Port Sudan - Security authorities in the eastern Red Sea state have raised the level of preparations during the past hours, and deployed large military reinforcements in several strategic locations in the capital, Port Sudan, amid fears of the infiltration of Rapid Support fighters into the city, which witnesses a heavy presence of ambassadors, diplomatic missions and thousands fleeing the war in Khartoum.

Since last Monday, the streets of Port Sudan have witnessed heavy military movements and the closure of many roads leading to military sites, after the security authorities seized weapons and explosives, as well as spotted a number of sleeper cells and arrested members of the Rapid Support Forces.

Subsequently, the government imposed a curfew and renewed the state of emergency, stressing that no bus to Khartoum or other cities is allowed to leave, in an attempt to prevent the departure of the rest of the suspicious elements, and suspended transportation coming to the Red Sea State from the rest of the states, including Khartoum, indefinitely.

Weapon and explosives

According to security sources who spoke to Al Jazeera Net, the decisions of the local government were taken after the disclosure of the entry of large quantities of qualitative weapons, including explosives and weapons used for sabotage more than direct combat, and also talked about the monitoring of the security authorities for dozens of employees of the Rapid Support Forces arrived Port Sudan in civilian clothes, and reported that residents in a number of neighborhoods informed the authorities of the presence of elements and a large number of them were arrested.

According to a military source who spoke to Al Jazeera Net, the detainees (refused to specify their number) a group affiliated with the Rapid Support Forces infiltrated the city taking advantage of public transportation, and arrested inside hotel apartments were rented last week, and are currently under investigation.

The source did not rule out a link between the arms shipment seized this week in Port Sudan and the arrested cell, and said that investigations will show all the details while the security services continue to pursue others, and the main source of the weapon is being investigated, ruling out its entry into the port of Port Sudan from Yemen directly.

The authorities are investigating – according to security sources – the plan of the Rapid Support Forces, which arrived in the port city, without ruling out its arrangement to carry out qualitative operations such as bombings, assassinations and spreading confusion in Port Sudan, after turning into a major administrative center with the transfer of a number of ministers and ambassadors to carry out their work from it, instead of Khartoum, which is witnessing violent clashes in many of its areas.

On April 16, the army targeted 3 rapid support headquarters in Port Sudan, evacuating them from their members, who fled with about 20 cars, while the security authorities seized more than 30 other vehicles, according to security sources.


Dangerous development

Regarding the Rapid Support Forces' planning to transfer their military operations to the Red Sea to ease the pressure on the forces in Khartoum, political analyst Abdel Moneim al-Faki said that it is a dangerous development of the Sudanese war that turns it into a regional war, given the impact of the Red Sea coast on the security of the region and global trade.

Al-Faki believes – in his speech to Al Jazeera Net – that the transition of the conflict to the Red Sea will open the door wide for the intervention of regional international powers in the conflict directly.

At the local level, the analyst says that the conflict in Port Sudan and its surroundings will enter local and social parties in eastern Sudan that have declared their support for the armed forces, as well as lead to total economic paralysis by stopping the only artery linking Sudan to the outside world, and on top of that it will force United Nations agencies and diplomatic missions to leave Sudan altogether.

Al-Faki talks about the weapons seized a few days ago in the area of "Morsi Dibbat Salem", a bay in a rugged area used by arms smugglers and located south of the city of Tokar and close to the Bab al-Mandab Strait, which makes the accusation directed to countries that have a military presence in Yemen or Eritrea.

"However, the ruggedness of the area and its aftermath makes it difficult to continue monitoring it, if there are parties that intend to use it to smuggle weapons," he said, adding that he does not rule out that behind the seized weapons are gangs known for their activity in this area.


Regional and global planner

Mohammed al-Mu'tasim, an expert on eastern Sudan, said the causes of the war in Sudan are more regional and international than local.

Al-Mu'tasim talks to Al Jazeera Net about "eternal targeting of Sudan's resources, and that its useful location for every aspirant to extend influence at the continental level, which has a positive stimulation of interventions," pointing out that what is going on now from the military conflict continues to seek influential countries in the world to rearrange it again.

Sudan has been targeted since 2015 in the context of the project "Shaping the Future of Change in Sudan", which aims to divide it into 5 states in the east, west and the new south, next to the north and center, thus facilitating its management, as he put it.

The spokesman believes that the Rapid Support Forces represent a regional and international arm rather than a local façade, as they are, according to him, an agent for global powers aimed at tearing Sudan apart for their benefit.

He pointed to the US-Russian conflict over the Red Sea base, adding, "Israel also does not seem far from competing under the well-known global strategy, in addition to calls for the establishment of new ports, especially the port of Abu Amama and the associated paved roads that cross East Africa to its west through Chad to Niger, all of which are not calculated by regional and international powers to account for the owners of the country."

He stressed that the indicators of rapid support for eastern Sudan exist through the seizure of weapons and intelligence cells in the Red Sea, Kassala and Gedarif, adding, "But the active forces in the east are preparing to confront this scheme, in order to preserve the sovereignty of the east, and preserve all of Sudan from this threat that threatens stability and internal and global peace, and it is time to deal with it seriously."