Expert Comment

A strengthening of ties between Iran and Sudan?

Sudan

Recent news that sixty Syrian combatants on the side of President al-Assad had been admitted to a military hospital in Port Sudan (a city located on the Red Sea) appears to vindicate reports over the last few months of a close union being forged between Sudan and Iran.

Last October the Iranian naval flotilla freighter Kharg and corvette Shahid Naqdi docked in Port Sudan, just days after the air strikes on the munition factory in Yarmouk, near Khartoum.The strike was supposedly carried out by Israel in retaliation against Sudan's apparent supply of weapons to Palestinian militias.