Saudi Arabia has positioned itself as a diplomatic interlocutor in Sudan’s war, seeking a ceasefire and a political settlement while maintaining close relations with the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF). Yet reports of alleged Saudi military assistance to the army have raised questions about how Riyadh’s diplomatic role intersects with its security interests. The issue extends beyond Sudan to Yemen and the wider Horn of Africa, where competing regional partnerships are reshaping the strategic balance around the Red Sea.
When fighting erupted between the SAF and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on 15 April 2023, Saudi Arabia and the United States helped convene negotiations in Jeddah. The two sides signed a Declaration of Commitment to Protect the Civilians of Sudan on 11 May 2023, committing themselves to obligations concerning civilian protection and humanitarian access.
The initiative established Riyadh as an important diplomatic channel. Saudi Arabia also had practical reasons to remain engaged: its Red Sea coastline lies opposite Sudan, and the kingdom helped evacuate foreign nationals from the country during the opening weeks of the conflict.
However, mediation did not produce a lasting ceasefire. The war continued, humanitarian needs grew, and regional powers became increasingly involved in Sudan’s political and security calculations. Saudi Arabia’s relationship with the Sudanese army subsequently became a focus of scrutiny, particularly as reporting emerged about alleged arms transfers and financial assistance.
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The central question is not whether Saudi Arabia has participated in mediation—it demonstrably has—but whether aspects of its wider policy have strengthened one of the belligerents in ways that complicate its diplomatic efforts.
Sudan: Between mediation and military support
The Jeddah process was an important attempt to establish humanitarian safeguards and reduce hostilities. Its limitations reflected the failure of the warring parties to sustain their commitments, as well as the wider difficulty of securing a political settlement between two armed organisations competing for control of the state.
Saudi Arabia later joined the United States, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt in the diplomatic grouping known as the Quad, which sought to coordinate international pressure for a humanitarian truce and a broader political transition. The involvement of these four countries also reflected the difficulty of separating Sudan’s internal conflict from the interests of neighbouring and external powers.
Questions about Riyadh’s role intensified following reporting on possible military assistance to the SAF. On 13 February 2026, Intelligence Online reported that Saudi Arabia had transferred three batteries of M777 155mm howitzers to the Sudanese army, together with ammunition. The publication said that images and videos it had reviewed showed the systems in use in Sudan and cited intelligence sources who said Ukrainian operatives had trained Sudanese artillery personnel.
A subsequent investigation by the European Centre for Strategic Studies and Policy examined the reported artillery transfers, flights between Riyadh and Port Sudan, and alleged logistical links between Saudi Arabia and Sudanese military authorities. The investigation argues that the relationship extends beyond diplomatic contact.
These reports raise important questions, but the evidentiary distinctions matter. Flight-tracking data can establish aircraft movements; it does not, on its own, establish the contents of a shipment or prove that a particular flight carried weapons or funds. Similarly, a report based on intelligence sources should be assessed in light of the underlying documents, imagery and independent corroboration available to readers.
The reported M777 transfers warrant particular scrutiny because artillery can significantly affect a force’s operational capabilities. If the transfers and their attribution to Saudi Arabia are independently substantiated, they would provide important evidence for assessing whether Riyadh’s security relationship with the SAF has affected the military balance. The available reporting should not, however, be treated as proof of every alleged logistical or financial connection described in secondary investigations.
The wider humanitarian context makes the question consequential. According to UNICEF’s Sudan Humanitarian Mid-Year Situation Report for 2026, 33.7 million people in Sudan required humanitarian assistance during the reporting period. The continued war has placed enormous pressure on civilians and humanitarian organisations.
Sudan’s army leadership has also resisted proposals intended to halt the fighting. Yet establishing a direct causal relationship between Saudi support and particular decisions by the SAF requires more than showing that reported assistance and rejected ceasefire proposals occurred during the same period. Such a conclusion would require evidence of the assistance’s scale, its operational impact and its relationship to the army’s negotiating calculations.
The distinction is important: external support may strengthen a belligerent’s position, but the extent to which it determines battlefield conduct or diplomatic decisions must be demonstrated rather than assumed.
A significant counterpoint: the Pakistan arms deal
Saudi Arabia’s role in Sudan is not necessarily one of uninterrupted military support. A Reuters report published on 20 April 2026 said Pakistan had suspended a proposed $1.5 billion weapons and aircraft sale to Sudan after Saudi Arabia requested that the deal be terminated and withdrew its planned financing. Reuters attributed the account to Pakistani security and diplomatic sources.
The reported decision complicates the claim that Riyadh simply seeks to maximise the SAF’s military capabilities regardless of the consequences. It suggests that Saudi Arabia may be willing to use its financial and diplomatic leverage to restrict particular transactions, even while maintaining political relations with the Sudanese army.
That does not resolve questions surrounding the separate artillery-transfer allegations. The two episodes concern different transactions and must be evaluated independently. Nevertheless, the Pakistan case points towards a more complicated policy: Saudi Arabia may be seeking influence over the military balance and the diplomatic process simultaneously, with decisions shaped by its own regional priorities.
The question for analysts is whether this selective use of leverage encourages a negotiated settlement or instead gives Riyadh greater control over the terms on which its Sudanese partners receive external support.
Yemen: The limits of military intervention and mediation
Yemen provides a relevant comparison because Saudi Arabia has combined military intervention with subsequent diplomatic engagement in the same conflict.
In March 2015, Riyadh led a coalition intervening in Yemen in support of the internationally recognised government after the Houthi movement seized Sanaa. The intervention failed to restore that government’s control over the entire country, and the conflict produced extensive humanitarian suffering, fragmented anti-Houthi forces and repeated diplomatic efforts.
Saudi Arabia’s later negotiations with the Houthis illustrate how a state can move between military confrontation and diplomacy as circumstances change. They do not, by themselves, prove that Saudi policy has deliberately prolonged the conflict. They do, however, highlight the limits of military pressure when the parties retain the ability to resist and when no mutually acceptable political settlement has emerged.
The kingdom’s relationship with Yemen’s Islah party further complicates the picture. Islah is a major political movement with Islamist, tribal and other constituencies. Its relationship with Riyadh has evolved over time, reflecting changing regional interests and the movement’s position in the conflict.
The Washington Institute’s analysis of Saudi relations with Islah describes the close ties between Saudi Arabia and elements of the party, while also outlining the tensions that have affected their relationship. The United Kingdom’s House of Commons Library briefing on Yemen in 2025–26 also identifies Saudi Arabia’s support for Islah politicians within the wider political landscape.
These relationships should be understood in their specific context. They demonstrate that Saudi Arabia has worked with political actors whose ideological backgrounds and regional alliances do not always align neatly with the preferences of its other partners.
The comparison with Sudan is therefore not that the two conflicts are identical. Rather, it is that Saudi Arabia’s security objectives can lead it to cooperate with a range of political and military actors, while its diplomatic role requires engagement with opponents and rivals as well.
The Horn of Africa: Strategic competition across the Red Sea
The regional picture becomes more complex when Sudan is considered alongside Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia. These countries occupy strategically important positions around the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, where maritime access, port infrastructure, security partnerships and political influence intersect.
Ethiopia’s lack of a coastline has made access to maritime trade a persistent strategic concern. Eritrea, meanwhile, controls Red Sea ports, including Assab and Massawa. Relations between Addis Ababa and Asmara have been shaped by a long history of conflict, unresolved security concerns and periodic diplomatic engagement.
Saudi Arabia’s contacts with Eritrea and other states in the Horn of Africa should be assessed against this broader context. Diplomatic engagement or security cooperation does not, on its own, establish that Riyadh is supporting one side in a regional confrontation. Any claim that Saudi Arabia is assisting the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), or deliberately encouraging tensions between Ethiopia and Eritrea, requires specific and independently verifiable evidence. Without that evidence, such allegations should not be presented as established elements of Saudi policy.
The competition between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates adds another dimension. A Reuters report on the rivalry between the two Gulf powers in the Horn of Africa described how their competition has extended across Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea, as both countries pursue relationships and strategic interests around the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.
This rivalry matters because regional governments are not merely passive recipients of external influence. They pursue their own interests, cultivate multiple partnerships and sometimes use competition among outside powers to strengthen their bargaining positions. Saudi policy must therefore be analysed alongside the decisions of African governments and other regional actors, rather than treated as the sole explanation for instability.
Somalia: Training, security cooperation and unresolved questions
Somalia offers a more specific example of the need to distinguish documented cooperation from allegations about its possible consequences.
Saudi Arabia and Somalia have expanded defence cooperation, and reporting in 2026 described a Saudi-funded programme to train thousands of Somali recruits. A September 2026 report by EU Reporter discussed reports of a programme involving more than 5,000 recruits, while noting that there was no evidence that Saudi officials controlled where the trained personnel would ultimately be deployed.
Separately, Garowe Online reported in September 2026 that Somalia’s national security adviser confirmed that some soldiers trained at a Saudi-funded camp had crossed into Ethiopia’s Somali region with permission to visit their families. The report said that the number of soldiers involved remained unclear.
These accounts establish the relevance of the training programme to regional security, but they do not establish that Saudi Arabia intended the recruits to fight in Sudan. Nor do they demonstrate that Riyadh controls their future deployments.
Claims that Somali recruits could be transferred to another conflict should therefore remain attributed allegations unless corroborated by deployment orders, official statements, reliable documentation or other independent evidence. The distinction between funding a training programme and directing the subsequent use of its graduates is fundamental.
The episode nevertheless raises legitimate policy questions about oversight, accountability and the regional implications of expanding military training programmes. These questions can be investigated without assuming that an unverified deployment plan exists.
Maritime security: A defensive initiative or a wider instrument of influence?
Saudi Arabia’s regional strategy also includes a more overtly multilateral maritime-security dimension. On 30 July 2026, the kingdom announced a new maritime defence initiative with 13 other countries, bringing the total number of participating states to 14.
According to Al Jazeera’s report on the Multinational Maritime Defense Alliance, the initiative is intended to strengthen cooperation, intelligence-sharing and maritime operations to protect navigation through the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. Saudi Arabia presented the initiative as defensive and directed towards common maritime threats.
The alliance includes countries with different strategic interests, among them Egypt, Sudan, Somalia, Djibouti, Yemen, Pakistan and Turkey. Its formation underscores the importance that regional governments attach to shipping security and the protection of critical trade routes.
The initiative can be interpreted in more than one way. It may strengthen cooperation against threats to commercial navigation and energy infrastructure. It may also increase Saudi Arabia’s influence over the coordination of regional maritime security. Those interpretations are not mutually exclusive.
The alliance’s existence does not establish that Saudi Arabia is contributing to instability in the Horn of Africa. Rather, it creates a further test of Riyadh’s regional role: whether its security partnerships help manage competing interests or become entangled in the rivalries that have complicated diplomacy elsewhere.
Can Saudi Arabia be both mediator and stakeholder?
Saudi Arabia’s position across the Red Sea cannot be reduced to a simple choice between peacemaker and instigator. In Sudan, Riyadh has played a recognised role in diplomatic efforts while maintaining a close relationship with the Sudanese Armed Forces. Reports of alleged arms transfers raise questions about the compatibility of those roles, but the strength of the conclusions depends on the evidence available for each reported transaction.
Yemen illustrates the limitations of military intervention and the changing relationship between coercion and diplomacy. Somalia and the wider Horn of Africa demonstrate how security cooperation can intersect with regional competition, while also showing why claims about the intentions or ultimate use of military assistance require careful verification.
The evidence points to a regional policy shaped by overlapping objectives: protecting maritime routes, maintaining political influence, managing rivalries with other Gulf powers and seeking outcomes in neighbouring conflicts that align with Saudi interests. These objectives may reinforce one another in some circumstances and come into tension in others.
For Sudan, the key issue is whether Saudi Arabia’s political, financial or military relationships strengthen incentives for a negotiated settlement or contribute to conditions in which the fighting can continue. Answering that question requires verified information about transfers, financing, military capabilities and diplomatic decisions—not inference from political relationships alone.
The same standard should apply across the Red Sea region. Saudi Arabia’s declared commitment to stability deserves scrutiny, but scrutiny is most persuasive when it distinguishes documented conduct from allegations and strategic interpretation.
Ultimately, the question is not simply whether a state can act as both mediator and stakeholder. States frequently do. The more consequential question is whether their conduct supports the settlements they publicly advocate—and whether the evidence demonstrates a gap between their diplomatic commitments and their actions on the ground.
