Is Iran-Azerbaijan tension being fueled by Israel?

The 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war between Azerbaijan and Armenia had profound repercussions for Iran’s influence and policies in the South Caucasus. Tehran neither impacted the trajectory of the conflict nor exerted significant diplomatic influence in ceasefire negotiations and the ensuing peace agreement. 

Though Iran was the most relevant regional power in the conflict, bordering both Armenia and Azerbaijan, it was sidelined by Turkey and Russia. Tehran was obliged to align with Ankara and Moscow in supporting Baku’s territorial conquests, revealing a significant departure from its traditional pro-Armenia stance. 

From Iran's point of view, it is Tel Aviv that provokes Baku to take a belligerent policy against Tehran and to challenge the geopolitical status quo.

Azerbaijan did not reciprocate Iran’s good faith. Baku knowingly isolated Tehran in Nagorno-Karabakh’s reconstruction, while prioritizing Israel and Arab and European countries.

Backed by mighty military powers such as Turkey, Israel and Pakistan, Azerbaijan felt it could flex its muscles against Iran’s regional power projection. Recently, Baku hosted a joint military drill with Ankara and Islamabad, aiming to further strengthen ties among the three countries and to bolster counterterrorism efforts. 

The joint drill contradicts the provisions of the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea, which bans the presence in the Caspian Sea of armed forces not belonging to the Parties" (Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, the Russian Federation and Turkmenistan). 

On the margins of the drill, Baku tacitly challenged Iran’s connectivity with Armenia by disrupting Iranian trucks transiting a road that passes through Azerbaijan’s newly captured territories. Azerbaijan set up check points, began charging fees to Iranian trucks, and even detained two Iranian truckers.

Unlike Azerbaijan’s attempt to depict recent incidents as routine procedure, Tehran sees this new, assertive Azerbaijan in a bigger picture, where Baku plays the anti-Iran puppet role for other regional powers hostile to Iran, such as Israel. 

Tehran initially tasked the Revolutionary Guard Corps with deploying equipment and troops across the country’s northwestern border. But this was just a small part of Iran’s grand plan to intimidate Baku. Days later, Tehran launched its own military drill near the Azerbaijani border, saying "We will never tolerate the presence of the fake Zionist regime near the Iranian border, nor any changes in the regional borders and geopolitics”.

This rare move, alongside hawkish comments by Iranian officials, suggests that Tehran is indeed concerned about the potential for grave geopolitical changes near its borders. 

Iran’s Kayhan newspaper, a publication close to hardliners, claimed that based on a Turkish-American plan, Armenia’s western-oriented president, in collusion with Baku, intends to concede Armenia’s Syunik province to Azerbaijan. This is the only conceivable reason for Iran’s outrage at Azerbaijan. 

Syunik province separates the rest of Azerbaijan from the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic exclave, and constitutes the Armenian border with Iran.

The 2020 peace deal between Azerbaijan and Armenia guaranteed Azerbaijan a corridor to connect Nakhchivan to the rest of Azerbaijan via Syunik province. Previously, all connections were made through Iran in the south or Turkey in the west. 

Baku is apparently not satisfied with this plan, and maintains an ambitious goal to take all of Syunik province, which could put Iran in a disadvantageous geopolitical position.

Tehran would lose its connection to Armenia and convenient access to the region, while being compelled to deal with a newly emboldened regional power that is heavily backed by Iran’s arch-enemy, Israel.

From Iran’s point of view, it is Tel Aviv that provokes Baku to take a belligerent policy against Tehran and to challenge the geopolitical status quo.

The title Tehran has chosen for its ongoing drills in the country’s northwest drives this point home ‑ Fatehan-e Khaybar is a call back to the Battle of Khaybar in the year 628, in which the Prophet Mohammed confronted the Jews of the Khaybar region, who were inciting Arabian tribes against the Muslims of Medina. 

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei recently warned Azerbaijan against aligning with Israel noting, “Those who think that their security will be ensured by relying on foreigners should know that they will pay a hefty price.”

The type and scale of military equipment stationed at the border suggests that Iran intends to deter Baku from territorial adventurism, but Tehran ultimately wants to avoid an armed clash. If the situation deteriorates and Azerbaijan opts not to address Tehran’s concerns and warnings, Iran may cross the border to push preemptive deterrence from Armenian soil. A key factor at that point would be the extent to which Azerbaijan’s allies, primarily Turkey, would be prepared to support Baku and participate in a direct confrontation with Iran. 

Meanwhile, Iran seems determined not to step back without affirming its national security red lines, establishing a credible level of deterrence, and asserting its undeniable regional role, which has been somewhat tarnished amid the recent security developments in the South Caucasus. 

Saudi Navy carries out evacuation operation from Sudan

The Royal Saudi Naval Forces (RSNF) carried out the operation that evacuated citizens, other nationals, diplomats and international officials from Sudan on Saturday, the Foreign Ministry announced. The RSNF conducted the operation with the support of various branches of the armed forces.

The Ministry said, “66 persons from Kuwait, Qatar, UAE, Egypt, Tunisia, Pakistan, India, Bulgaria, Bulgaria, Philippines, Canada, and Burkina Faso were among the evacuated.” The number of evacuated Saudi citizens was 91 persons.

All the Saudi citizens and nationals of other countries have arrived safely in Jeddah. This has come in the implementation of the directives of the Kingdom’s leadership, the Ministry said.

The batches arrived in Jeddah at King Faisal Naval Base and were received by Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Eng. Waleed Al-Khereiji.

Al-Khereiji said that the journey of the evacuation was long, starting from Khartoum, passing through a number of regions in Sudan until reaching Port Sudan, and with the cooperation of government agencies in the Kingdom. He affirmed that an important role of the operation was done by Ministry of Defense that implemented this plan.

“We all celebrate the return of our sons and the sons of brotherly and friendly countries to the land of Saudi Arabia, which coincided with the celebration of Eid Al-Fitr.”

Saudi Arabia has worked to provide all the main needs for the foreign nationals, in preparation for facilitating their departure to their countries.

Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Prince Faisal Bin Farhan received a phone call from his Kuwaiti counterpart Sheikh Salem Abdullah Al-Jaber Al-Sabah.

Sheikh Salem voiced sincere congratulations on successful evacuations by Saudi ships of citizens from 11 countries from Sudan to Jeddah.

Sheikh Salem expressed Kuwait's appreciation and gratitude to the Saudi foreign minister for the Kingdom's efforts to ensure the evacuation of Kuwaiti citizens from Sudan.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs had announced earlier on Saturday the start of arranging the evacuation of Saudi citizens and a number of nationals from other countries from Sudan to Jeddah by sea on 5 Saudi ships. The second Saudi ship was carrying Saudia airline crew who was targeted in Khartoum airport.

It is noteworthy that after a week of fighting between two factions of the country’s military leadership, at least 400 people have been killed in Sudan.

Ukraine grain saga

From restrictions on Ukrainian grain going to Eastern Europe to costly English breakfasts and drought problems, here’s a snapshot of key food stories from around the world compiled by Agnieszka de Sousa in London for Bloomberg.

The latest chapter of the Ukrainian grain saga in Eastern Europe returned to Brussels. The European Union will look to prohibit the domestic sale of Ukraine’s grain in five member states, only allowing transit to other destinations. That follows unilateral bans by Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Bulgaria on imports of Ukraine’s produce on fears the supplies are hurting their own markets.

That effectively means Ukrainian exporters face losing sales in those countries. For example, 7% of Ukraine’s corn and wheat exports have gone to Poland this season, according to UkrAgroConsult. Some 7% of its corn shipments have also gone to Hungary.

It’s not the only setback Ukraine’s agriculture sector has faced this week. Its Black Sea exports were again disrupted after inspections of ships under a safe-passage corridor were halted for two days — after a similar stoppage the previous week. Kyiv has blamed the disruption to the grain-export deal — which has been crucial for bringing down global food-commodity costs from records reached after Russia’s invasion — on Moscow. 

While the shipping resumption is good news for both Ukraine and developing nations that import its grain, it highlights uncertainty over the initiative that Russia has repeatedly threatened to quit.

As Muslims around the world sat down for the final days of Ramadan, soaring food prices mean things aren’t what they used to be. Take this downtown Casablanca cafe, where hungry people would flock at sunset for the iftar meal. But with Moroccan prices at the highest since 1984, most of the seats now remain empty.

The average year-on-year food inflation between March and December 2022 was 29% in the Middle East and North Africa region, the World Bank said. Muslims comprise a quarter of the world’s population and food inflation during Ramadan affects a broad swath of the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

Riccardo Fabiani, North Africa project director for the International Crisis Group think tank, said, “It’s a special time of the year, which makes people more sensitive about the issue. The legitimacy of local governments is at risk, protests could intensify and, in general, the fear is that something could break in terms of public order and stability.”

A dry spell is currently wilting crops and delaying plantings in some of Europe’s top produce growers, risking a further run-up in food inflation. Southern Europe is a heavyweight in fruit and vegetables, and the bad weather follows a drought that withered rice paddies and olive groves last year. 

Observation satellites are being deployed to help farmers, utilities and supply chains adjust to persistently hotter and drier weather.

 

 

Can Jews, Christians and Muslims live together peacefully?

I am sharing a write up by Paul Salem, President and CEO of the Middle East Institute. He focuses on issues of political change, transition, and conflict as well as the regional and international relations of the Middle East. Although, many readers may not agree with his narrative, but efforts must be made for establishing a sustainable peace in the Middle East.

Passover, Ramadan, and Easter coincide this year, a phenomenon that only occurs a few times in a century. Can alignment of these Jewish, Muslim, and Christian holy days offer a hope for peace in conflict-stricken Middle East?

Five thousand years after the birth of Judaism in the region, 2,000 after the emergence of Christianity, and 1,400 after the spread of Islam, the current moment presents signs of hope for coexistence and cooperation among the three religions. The politicization of religion remains a potent force, even in today’s world, and religion is still ably used by too many leaders to divide rather than unite.

It may be recalled that a dialogue between the three faiths were initiated last month in Abu Dhabi where a church, mosque, and synagogue are located side by side. In 2019 it hosted Pope Francis and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Ahmad el-Tayeb, who signed a Document of Human Fraternity.

The Abraham Accords brought normalization between Israel and four Arab states in 2020, and other key countries might join in the near future. Saudi Arabia and Iran also agreed to normalize relations just a few weeks ago.

In a region where religious and sectarian differences have driven violence and animosity for decades, do these developments presage a fundamental shift towards peace and coexistence, or a temporary papering over of persistent conflict?

The role of religion in politics has ebbed and flowed in the Middle East, as have the relations among the region’s various religious and sectarian groups. Over the past two centuries, the potent rise of secular and scientific world views brought on by the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, colonialism, and nationalism have posed challenges to all three Abrahamic religions.

Secular nationalist movements coursed through the Middle East throughout the 20th century. And many secularists believed that the role and power of religion would gradually disappear in the modern world.

The ultra-secularist Turkish leader Mustafa Kemal Atatürk abolished the Caliphate in 1924, and secular nationalist leaders emerged in Turkey, Egypt, Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere. They extended the reach of the largely secular state over society and education, weakening the hold of religious elites and institutions.

Muslims, Christians — and Jews up until 1948 — of the Arab world were joined together in the building of new secular political movements: nationalist, socialist, and communist.

Even the establishment of Israel in 1948 unleashed a conflict which, from the 1950s to 1970s, was fought largely in nationalist terms: Arab and Palestinian nationalists vs. Israeli Zionist nationalists. This semi-secular era did marginalize the political power of religion — for a while — but did not bring peace; it replaced one form of conflict with another.

The secular tide in the region turned decisively in the 1970s. The secular nationalist movements across the Arab world were shattered by their abject defeat by Israel in 1967, as well as their failure to deliver economic and political prosperity at home or unity and victory abroad.

The energy crisis triggered by the Saudi reaction to the 1973 Arab-Israeli war led to a historic rise in oil prices, and a shift in wealth and power from Egypt and the Levant toward a much more religiously observant and conservative Saudi Arabia and its Arab Gulf neighbors.

Iran, also flush with cash from the oil price boom, saw the fall of the Shah and the rise of an Islamic Republic in 1979.

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan that same year convinced the US, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan to arm and train Sunni extremists to fight the Soviet menace. The Al Saud, facing an Islamic challenge from Iran, and an attack by Sunni extremists on the Great Mosque of Mecca in 1979, doubled down on supporting and funding Sunni Islamic institutions and movements as a way to shore up their legitimacy.

Indeed, by the 1990s and 2000s, little was left of the Middle East of the 1950s and 1960s, in which religion appeared to be a spent force and secular nationalist and leftist movements defined the political — and militia — landscape.

By the 2000s, the religious wave caught up with the original progenitor of Middle East secularism, Turkey, as Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the religious conservative Justice and Development Party (AKP) rose to dominate Turkish politics.

In Israel, a nation originally built and dominated by staunchly secular Jewish nationalists became increasingly challenged by religious zealots and extremists — groups that now all but dominate the current government.

In the Arab uprisings of the 2010s secular groups — liberal, leftist, nationalist — faced off against Islamic ones, with the latter generally gained the upper hand, either in elections or in the mayhem of civil war.

The US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 itself triggered a wave of sectarian polarization as Sunni and Shia groups battled for supremacy.

For the Christians of the Middle East, the last few decades have been an unmitigated disaster. The decline of nationalist and leftist secular movements, in which they had played such a central role, and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism undermined their very place in society. But they had survived under the equal opportunity oppression of Arab dictatorships.

The US-led invasion of Iraq wiped out the state and the oppressive security that it provided, and unleashed a sectarian civil war in which the Christians were the most powerless; from 1.4 million before the war, Christians in Iraq now number less than 250,000.

In Syria the uprising of 2011, initially a point of national unity among Muslim and Christian protesters, soon turned deadly for Christians. The regime preferred to turn the uprising into a shooting war, sought to exploit sectarian differences to weaken the opposition, and released large numbers of Islamic extremists from its prisons.

As the opposition was forced to resort to arms, Islamist groups, some garnering support from pro-Islamist states and institutions in the region, others making common cause with the hard-fighting al-Qaeda, came to dominate the opposition.

In Egypt, the brief rule of the Muslim Brotherhood between 2012 and 2013 terrified an already marginalized Coptic community and cemented their support for the return of the military to power.

The meeting between Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the Coptic Pope Tawadrus II in 2018 was an important step in restoring warm relations between Muslims and Christians in the Middle East.

Pope Tawadrus II represents the biggest Christian community in the region; Pope Francis of Rome does not.

Christian numbers have also plummeted in Jordan, as well as in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. Lebanon has had its own turbulent history of alternating between fighting and powersharing among its various religious communities. Currently, they share equally in the misery brought about by the corruption and criminal unresponsiveness of their own sectarian oligarchs.

Interestingly, the religious-secular pendulum has started to swing yet again. In today’s Middle East, it is in Iran where a rising generation is making the bravest stand against religious authority and repression. Meanwhile, the leadership in Saudi Arabia has decided to get ahead of this wave by reversing four decades of policy since 1979, eliminating the religious police, and storming ahead with a radical opening of society at the cultural and social level — although decidedly not the political — bringing in a long-delayed wave of secularization and women’s socio-economic empowerment.

Protest movements in Lebanon and Iraq have railed against sectarian politics and corruption and demanded a more civic order.

Nevertheless, the politicization of religious and sectarian identity remains a divisive and conflict-generating force in the Middle East.

Recent steps toward interfaith dialogue and building common positions and institutions underscore the ability of religious entities to work for conflict de-escalation and peace. And the resurgence of secular forces in some areas of the region might also help in calming religious, especially sectarian, conflict.

Indeed, the confluence of the three religious holidays is a bittersweet occasion. It hints at the opportunity for a more peaceful and harmonious future in the birthplace of the three religions, but also underscores the arduous work that still needs to be done to reverse the deep religious divides that exist today.

Now that diplomatic ties are restored, Saudi Arabia and Iran must work together to end violence and conflict in Yemen, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq, and support peace- and nation-building efforts.

The Abraham Accords between Israel and some of its Arab neighbors have allowed bilateral relations to flourish, bringing great dividends in trade, investment, development, tourism, technology, and other sectors. But these trends have coincided with a worsening of conditions at home.

Less than three years after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu achieved the Abraham Accords, Israel has the most right-wing and extremist government in its history, making life under occupation for Palestinians even more intolerable. Jews and Arabs across the region will not find lasting normalization until progress and a just settlement is found for Jerusalem and the Palestinian people.

 

China’s Middle East Strategy

The Middle East’s emergence as a key front in the new Cold War between the United States and China has become even prominent. Bloomberg believes that Beijing is making efforts to widen the breach between Washington and Saudi Arabia.

China has put its stamp on the region in a way that could hardly have been guessed six months ago, notably by brokering a rapprochement between longtime regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran. Remarkably, China Foreign Minister Qin Gang this week launched an effort at encouraging a restart of Israel-Palestine talks.

On the finance front, the Beijing-based Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) opened its first overseas office this week—in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. The hub is to serve as a strategic destination supporting the agenda of the AIIB—a multilateral development bank conceived almost a decade ago as China’s answer to institutions set up by Western nations.

This followed the shock in Washington when Saudi Arabia and its fellow OPEC P members not only rejected a US request for production increases, but cut output earlier this month.

It’s become inescapable that the Middle East—and specifically a Saudi Arabia led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman—is rapidly departing Washington’s orbit in favor of Beijing.

Still, the Middle East’s exchange-rate pegs to the dollar remain a powerful link to America, as do its strong, enduring military ties. So for the US government, all is not lost—yet.

The US dollar remains by far the most powerful force in the global financial system, even if its share of central bank reserves has been waning. And that confers on Washington inimitable power, the threat to impede access to the currency.

That’s the reason the Gulf Cooperation Council members’ use of the dollar as the key currency of cross-border exchange—and not Beijing-sponsored diplomacy—is the ultimate gauge of the council’s geo-economic alignment. A sudden change would be destabilizing for the countries themselves, so any shift would have to be gradual.

But signs of movement are there. Just last month, the UAE made the first settlement of natural gas exports to China denominated in Chinese yuan. That’s an especially interesting precedent after China’s landmark US$60 billion deal in November 2023 for liquefied natural gas from the UAE’s fellow GCC member, Qatar.

That Qatar deal, which saw European buyers pipped for crucial long-term energy supplies, is designed to last until the 2050s. 

“Chinese state-owned energy companies historically did not have the expertise to compete on an equal footing with Western energy companies,” said Justin Dargin, a Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Middle East specialist. “This contract highlights how the situation is rapidly evolving.”

Indeed, one thing to watch for is how the currency aspect of the deal unfolds. Shifting approaches toward currencies are also apparent in Saudi Arabia, which was the largest supplier of crude oil to China until Russia displaced it earlier this year.

Riyadh had telegraphed to Beijing in January 2023 that it’s open to discussions about trade in currencies other than the dollar—which is currently used to settle more than 80% of Saudi Arabia’s US$326 billion in annual oil exports, according to Eurizon SLJ Capital calculations.

In addition to becoming the Middle East’s key customer, China is also being approached for more investments of its own. This week, the UAE’s minister of industry and advanced technology, Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, was in Beijing seeking to bolster clean-energy cooperation.

That trip came after China and Saudi Arabia signed a number of agreements on renewable and green-hydrogen cooperation during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit in December 2023. And it comes ahead of the UAE hosting COP28, the United Nations climate summit (which Al Jaber, despite presiding over a massive fossil-fuel exporter, is overseeing).

Analysts at Trivium China, a policy research consultancy in Beijing, lent support to Xi’s move into the Middle East. Those green deals enable Chinese clean-tech firms to expand into lucrative foreign markets and strengthen economic and diplomatic ties with major Gulf swing states, they wrote.

While Beijing’s effort at diplomacy should be viewed as less important than currency considerations, there’s a third arena where Washington may wish to remain most vigilant, if it wishes to forestall displacement from the Middle East stage.

What hasn’t yet been seen from China yet is any big headline on a military connection to the Persian Gulf—whose sea lanes have long been overseen by the US. 

 

Al Quds Day commemorated in India

People in Mumbai (India) commemorated Yaum Al Quds on April 21, 2023, which is held annually on the last Friday of the Holy month of Ramadan. The event is an opportunity to speak out against oppression around the world, particularly the occupation of Palestine.

Large crowds gathered in various parts of the city to participate in the event, with many women joining the rallies. One rally took place from Khoja Masjid to Kesar Baug Hall in the Dongri area, while another took place from Zaib Palace to Chai Coffee in Andheri.

At the Haidery Jama Masjid in Mira Road, participants chanted slogans against the Israeli apartheid regime and its supporters in the US and UK.

Ehsan Haider Raza, a participant from Mira Road, expressed concern about the ongoing genocide of Palestinians and called on governments around the world to take notice and take action against it.

“The ongoing genocide of Palestinians is a cause of concern for the global community. Governments from around the world need to sit up, take notice of the daily killings taking place in occupied-Palestine,” he said.

A participant from Andheri, who preferred to remain anonymous, criticized the hypocrisy of the governments in the US and Europe, saying that if they can take a stand against the occupation of Ukraine by Russia, they should also take a similar stand against the 75-year occupation of Palestinian land.

Overall, the Yaum Al Quds event in Mumbai served as a platform for people to speak out against oppression and show solidarity with the people of Palestine.

 

Why Sudan conflict matters to the world?

Fighting in Sudan between forces loyal to two top generals has put the nation at risk of collapse and could also have consequences far beyond its borders.

Both sides have tens of thousands of fighters, foreign backers, mineral riches and other resources that could insulate them from sanctions. It’s a recipe for the kind of prolonged conflict that has devastated other countries in the Middle East and Africa, from Lebanon and Syria to Libya and Ethiopia.

The fighting, which began as Sudan attempted to transition to democracy, already has killed hundreds of people and left millions trapped in urban areas, sheltering from gunfire, explosions and looters.

A look at what is happening and the impact it could have outside Sudan.

Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan, head of the armed forces, and Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, the leader of a paramilitary group known as the Rapid Support Forces that grew out of Darfur’s notorious Janjaweed militias, are each seeking to seize control of Sudan. It comes two years after they jointly carried out a military coup and derailed a transition to democracy that had begun after protesters in 2019 helped force the ouster of longtime autocrat Omar al-Bashir. In recent months, negotiations were underway for a return to the democratic transition.

The victor of the latest fighting is likely to be Sudan’s next president, with the loser facing exile, arrest or death. A long-running civil war or partition of the Arab and African country into rival fiefdoms are also possible.

Terrified Sudanese are fleeing Khartoum, hauling whatever belongings they could carry and trying to get out of the capital, where forces loyal to the country's top two generals have been battling each other with tanks, artillery and airstrikes since Saturday.

 Alex De Waal, a Sudan expert at Tufts University, wrote in a memo to colleagues this week that the conflict should be seen as the first round of a civil war.

“Unless it is swiftly ended, the conflict will become a multi-level game with regional and some international actors pursuing their interests, using money, arms supplies and possibly their own troops or proxies,” he wrote.

Sudan is Africa’s third-largest country by area and straddles the Nile River. It uneasily shares its waters with regional heavyweights Egypt and Ethiopia. Egypt relies on the Nile to support its population of over 100 million, and Ethiopia is working on a massive upstream dam that has alarmed both Cairo and Khartoum.

Egypt has close ties to Sudan’s military, which it sees as an ally against Ethiopia. Cairo has reached out to both sides in Sudan to press for a cease-fire but is unlikely to stand by if the military faces defeat.

Sudan borders five additional countries, Libya, Chad, the Central African Republic, Eritrea and South Sudan, which seceded in 2011 and took 75% of Khartoum’s oil resources with it. Nearly all are mired in their own internal conflicts, with various rebel groups operating along the porous borders.

“What happens in Sudan will not stay in Sudan,” said Alan Boswell of the International Crisis Group. “Chad and South Sudan look most immediately at risk of potential spillover. But the longer (the fighting) drags on the more likely it is we see major external intervention.”

Arab Gulf countries have looked to the Horn of Africa in recent years as they have sought to project power across the region.

The United Arab Emirates, a rising military power that has expanded its presence across the Middle East and East Africa, has close ties to the Rapid Support Forces, which sent thousands of fighters to aid the UAE and Saudi Arabia in their war against Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Russia, meanwhile, has long harbored plans to build a naval base capable of hosting up to 300 troops and four ships in Port Sudan, on a crucial Red Sea trading route for energy shipments to Europe.

The Wagner Group, a Russian mercenary outfit with close ties to the Kremlin, has made inroads across Africa in recent years and has been operating in Sudan since 2017.

The United State and the European Union have imposed sanctions on two Wagner-linked gold mining firms in Sudan accused of smuggling.

Sudan became an international pariah when it hosted Osama bin Laden and other militants in the 1990s, when al-Bashir had empowered a hard-line Islamist government.

Its isolation deepened over the conflict in the western Darfur region in the 2000s, when Sudanese forces and the Janjaweed were accused of carrying out atrocities while suppressing a local rebellion. The International Criminal Court eventually charged al-Bashir with genocide.

The US removed Sudan from its list of state sponsors of terrorism after the government in Khartoum agreed to forge ties with Israel in 2020. But billions of dollars in loans and aid were put on hold after the 2021 military coup. That, along with the war in Ukraine and global inflation, sent the economy into free-fall.

Sudan’s economic woes would seem to provide an opening for Western nations to use economic sanctions to pressure both sides to stand down.

But in Sudan, as in other resource-rich African nations, armed groups have long enriched themselves through the shadowy trade in rare minerals and other natural resources.

Dagalo, a one-time camel herder from Darfur, has vast livestock holdings and gold mining operations. He’s also believed to have been well-paid by Gulf countries for the RSF’s service in Yemen battling Iran-aligned rebels.

The military controls much of the economy, and can also count on businessmen in Khartoum and along the banks of the Nile who grew rich during al-Bashir’s long rule and who view the RSF as crude warriors from the hinterlands.

“Control over political funds will be no less decisive than the battlefield,” De Waal said. “(The military) will want to take control of gold mines and smuggling routes. The RSF will want to interrupt major transport arteries including the road from Port Sudan to Khartoum.”

The sheer number of would-be mediators — including the US, the UN, the European Union, Egypt, Gulf countries, the African Union and the eight-nation eastern Africa bloc known as IGAD — could render any peace efforts more complicated than the war itself. “The external mediators risk becoming a traffic jam with no policeman,” De Waal said.