Egypt has begun a diplomatic drive to rally support from other African nations in its water dispute with Ethiopia, and to counter growing Israeli influence in the continent, analysts and sources say.
Egypt's initiatives in the strategically vital Horn of Africa have put mounting pressure on Ethiopia, they told The National, although Addis Ababa has yet to show flexibility over the operation of its giant dam on the Nile.
Egypt has deployed as many as 15,000 troops in Somalia as part of a peacekeeping force and a military training and support mission. It has also secured military facilities in Eritrea and Djibouti. The territories of all three countries block Ethiopia’s access to the Red Sea, which it is desperate to secure.
Egypt has also rallied regional and international opposition to Addis Ababa's attempts to gain a coastal foothold in the breakaway region of Somaliland and has also negotiated for a level of control over Eritrea’s Red Sea port of Asab and Djibouti’s Doraleh port, after the two nations authorised Cairo to upgrade and overhaul the two facilities. Ethiopia relies heavily on Doraleh for commercial shipments.
In Sudan, Egypt has backed the Sudanese army in its war against a powerful paramilitary, according to sources familiar with Cairo's activity in the region. Egypt has also struck military co-operation accords with Kenya and Uganda.
The sources and analysts said Egypt’s moves in the Horn of Africa are not only designed to put pressure on Ethiopia, but also to check what Cairo sees as Israel's desire to gain a foothold in the southern reaches of the Red Sea and bolster Ethiopia's defences in case its dispute with Cairo boils over into an armed conflict, whether direct or by proxy.
Egypt and Israel are bound by a 1979 peace treaty, but relations have sunk to their lowest level after the Gaza war broke out in October 2023. Egypt accuses its neighbour of genocide and deliberately starving residents of the Palestinian enclave.
"Ethiopia has been trying to assume the role of a regional naval and land heavyweight with the support of foreign powers, including Israel," said Salah Halima, deputy head of Egypt's Council for African Affairs.
"But joint efforts by Egypt and its allies are curtailing Addis Ababa's ambitions. It hasn't secured a foothold on the Red Sea, and Israel's own bid to get one is mired in a vacuum without a trace on the ground."
However, Ethiopia has stood firm against Egypt and Sudan’s demand that it enter into a legally binding agreement over the operation of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. The US President Donald Trump's offer to mediate has not yet yielded tangible progress.
Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El Sisi has repeatedly described the dam as an "existential threat" to Egypt, whose 109 million people depend on the Nile for nearly all their fresh water needs.
"Egypt will not be lenient when it comes to its existential water interests," Mr El Sisi told Massad Boulos, Mr Trump's senior adviser on Arab and African affairs, according to a presidential statement issued after their meeting in Cairo on Tuesday.
Ethiopia has assured the two downstream nations throughout more than a decade of fruitless negotiations that no harm would come to them from the dam and insisted that its operation is an internal matter in which no outside party should interfere.
The dispute between Egypt and Ethiopia, however, has also taken on racial undertones, with the latter accusing the former of unfairly claiming the lion's share of the river's water and being indifferent to the interests of sub-Saharan Nile basin nations.
Ethiopia has also accused Egypt of offering clandestine support to secessionist movements in the country, chiefly in the Tigray region. Ethiopia brutally crushed a rebellion in Tigray in 2022, but ominous signs are emerging that the conflict could be reignited.
The prospect of a new war between Ethiopia and Eritrea, a close ally of Egypt that seceded from Ethiopia in 1992 after a long civil war, is widely seen to be drawing closer as Ethiopia's rhetoric against its neighbour becomes increasingly belligerent over access to the Red Sea.
"The risk of war between Ethiopia and Eritrea is severe," said Michael Hanna, a senior analyst based in New York. Egypt, he predicted, could be indirectly drawn into the conflict on the side of Eritrea.
"But it's not in Egypt's interest to see Ethiopia broken up. It wants a unified Ethiopia that can negotiate an agreement on the dam," he said.
Egypt rejects Ethiopia's accusations of meddling in its domestic affairs and the suggestion that it is victimising fellow Nile basin countries by using too much of the river's water.
To counter the latter accusation, Egypt has repeatedly offered to be a partner in development projects undertaken by fellow Nile basin countries, including those designed to make better and more efficient use of the river's water.
But Egypt has also been calling for a charter binding all 11 Nile basin nations to co-ordinate the use of water from the river and its tributaries, as well as prohibit the construction of new dams without the approval of all.
Seeking to dent Ethiopia's traditionally strong standing in Africa as the second-most populous nation on the continent – with nearly 130 million people – and as home to the African Union's headquarters, Egypt has been trying to expand its sphere of influence beyond the Horn of Africa.
It has been using a mix of soft diplomacy, sharing of technical expertise, and its rapidly growing military industry, to woo nations across Africa.
In the past year alone it has struck arms deals, negotiated military co-operation agreements or broadened economic and commercial ties with countries as far afield as Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Kenya, Algeria and Morocco.
It has also provided training in Egypt for military cadets from at least a dozen African nations, as well as civil servants, members of the judiciary and security forces. Drawing on decades of experience fighting homegrown extremists, Egyptian security advisers have been instructing members of African security forces in counter-terrorism tactics.
"President El Sisi has decided we must return to Africa for several reasons, chief among them is to check the spread of Israel's influence there," said Samir Farag, a retired Egyptian army general turned military and strategic analyst.
"We have been doing so much for police and army officers from Africa that we have a special department for them in the Nasser Military Academy," he said, referring to one of the two most prestigious military schools in Egypt.
Mr Hanna said taking a high-profile role in Africa does not "come naturally" to Egypt after it spent decades looking to the Arab world, Europe and the United States for closer ties, economic aid, arms purchases and technology.
"It has been trying to catch up ever since it emerged from the neglect shown to Africa during the rule of Anwar Sadat [1970-1981] and later Hosni Mubarak [1981-2011], as well as the period of instability that followed Mubarak's ouster," he said.
