Iran’s Sudan Strategy Raises Fears of New Jihadist Hub

As Sudan’s devastating civil war drags through its third year, experts warn the conflict could become an arena for Iranian strategic expansion and Islamist extremism in Africa, as Tehran and the Sudanese branch of the Muslim Brotherhood revive a long-standing alliance and threaten to turn the embattled nation into a staging ground for transnational jihadist operations.

…

“Iran’s involvement in Sudan serves multiple goals, even amid all the larger wartime changes regionwide and inside Iran,” said Jonathan Ruhe, Fellow for American Strategy at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA). “Because Sudan is so far from its own borders, Iran ultimately benefits from fomenting instability for countries that are much closer to the [Sudanese] conflict. Sudan is one more arena for tensions among Iran’s Arab rivals, challenging their ability to form a united front against Tehran.”

“Even if Iran-backed forces don’t ‘win’ [in the Sudanese civil war], Iran wins by threatening to encircle U.S.-aligned Arab countries with its proxy forces, worsening Sudan’s power vacuum, and triggering refugee outflows that stoke tensions with, and inside, neighboring countries,” Ruhe said.

The war in Sudan has created one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, with an estimated 150,000 deaths and nearly 12 million people displaced. Both the SAF and the RSF stand accused of widespread war crimes, including mass atrocities against civilians, systematic sexual violence and forced blockades.

The convergence of Iranian strategic ambitions with local Islamist networks threatens not only to prolong Sudan’s humanitarian crisis, but also to turn the African country into a hub for extremist recruitment and operational planning. Experts warn it may also disrupt global maritime routes in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, where Iran-backed Houthi forces in Yemen are already threatening international shipping.

“Even before [the Iran war], but especially now with the reopening of the Houthi front in Yemen and recent attacks near the Suez Canal, the Sudan conflict is one more way Iran can threaten regional shipping and pressure the United States by ratcheting up Red Sea instability,” Ruhe said.

…