiers graduated on 16 August and that neither Mogadishu nor Riyadh had confirmed the funding. Reports that the graduates were being prepared to fight alongside Sudan’s army have not been independently established, according to Ethiopia Insight.