The Alliance of Fire: How the Iranians, Houthis, and the Muslim Brotherhood in Sudan are collaborating to ignite the Red Sea?

Abdel Moneim Suleiman

Perhaps the war in Sudan is bound to be heading towards a darker phase, as a new geopolitical nightmare looms on the horizon, portending a reality even darker than the chaos of weapons and bloodshed suffocating the country at the moment.

The potential Houthi presence on the Sudanese coast overlooking the Red Sea, as reported by multiple sources, does not appear to be an isolated domestic development, but rather an advanced link in an intertwined regional project with threads connecting the Houthis, the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and extend to militias as well as the Islamist Movements that have managed to reorganize their ranks under the umbrella of Port Sudan, where the Sudanese Islamic Movement has returned to the forefront through the gateway of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF).

Nevertheless, this expansion not only threatens shipping lanes in the Red Sea, but also leads down the path of a highly dangerous strategic shift. For it constitutes a geopolitical leverage that could potentially affect the core of the global economic security and redraw the maps of influence in one of the most sensitive and influential sea lanes in terms of international energy and trade equations.

Houthi attacks on ships in the Red Sea were resumed, reflecting an alarming escalation in the logistical capabilities of the Iran-backed group. The attack on the oil tanker Scarlet Ray in early September invoked a new wave of international concerns regarding the security of navigation in one of the world’s most significant sea lanes.

Although the Houthis have repeatedly declared their ability to target vessels in the northern Red Sea, the recent attacks, according to a report issued by (Middle East Forum) magazine, revealed an unprecedented operational scope, with strikes reaching nearly (600 miles) from the Yemeni coast. The location of the incident —approximately 160 miles off the Sudanese coast— raised additional questions about the origin and nature of the aforementioned attacks.

Hence, the data -naturally- propels a new hypothesis to the forefront: The Houthis may have expanded their operations using bases or launch pads off the Sudanese coast, whether using drones, missiles, or speedboats. If this hypothesis, which has been corroborated on the ground, proves to be true, it would represent a dangerous shift in the maritime threat map in the Red Sea. As it indicates that the Yemeni conflict is beginning to clearly overlap with the war in Sudan, potentially heralding a more complex phase in regional security and international navigation.

Furthermore, the Iranian military presence in Sudan, coupled with the transfer of combat systems to the Sudanese Army, such as Iranian weapons, drones (Mohajer-6 and Ababil), and radar systems, in addition to the presence of military experts in Port Sudan, paints the following scene: a practical alliance between Tehran and the forces of political Islam in Khartoum that strengthens the Houthi project and provides it with a new base. It also provides extremist groups with a safe environment for coordination, financing, and manufacturing.

Therefore, verbal condemnation or partial sanctions used as a deterrent against the Sudanese Islamists who control the Army command are no longer sufficient. For at this juncture, a decisive, multi-dimensional global approach is required: Banning the Sudanese Islamic Movement and all organizations affiliated with the armed Brotherhood network in Sudan, cutting off their political and military funding lines, activating deterrent punitive mechanisms targeting suppliers and intermediaries, in addition to pursuing the smuggling network and severing its maritime and air links.

In addition, serious international support is needed to impose the Sovereignty of civil State institutions in Sudan by restoring the civilian rule that the Islamists overthrew through the military. Then, launching programs in an effort to address the roots of extremism on intellectual and social levels, eliminating the sources of recruitment for ideological and regional militias, and establishing a unified, professional national army based on a purely national, non-ideological doctrine.

The battle for stability in the Red Sea is not an internal Sudanese naval battle; rather, its a struggle over the future of the international order and the international community’s ability to protect global trade, security, and peace from dangerous alliances that have continued to operate in the shadows. As the world now faces two choices: Either confront the return of the “Muslim Brotherhood in Sudan” and its Iranian alliance with them with all seriousness and resolve, or wait for the Red Sea to transform into a vast arena of chaos, causing entire countries to collapse.

The world is called upon to speak decisively before darkness swallows up whatever remains of light. Dismantling the Muslim Brotherhood groups that lay claim as well as control the Sudanese Army, and drying up their sources is no longer a political option; its a necessity to protect Sudan and the security of the world. Without curbing this destructive intellectual and military cancer, the Sudan of the two Niles and the Red Sea, will remain a conduit for chaos and a threat to human peace.