While global attention remains fixed on the wars roiling the Middle East, Iran is quietly waging a shadow war in Sudan, where Tehran is emerging as a decisive backer of the increasingly Islamist military, the Sudanese Armed Forces. 

Since new fighting erupted in April 2023 between Sudan’s military, which runs the government, and its chief rival, a coalition of militias known as the Rapid Support Forces, the battlefield has become a proxy for Iran’s broader regional struggle against its rivals. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps is providing munitions, drones, and intelligence — support that has helped the Sudanese Armed Forces regain the upper hand after earlier defeats at the capital, Khartoum, and in the Darfur region. 

“Iranian-supplied drones have helped the SAF regain the strategic and operational initiative, and to retake ground after suffering heavy losses to the RSF in the earlier stages of Sudan’s current civil war,” the director of foreign policy at the JINSA Gemunder Center for Defense & Strategy, Jonathan Ruhe, tells The New York Sun.

“Iranian drones have been instrumental in SAF’s victories over RSF,” added a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Husain Abdul-Hussain. “By March 2025, SAF had captured Khartoum city, and by May, the entire Khartoum state.” 

Responding to the new technology, the Rapid Support Forces adapted by gaining its own drones. The United Arab Emirates is widely suspected of routing the arms through Chad into Rapid Support Forces-controlled areas — allegations the UAE denies. 

 In May 2025, the Rapid Support Forces conducted coordinated attacks on Port Sudan, targeting fuel depots, power stations, and military installations. These strikes disrupted Sudanese Armed Forces logistics and underscored the Rapid Support Forces’ own growing sophistication. 

The attack prompted Sudan’s army to cut diplomatic ties with Abu Dhabi, accusing it of fueling the Rapid Support Forces’ battlefield edge. The rivalry reflects broader tensions: the UAE and Iran have clashed for decades over Gulf security, regional influence, and disputed islands in the Strait of Hormuz.

Tehran’s efforts to cultivate a strategically vital relationship by leveraging drone technology, diplomatic ties, and ideological alliances, including among rebellious factions under the Sudanese Armed Forces’ umbrella, could reshape the Horn of Africa’s geopolitical landscape, Mr. Ruhe says.

“Iran’s influence should be measured in terms of its goals to gain a Red Sea base and access to Sudanese trade and natural resources,” he says, noting that such influence is “somewhat limited” because Russia, Turkey, the UAE, and others are also pursuing similar concessions.

“If Iran can ultimately translate that aid into a Red Sea foothold, then its intervention could begin resembling what it has done in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen: sending long-range offensive weapons and military advisers to encircle the Arabian Peninsula and threaten Israel, U.S. bases, and key shipping lanes,” Mr. Ruhe says.

Sudan’s civil war has also become a stage for the broader Iran-Israel rivalry. Sudan had previously taken steps toward normalizing relations with Israel under the Abraham Accords, a Washington-brokered agreement first signed in 2020 designed to expand diplomatic and economic ties between Israel and several Arab nations. 

The deal was brokered by the first Trump administration, and in exchange for its participation, Sudan was removed from the United States State Sponsors of Terrorism list, which was a crucial step for the country’s economic future.

Sudan’s participation, however, was limited and largely symbolic, and progress stalled amid political instability.

“When it comes to Israel, Sudan was late and frankly half-hearted in joining the Abraham Accords, and normalization never really took off before the current civil war. In Iran’s cold calculus, one benefit of Sudan’s crisis is to push normalization way down the list of priorities,” Mr. Ruhe says.

Before the civil war erupted in April 2023, the chief of the Sudanese Armed Forces and the de facto president of the nation, General Abdel Fattah Burhan, met with an Israeli official in Khartoum, signaling a willingness to engage with Israel. Since then, however, he has allied with radical Islamist militias opposed to Israel, most notably the Baraa Battalion, led by Almosbah Abuzeyd, who openly threatens Israel.

“Abuzeyd is often pictured with the Palestinian Kufiyah on his shoulders and threatens to destroy Israel and liberate Jerusalem,” Mr. Abdul-Hussain tells the Sun. “Tehran hopes to connect with Islamist militias allied with SAF. If there is a fallout between SAF and its Islamist militia allies — which I predict will happen because Burhan does not control them as he thinks he does — these militias could turn to Iran for support, making Tehran their main sponsor.”

If tensions emerge — which seems likely — they could strengthen Iran’s influence in Sudan and across the Red Sea region. However, another factor could deter that strategy — American efforts to influence General Burhan. 

Earlier this month, General Burhan, who was re-sanctioned by the Treasury Department in the final days of the Biden administration, met in Switzerland with President Trump’s senior advisor to Africa, Massad Boulos, to discuss a potential ceasefire and humanitarian aid. The meeting, brokered by Qatar, came shortly after the general reorganized senior military leadership in an attempt to consolidate control over officers with ties to Islamist groups.

In July, Mr. Trump announced a new push for peace in Sudan, including a meeting of foreign ministers from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt who are part of a quartet seeking to negotiate peace and a civilian government in Sudan.

While the ongoing war is fueled by competing interests seeking a foothold, the use of drones and other technology has raised concerns about civilian casualties and the ethical implications of remote warfare.

“Many people, including children, are burned alive, and survivors are forced to eat of their flesh. Men are forced to watch their wives being raped, and then the men were killed, showing others (that) the men could not protect their wives,” the executive director of the nongovernmental organization Sudan Sunrise, Tom Prichard, tells the Sun. “The notion that these atrocities are being sponsored from the outside is unconscionable.” 

Meanwhile, the human toll of Sudan’s war is staggering. More than 150,000 people have died and more than 12 million people have been displaced. Famine conditions have spread across the country, with 33 million people — two-thirds of Sudan’s population — requiring humanitarian assistance.

The war’s impact extends beyond Sudan’s borders. Neighboring countries are struggling to absorb refugee flows, and the destabilization threatens broader regional security.