How Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt Turned Sudan Into a Proxy Battlefield and Why Peace Keeps Failing
Sudan's civil war is now in its fourth year. It has produced the world's largest displacement crisis, with nearly 12 million people forcibly displaced and an estimated 30.4 million requiring humanitarian assistance. Famine has been confirmed in Darfur and Kordofan. More than 21 million people face acute food insecurity. And behind those numbers sits a cast of four regional powers Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt whose overlapping military and political interventions have ensured that every ceasefire attempt collapses before it can take hold.
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| Soldiers arrive at Allafah market, recently recaptured by Sudan's army from the RSF paramilitary, in the Al Kalalah district, south of Khartoum, Sudan, on March 27, 2025. |
Turkey: $120 Million in Drones and a Shadow War
Documents published by the Washington Post in March 2025 revealed that Turkish defence company Baykar covertly funnelled approximately $120 million in military equipment to the Sudanese Armed Forces, including Bayraktar TB2 drones, Akinci systems, warheads, command centres, and technical support. Turkish drone operators have been active inside Sudan. UN figures released in May 2026 confirmed that drones were responsible for more than 80 percent of all recorded civilian deaths in the first four months of 2026 alone at least 880 people. A NATO member state is supplying the weapons producing the majority of Sudan's civilian casualties, in violation of the UN arms embargo extended through October 2026.
When Sudan's army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan visited Ankara on June 2, 2026, Erdogan announced plans to deepen already close cooperation in trade, agriculture, energy, and defence. Horn Review's analysis confirmed that Turkey's military footprint has become entrenched in the SAF's war campaign through successive arms deals, training, and technical support, with cargo deliveries to Port Sudan in early 2026 signalling Turkey's growing integration into a Saudi-led effort to suppress the RSF and restore centralised control.
Qatar: Funding the Islamist Resurgence
While Turkey supplies the hardware, Qatar is engineering the post-war political architecture. Qatar's backing of the SAF has operated primarily through Deputy Commander Lieutenant General Yasser al-Atta, who has announced plans to formally integrate Islamist militias into the SAF's command structure in what he calls military consolidation. The primary militia being absorbed, the Al-Baraa ibn Malik Brigade, was designated by the US State Department as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation on March 9, 2026. The brigade has been linked to mass executions, chemical warfare deployment, and direct IRGC training in drone operations.
Qatar's dual-track strategy humanitarian funding as diplomatic cover, political and material support for Islamist factions beneath the threshold of Western visibility mirrors its approach in Gaza. The leader of the Al-Baraa ibn Malik Brigade stood outside the Qatari embassy in Khartoum in March 2025 to publicly thank Doha for its support. Doha's long-term goal is to ensure that legacy Muslim Brotherhood and National Congress Party networks have a permanent, institutionalised role in post-war Sudan directly defying the civilian transition frameworks that Western governments have been constructing since 2019.
Egypt and Saudi Arabia: Strategic Interests Over Civilian Protection
Egypt's involvement reflects its existential fear of instability on its southern border. Following the RSF's capture of El Fasher, Cairo redrew its security map, combining military coordination with the SAF and establishing a joint operations room in North Kordofan. Egypt has supplied weapons, intelligence, and early-warning radar systems while simultaneously hosting five rounds of consultative meetings on Sudan peace efforts, a combination of active military support and diplomatic positioning that gives it leverage over any eventual settlement.
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| A view of the damage surrounding Al-Shaab Teaching Hospital following intense clashes between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces in Khartoum, Sudan, on March 29, 2025. |
Saudi Arabia co-hosted the Jeddah peace talks in 2023 alongside the United States, produced more than a dozen failed ceasefire agreements, and has repeatedly pressed al-Burhan toward a negotiated settlement. Yet Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated in June 2026 that the divisions between the UAE and Saudi Arabia have truly complicated the ability to bring the war to an end, as Riyadh backs the SAF while Abu Dhabi backs the RSF with the broader Turkey-Qatar-Egypt alignment on the SAF side creating a lopsided external intervention landscape that the RSF has exploited to resist ceasefire pressure.