As the world increasingly reacts with alarm at Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu’s declared goal of leveling the southern Gaza city of Rafah to the ground, the spotlight has fallen on Egypt.
Will the North African heavyweight stand idly by, allowing the Tel Aviv regime to intensify its ongoing genocide in Gaza, or make good its threat to annul the so-called “peace treaty”?
Authorities in Cairo would know that plans by Israel to populate Gaza with Jewish settlements require Egypt’s collaboration to absorb Palestinian refugees into parts of the Sinai.
What it translates to is that Gaza is ethnically cleansed of 2.3 million Palestinians and replaced with an exclusively Jewish settler colony.
However, the sticky point is Rafah, where more than a million and a half Palestinians who were violently forced to evacuate their homes in the North are huddled in tents and makeshift shelters, facing death from relentless air strikes, hunger, cold and thirst.
In addition, the dire need for essential medical supplies has spawned the worst humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, something the world has never seen in the modern era.
So, the big question is, how will Egypt respond to these developments?
Egypt, of today, under the military rule of General Abdel Fateh el-Sisi, is a far cry from the leadership of Mohamed Morsi.
During the exciting but short-lived era of the Arab Spring, tens of thousands of protesters across Cairo flooded Tahrir Square demanding the removal of Hosni Mubarak from his thirty-year reign.
Following the popular mass revolt against his brutal dictatorship, Mubarak was forced to resign. It marked a period that saw the country transitioning from tyranny to democracy when Morsi was elected to lead Egypt in its first free and fair democratic election.
The change of fortunes did not sit well with Western powers that began a series of dirty tricks to oust him, notwithstanding the fact that Morsi had acquired a comfortable majority during the elections.
A classic case of a regime-change plot began to be engineered when a number of countries connived to unseat him through a bloody military coup.
America, Israel, UAE and Saudi Arabia’s candidate for regime change was the head of Egypt’s notorious secret service/intelligence unit – el-Sisi – who was also in charge of the military.
In an elaborate scheme, a rebellion against Morsi was orchestrated as a prelude to the coup. Reports subsequently revealed that the UAE government funded the uprising.
These regimes shared common misgivings about Morsi’s ties to the Muslim Brotherhood (Al Ikhwan Al Muslimeen) and were reluctant to have the Arab world’s most powerful nation-state in the hands of the Ikhwan.
Chatham House reported that recordings leaked from the Egyptian Ministry of Defence and confidential testimony from US officials fingered the UAE as having provided funds to support the activity of Tamarrod, the movement that organized the rebellion against Morsi.
As soon as el-Sisi stepped in to take Morsi’s seat, Saudi Arabia and the UAE made no effort to conceal their approval. Both Western-backed oligarchs gleefully displayed their support with transfers of huge chunks of money.
The background to the massacre is well documented. According to media reports, tens of thousands of Egyptians were out in the streets and city squares to demand the reinstatement of Morsi.
To illustrate the brazeness of the UAE, its Crown Prince Mohamed bin Zayed led a delegation to Cairo in solidarity with coup leader el-Sisi, less than a fortnight after the horror of the Muslim Brotherhood, when around a thousand people were mowed down.
On August 14, 2013, as the protests had entered their sixth consecutive week, thousands staged a sit-in at the Rabaa al-Adawiya Square, one of Cairo’s busiest thoroughfares, as they had for more than a month.
Sisi’s forces moved in using armored vehicles and bulldozers, in addition to ground troops and snipers on rooftops carrying live ammunition, to attack the square from all sides and close off safe exits, according to witnesses and human rights organizations, as reported in media.
Morsi, the elected president, was jailed where he subsequently died, while el-Sisi has now been in power for just over a decade. To date, there has been no accountability for the Rabaa massacre.
From Rabaa to Rafah, el-Sisi’s dismal human rights record does not hold any promise that he will deter Netanyahu’s planned incursion into Rafah or stop him from expelling Palestinians from there.
Egypt under el-Sisi has been reduced to a mere spectator, observing the slaughter of thousands of innocent Palestinians as the genocide intensifies in Gaza without any effort to flex its muscles.
Iqbal Jassat is an executive member of Media Review Network, Johannesburg, South Africa.
(The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of Press TV)
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Since Israel’s assault on Gaza began, three separate polls show that Arab and Muslim populations are shifting their support away from Washington’s regional allies toward West Asia’s Axis of Resistance.
It could be a clean sweep. Decades of western-led narratives crafted to exploit differences throughout West Asia, create strife amid the region’s myriad communities, and advance western foreign policy objectives over the heads of bickering natives are now in ruins.
The war in Gaza, it transpires, has blown a mile-wide hole in the falsehoods and fairytales that have kept West Asia distracted with internecine conflicts since at least the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran.
Shia versus Sunni, Iran versus Arabs, secular versus Islamist: these are three of the west’s most nefarious narrative ploys that sought to control and redirect the region and its populations, and have even drawn Arab rulers into an ungodly alliance with Israel.
Facts are destroying the fiction
It took a rare conflict – uncooked and uncontrolled by Washington – to liberate West Asian masses from their narrative trance. Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza also brought instant clarity to the question of which Arabs and Muslims actually support Palestinian liberation – and which do not.
Iran, Hezbollah, Iraqi resistance factions, and Yemen’s Ansarallah – maligned by these western narratives – are now visibly the only regional players prepared to buttress the Gaza frontline, whether through funds, weapons, or armed clashes that aim to dilute and disperse Israeli military resources.
The so-called ‘moderate Arabs,’ a misnomer for the western-centric, authoritarian Arab dictatorships subservient to Washington’s interests, have offered little more than lip service to the carnage in Gaza.
The Saudis called for support by hosting Arab and Islamic summits that were allowed to do and say nothing. The Emiratis and Jordanians trucked supplies to Israel that Ansarallah blockaded by sea. The mighty Egypt hosted delegations when all it needed to have done was to open the Rafah Crossing so Palestinians can eat. Qatar – once a major Hamas donor – now negotiates for the freedom of Israeli captives, while hosting Hamas ‘moderates,’ who are at odds with Gaza’s freedom fighters. And Turkiye’s trade with the Israeli occupation state continues to skyrocket (exports increased 35 percent from November to December 2023).
Palestine, for the pro-west ‘moderate Arabs,’ is a carefully handled flag they occasionally wave publicly, but sabotage privately. So, they watch, transfixed and horrified today, at what social media and tens of millions of protesters have made crystal clear: Palestine remains the essential Arab and Muslim cause; it may ebb and flow, but nothing has the power to inflame the region’s masses like this particular fight between right and wrong.
The shift toward resistance
It is early days yet in the battle unfolding between the region’s Axis of Resistance and Israel’s alliances, but the polls already show a notable shift in public sentiment toward the former.
An Arab barometer poll taken over a six-week period – three weeks before and three weeks after the Al-Aqsa Flood operation – provides the first indication of shifting Arab perceptions. Although the survey was restricted to Tunisia, the pollsters argue that the country is “as close to a bellwether as one could imagine” and that it represents views similar to other Arab countries:
“Analysts and officials can safely assume that people’s views elsewhere in the region have shifted in ways similar to the recent changes that have taken place in Tunisia.”
The survey results should be of paramount concern to meddling western policymakers: “Since October 7, every country in the survey with positive or warming relations with Israel saw its favorability ratings decline among Tunisians.”
The US saw its favorability numbers plummet the most, followed by West Asian allies that have normalized relations with Israel. Russia and China, both neutral states, experienced little change, but Iran’s leadership saw its favorability figures rise. According to the Arab barometer:
“Three weeks after the attacks, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has approval ratings that matched or even exceeded those of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Emirati President Mohammed bin Zayed.”
Before 7 October, just 29 percent of Tunisians held a favorable view of Khamenei’s foreign policies. This figure rose to 41 percent according to the conclusion of the survey, with Tunisian support most notable in the days following the Iranian leader’s 17 October reference to Israel’s actions in Gaza as a “genocide.”
The Saudi shift
Prior to the 7 October operation by the Palestinian resistance to destroy the Israeli army’s Gaza Division and take captives as leverage for a mass prisoner swap, the region’s main geopolitical focus was on the prospects of a groundbreaking Saudi normalization deal with Tel Aviv. The administration of US President Joe Biden flogged this horse at every opportunity; it was seen as a golden ticket for his upcoming presidential election.
But Operation Al-Aqsa Flood ruined any chance for Saudi Arabia – home to Islam’s holiest sites – to seal that political deal. And with Israeli airstrikes raining down daily on Palestinian civilians in Gaza, Riyadh’s options continue to shrink.
A Washington Institute poll conducted between 14 November and 6 December measures the seismic shift in Saudi public sentiment:
A whopping 96 percent agree with the statement that “Arab countries should immediately break all diplomatic, political, economic, and any other contacts with Israel, in protest against its military action in Gaza.”
Meanwhile, 91 percent believe that “despite the destruction and loss of life, this war in Gaza is a win for Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims.” This is a shockingly unifying statement for a country that has adhered closely to western narratives that seek to divide Palestinians from Arabs, Arabs among themselves, and Muslims along sectarian lines – geographically, culturally, and politically.
Although Saudi Arabia constitutes one of the few Arab states to have designated Hamas as a terrorist organization, favorable views of Hamas have increased by 30 percent, from 10 percent in August to 40 percent in November, while most – 95 percent – do not believe the Palestinian resistance group killed civilians on 7 October.
Meanwhile, 87 percent of Saudis agree with the idea that “recent events show that Israel is so weak and internally divided that it can be defeated some day.” Ironically, this is a long-stated Resistance Axis refrain. Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah was famously quoted as saying “Israel is weaker than a spider’s web,” upon its defeat by the Lebanese resistance on 25 May, 2000.
Prior to 7 October, Saudis had strongly favored economic ties with Israel, but even that number dropped dramatically from 47 percent last year to 17 percent today. And while Saudi attitudes toward the Resistance Axis remain negative – Saudi Arabia, after all, has been the regional epicenter for anti-Iran and anti-Shia propaganda since the 1979 revolution – that may be largely because their media is heavily controlled. Contrary to the observations of the Arab masses, 81 percent of Saudis still believe that the Axis is “reluctant to help Palestinians.”
The Palestinian shift
Equally important to the discussion of Arab perceptions is the shift seen among Palestinians themselves since 7 October. A poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) in both the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip between 22 November and 2 December mirrors Arab views, but with some nuances.
Gazan respondents, understandably, displayed more skepticism for the ‘correctness’ of Hamas’ Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, which triggered Israel’s genocidal assault on the Strip in which over 22,000 civilians – mostly women and children – have so far been brutally killed. While support for Hamas increased only slightly in the Gaza Strip, it tripled in the West Bank, with both Palestinian territories expressing near equal disdain for the western-backed Palestinian Authority (PA), which governs from Ramallah.
Support for acting PA President Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah party was hit hard. Demands for his resignation are at nearly 90 percent, while almost 60 percent (the highest number recorded in a PSR poll to date in relation to this matter) of those surveyed want a dissolution of the PA.
Over 60 percent of Palestinians polled (closer to 70 percent in the West Bank) believe armed struggle is the best means to end the occupation, with 72 percent agreeing with the statement that Hamas made a correct decision to launch its 7 October operation, and 70 percent agreeing that Israel will fail to eradicate the Palestinian resistance in Gaza.
Palestinians have strong views about regional and international players, who they largely feel have left Gaza unprotected from Israel’s unprecedented violations of international law.
By far the country most supported by respondents is Yemen, with approval ratings of 80 percent, followed by Qatar (56 percent), Hezbollah (49 percent), Iran (35 percent), Turkiye (34 percent), Jordan (24 percent), Egypt (23 percent), the UAE (8 percent), and Saudi Arabia (5 percent).
In this poll, the region’s Axis of Resistance dominates the favorability ratings, while pro-US Arab and Muslim nations with some degree of relations with Israel, fare poorly. It is notable that of the four most favorable countries and groups for mostly-Sunni Palestinians, three are core members of the “Shia” Axis, while five Sunni-led states rank lowest.
This Palestinian view extends to non-regional international states, with respondents most satisfied with Resistance Axis allies Russia (22 percent) and China (20 percent), while Israeli allies Germany (7 percent), France (5 percent), the UK (4 percent), and the US (1 percent) struggle to maintain traction among Palestinians.
The numbers depend on the war ahead
Three separate polls show that Arab perceptions have shifted dramatically over Israel’s war on Gaza, with popular sentiment gravitating to those states and actors perceived to be actively supporting Palestinian goals, and away from those who are perceived to support Israel.
The new year starts with two major events. The first is the drawdown of Israeli reservists from Gaza, whether because Washington demands it, or due to unsustainable loss of life and injury to occupation troops. The second is the shocking assassination of Hamas leader Saleh al-Arouri and six others in Beirut, Lebanon, on 2 January.
All indications are that Israel’s war will not only continue, but will expand regionally. The new US maritime construct in the Red Sea has drawn other international actors into the mix, and Tel Aviv has provoked Lebanon’s Hezbollah in a major way.
But if the confrontation between the two axes escalates, Arab perceptions will almost certainly continue to tilt away from the old hegemons toward those who are willing to resist this US-Israeli assault on the region.
There will be no relief for Washington and its allies as the war expands. The more they work to defeat Hamas and destroy Gaza, and the more they lob missiles at Yemen, Iraq, and Syria, and besiege the Resistance Axis, the more likely Arab populations are to shrug off the Sunni-versus-Shia, Iran-versus-Arab, and secular-versus-Islamist narratives that have kept the region divided and at odds for decades.
The swell of support that is mobilizing due to a righteous confrontation against the region’s biggest oppressors is unstoppable. Western decline is now a given in the region, but western discourse has been the first casualty of this war.
While Qatar, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia engage with the Taliban-led government in Kabul to safeguard and promote their respective interests, they will stop short of full recognition.
The Taliban has remained Afghanistan’s only de facto government since the US’s botched withdrawal from the country two years ago. Despite this, no country has to date officially recognized the Taliban government. But three prominent Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members—namely Qatar, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia—have taken a pragmatic approach to engaging with the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA). They have acknowledged the reality of the Taliban’s rise to power and cautiously engaged with the group, though formal recognition of the IEA has yet to occur.
The historical interactions of these Persian Gulf states with the Taliban deeply influence their current perspectives on post-US Afghanistan. During the late 1990s and early 2000s – before the US invasion and occupation – only Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Pakistan recognized the Taliban government. Qatar, although not formally engaged, fostered a “cordial” but unofficial relationship with the group during this time.
More notably, in the 2010s, Doha emerged as a diplomatic intermediary between western powers and the group by hosting a Taliban diplomatic mission at the request of the Obama administration. This role further blossomed during Donald Trump’s tenure, as Doha facilitated talks with the Taliban that culminated in the pivotal 2020 Doha Agreement that outlined the terms for the US’s eventual withdrawal in 2021.
Qatar’s diplomatic gamble
When US/NATO forces were evacuating Afghanistan two years ago, Qatar and the UAE helped ensure a safe exit for western diplomats and media personnel from Afghanistan. This was a major factor behind the Biden administration’s decision to name Qatar a Major Non-NATO Ally in early 2022, which came shortly after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced the institutionalization of Doha’s role as Washington’s “protecting power” in the IEA.
Of all GCC states, Qatar appears most connected to the IEA. Taliban figures maintain a presence in Doha and have decent personal relationships with the Qatari leadership, although these more moderate Taliban representatives in Doha are not necessarily calling the shots in Kabul, which is a factor that places some limitations on Qatar’s influence in Afghanistan.
In May, Qatar’s Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani became the first foreign official to publicly meet with the Taliban’s supreme leader, Haibatullah Akhunzada. Their meeting in Kandahar, known as the Taliban’s “spiritual birthplace,” underscored how the IEA views its relationship with Doha as crucial to efforts aimed at easing the Islamic Emirate’s international isolation.
Among Arab states in the Persian Gulf, Qatar “appears to be the most willing” to grant the IEA diplomatic recognition despite the challenges that would come with such a move, Javid Ahmad, a former Afghan ambassador to the UAE, tells The Cradle.
“While it’s difficult to determine whether Qatar perceives its current engagement as entirely risk-free, its significant material leverage over senior Taliban figures demonstrates its understanding of the potential opportunity costs and consequences of non-engagement or isolation. But taking the lead in formal recognition bears the weight of responsibility, ownership, and accountability. Being the first to act carries the risk of being the first to shouldering the consequences if it proves misguided, as seen in Pakistan, Saudi, and UAE’s recognition of the Taliban in [the 1990s].”
This Qatari “leverage” over the IEA pertains to the monthly stipends which senior Taliban leaders have been receiving for years in Qatar, the resettlement of their families in Doha, facilitated business ventures in the Persian Gulf state for some IEA figures, as well as the allocation of plots of land for some of them to build new residences there.
The UAE’s pragmatic approach
The Afghan diaspora community in the UAE stands at roughly 300,000. This sizeable presence across the seven emirates is the basis of many people-to-people and financial links between the UAE and Afghanistan.
In the post-US Afghanistan era, Abu Dhabi has exhibited a nuanced and cautious stance with the new government in Kabul. After the Taliban displaced Afghanistan’s former president Ashraf Ghani from power in August 2021, the UAE provided refuge to Ghani and his associates.
However, the UAE also imposed restrictions on the ability of these former officials to engage in political activities within the Gulf state. This move signaled to the Taliban that the UAE would not permit its territory to be exploited for anti-IEA activities. On the other hand, Emirati officials, while referring to the “brotherly people” of Afghanistan, have simultaneously criticized the IEA’s draconian laws curtailing women’s fundamental rights.
While hosting the IEA’s acting Defense Minister Mullah Yaqoob last December, UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed (MbZ) underscored his country’s determination to pragmatically engage the IEA – notwithstanding the Emirati leadership taking a hardline anti-Taliban stance during the US occupation of Afghanistan.
Given the UAE’s significant economic interests spanning various sectors in Central Asia, ranging from tourism and agriculture to energy and logistics, Abu Dhabi’s sustained involvement in the region hinges on cooperation with Afghanistan.
This economic incentive has motivated the UAE to actively contribute to Afghanistan’s infrastructure and logistics development. An example of this commitment is the deal between GAAC Solutions and the Taliban to manage the airports in Herat, Kabul, and Kandahar.
Saudi-Taliban relations
Saudi Arabia’s unique role in the Islamic world makes Riyadh’s unofficial relationship with the Taliban significant. The kingdom has interest in monitoring the IEA’s complicated relationship with Iran and increasing Saudi soft power in post-US Afghanistan through charity and humanitarian assistance.
Saudi relief efforts in Afghanistan have been geared toward food security, water, health, and education. Key entities such as the King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center and the Saudi Fund have played pivotal roles in Saudi Arabia’s humanitarian initiatives in the economically beleaguered country.
Yet, as Umer Karim, an associate fellow at the King Faisal Centre for Research and Islamic Studies in Riyadh, tells The Cradle, Saudi Arabia has mostly embraced a “wait-and-watch” approach to the Taliban. As Karim recently explained, Riyadh’s early engagement with the IEA went through Pakistan. However, rising tensions between the Taliban and Islamabad caused Saudi Arabia’s Pakistani channel to Kabul to become “virtually dysfunctional.”
Ibraheem Bahiss, an analyst with the International Crisis Group, explains to The Cradle that “as Pakistan’s relations with the Taliban severed, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has also gotten cold feet in their engagement [with the Taliban].”
Nonetheless, in light of security crises in Afghanistan, the Saudis have relocated the kingdom’s Afghan consular office to Pakistan, from where Saudi officials coordinate humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan and process Afghan visas. Bahiss maintains that with Pakistan being Saudi Arabia’s most important strategic partner that borders Iran, Riyadh will probably mostly follow Islamabad’s lead on Afghanistan.
Poornima Balasubramanian, a research scholar at the Department of Geopolitics and International Relations at India’s Manipal Academy of Higher Education, tells The Cradle that:
“Given Pakistan’s historical ties with and role as a regional player alongside Taliban entities, this significantly influences how the GCC states position their foreign policies towards Pakistan…The GCC [members] will remain watchful of Pakistan’s involvement in providing support and exerting influence on the Taliban in Afghanistan.”
Despite approaching the situation more cautiously than their counterparts in Doha and Abu Dhabi, officials in Riyadh have indeed established limited contact with the Taliban since August 2021, and now pragmatically maintain unofficial communication with the de facto government in Kabul.
In late June, Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) and other high-ranking Saudi officials met with Yaqoob at a reception in the kingdom while the Taliban’s acting defense minister was taking part in the annual Hajj. The IEA publicized images of this reception on social media, highlighting the de facto Saudi ruler’s interaction with Yaqoob.
Saudi Arabia’s historical association with the Taliban, particularly in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, has made Riyadh wary of engaging too deeply with the IEA. Additionally, as Saudi leadership actively promotes “moderate Islam” within its own borders, there’s a need to avoid any optics that could potentially undermine its efforts.
Leveraging its Islamic credentials, Saudi Arabia has encouraged member-states of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to increase humanitarian aid to Afghanistan. Ultimately, Riyadh’s approach seeks to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a breeding ground for international terrorism, illicit drug trade, and arms smuggling — all of which are potential threats to the broader region.
Cautious distance from the Taliban
In the pursuit of stability in Afghanistan and neighboring vulnerable countries, Saudi Arabia’s engagement with the IEA is expected to remain measured in the future.
Looking ahead, Doha, Abu Dhabi, and Riyadh are poised to continue their cautious involvement with the Taliban. By maintaining an embassy in Kabul, Qatar represents US interests and has urged the international community to formulate a “roadmap” outlining steps the IEA should take for formal recognition.
Qatar effectively argues that the current strategies of isolating the Taliban and Afghanistan will exacerbate security and humanitarian crises. But formal recognition of the IEA by any GCC member does not appear imminent.
The Taliban’s repressive restrictions on the rights of women, its ban on music, and other extreme aspects of its governance, place Qatar, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia under pressure to maintain a safe distance from the IEA. With little reason to be optimistic about the IEA making fundamental changes to its policies, Gulf states’ outreach to the Taliban will continue, but will probably remain short of full-fledged recognition.
The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.
In this Wednesday, Nov. 27, 2019, photo released by the Ministry of Presidential Affairs, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, right, meets Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. (AP)
The once close officials, MBS and MBZ, are head to head, competing over who has more influence and presence in the region.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) convened a small group of local media in Riyadh for a rare off-the-record briefing in December and delivered a shocking message, according to the Wall Street Journal. During the meeting, MbS said that the UAE, Saudi Arabia’s longtime ally, had “stabbed us in the back,” he claimed. “They will see what I can do,” he told the group, according to people at the meeting.
A rift has developed between MBS and his former mentor, UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan (MBZ), reflecting the struggle for geopolitical and economic clout in the Middle East and global oil markets. That said, the two royals are now feuding over who calls the shots in a Middle East where the US is playing a deteriorating role, according to WSJ.
US officials are concerned that the Gulf competition will make it more difficult to form a coherent security alliance to confront Iran, end the eight-year war on Yemen, and expand Israeli normalization agreements with Arab nations. That said, the rivalry that the US was so determined to orchestrate took a wrong turn, and the latest developments are definitely not in its favor.
“These are two highly ambitious people who want to be key players in the region and the go-to players,” a senior Biden administration official said, adding that “On some level, they still collaborate. Now, neither seems comfortable with the other being on the same pedestal. On balance, it’s not helpful to us for them to be at each other’s throats.”
According to close sources, as per the WSJ, the once-close MBS and MBZ haven’t spoken in more than six months, people close to them said, and their private disputes have spilled out into the open. On that note, the UAE and Saudi Arabia have competing interests in Yemen, undermining efforts to reach a peace agreement in the country, while Emirati resentment of Saudi pressure to boost the global price of oil is causing new schisms in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
Economic competitors
The UAE and KSA are both increasingly economic competitors.
In an effort to end the KSA’s economic reliance on oil, MBS is pushing companies to move their regional headquarters to Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, from UAE’s Dubai, which has become a tourist hub for Westerners.
He’s also initiating plans to establish digital hubs, attract more visitors, and build logistical hubs to contest the UAE’s status as the Middle East’s commercial powerhouse, according to the WSJ. MBS announced in March the establishment of a second national airline to compete with Dubai’s highly regarded Emirates.
In terms of soft power, the Saudi purchase of Newcastle United, England’s soccer club, in 2021, and investment in worldwide superstar players occurred at the same time as Manchester City, controlled by a senior member of Abu Dhabi’s ruling family, won the English and European soccer titles.
The Saudi rapprochement, deal with Iran
A UAE official, speaking for the government, said claims of strained relations were “categorically false and lack foundation,” and a Saudi official called the idea “simply not accurate.”
As mentioned in the WSJ report, the Saudi official added that “The UAE is a close regional partner of Saudi Arabia, and our policies converge on a wide range of issues of mutual interest,” adding that the two countries work together with other Gulf neighbors on political, security, and economic coordination.
The UAE official said their “strategic partnership is based on the same objectives and vision for regional prosperity, security, and stability.”
During his meeting with local media outlets, the Saudi leader stated that he had issued a list of requests to the UAE, according to the sources in the UAE, adding that MBS warned that if the smaller Gulf nation did not comply, Saudi Arabia was prepared to take harsh measures, similar to what it did against Qatar in 2017 when Riyadh broke diplomatic relations with it for more than three years and imposed an economic blockade with the support of Abu Dhabi. MBS warned, according to sources who were present, “It will be worse than what I did with Qatar.”
MBS’ step toward diplomacy, away from MBZ
Since the meeting in December, MBS took a step towards diplomacy and ended the political isolation imposed on him after the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. He turned to China for assistance in mending Saudi Arabia’s relations with Iran and then coordinated Syria’s return to the Arab League, a process that the UAE had begun several years before, according to the WSJ.
MBS is also in talks with the US about formally recognizing “Israel,” which the UAE did in 2020. Moreover, the Crown Prince is also leading diplomatic efforts to quash violence in Sudan, where the UAE backs the opposing side.
MBZ privately criticized the Saudi ruler for his actions, accusing him of undermining ties between the two nations, critically pointing out MBS’ relationship with Russia and its oil policies and “risky moves,” in reference to the deal with Iran.
That said, the Emirati official skipped an Arab summit MBS called for, and also the Arab League’s vote in May to allow Syria back into the circle. On the other hand, MBS himself was absent when MBZ met with Arab leaders at a hastily arranged regional summit in the UAE in January.
“Tensions are rising between them, in part because MBS wants to step out from under MBZ’s shadow,” said Dina Esfandiary, a senior advisor at the International Crisis Group’s Middle East and North Africa Program, adding that “Things are going to get worse because both countries are getting more confident and assertive in their foreign policy.”
A deteriorating alliance
The Saudis and Emiratis have considered themselves the closest of allies, yet their relationship has been strained even before the United Arab Emirates achieved independence from Britain in 1971.
Sheikh Zayed al Nahyan, the UAE’s founding father, resented Saudi dominance of the Arabian peninsula, and then-Saudi King Faisal refused to acknowledge his Persian Gulf neighbor for years, seeking leverage in several territorial conflicts. The United Arab Emirates canceled plans for a unified Gulf central bank in 2009 due to its proposed site in Riyadh. There are still territorial conflicts between the two countries over oil-rich terrain.
With the simultaneous rise of MBZ and MBS, the two countries grew closer. When MBZ’s half-brother, President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed, had a crippling stroke in 2014, the Emirati monarch became de facto ruler of his country at the age of 54. When MBS’s father, King Salman, took power in 2015, MBZ began mentoring the young Saudi prince, who was just 29 years old at the time.
According to WSJ, the two men had never met before an overnight camping expedition in the vast Saudi desert. Sources that were present revealed that the outing was accompanied by trained falcons and a small entourage; the outing—roughly equal in Gulf tradition to a round of presidential golf—was a watershed moment in their friendship.
MBS sought advice from MBZ and employed some of the same banks and consultants that the Emiratis used for a similar strategy a decade earlier while developing a plan to change and open up his country. On that note, MBS and MBZ formed a foreign-policy alliance that launched the war on Yemen, assisted Egypt’s Abdel Fattah Al Sisi in a coup, armed Libyan militants in the country’s divided east, and boycotted Qatar.
OPEC competition, dispute
The schism erupted last October when OPEC agreed to cut output, surprising the Biden administration. The UAE agreed to the decrease but privately told US officials and the media that Saudi Arabia had forced them to do so, according to the WSJ.
The dynamic highlighted an ongoing dispute between Saudis and Emiratis over OPEC policy, which Riyadh has long dominated as the world’s top petroleum exporter, WSJ wrote, adding that the Emiratis have increased their oil-production capacity to more than four million barrels per day, with aspirations to exceed five million, but are only allowed to pump roughly three million under OPEC regulation, costing the country hundreds of billions of dollars in lost revenue.
On a more crucial point, the Emirati increase in oil production capacity presents the potential ability to move output up and down and with it global oil prices. Until recently, only Saudi Arabia wielded that sort of market power. Disagreements between the two officials are threatening to derail continuing negotiations to end the war on Yemen, which pits the Saudis, Emiratis, and a variety of Yemeni factions against the Yemeni Armed Forces.
The UAE signed a security agreement with the Saudi-backed Yemeni presidential leadership council in December, granting Abu Dhabi the authority to interfere in Yemen and the waters off its coast. Officials in Saudi Arabia saw it as a challenge to their Yemen strategy. In turn, Saudi Arabia had intentions to construct a pipeline that spreads from the kingdom to the Arabian Sea, through the Yemeni province of Hadramout. However, the plans were jeopardized by UAE-backed forces.
Biden could lose ambitions in Gulf
The rivalry between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates has irritated the Biden administration, which wants friendly Gulf capitals like Riyadh and Abu Dhabi to help build a united front against Iran. On critical issues such as Ukraine and China, neither MBS nor MBZ is completely aligned with Washington.
On that note, in reference to the obvious new political dynamics in the region, US authorities are growing concerned about MBZ’s outreach to Beijing and Moscow, which, like MBS, has strengthened connections with them.
Biden and MBS
Biden took office promising to treat the kingdom as a pariah state in the aftermath of the Khashoggi assassination, which MBS has stated he did not order. Instead, in July 2022, Biden visited Saudi Arabia, helping to end his isolation.
Companies in the United States who were previously unwilling to engage with the kingdom are now reconsidering. This desire is anticipated to grow as a year-end deadline approaches for companies with Saudi government contracts to establish a base in Riyadh rather than flying in from Dubai.
The WSJ explains that according to those familiar with the case, the Biden administration arranged a meeting on May 7 between MBS and the Emirati president’s younger brother, Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed, who was once seen as a confidant of the Saudi crown prince. Tahnoun had been frozen out, making at least six trips to the kingdom without gaining a meeting with MBS until he received assistance from the US, according to the sources.
With regard to decisions concerning Yemen, MBS told his advisors “I don’t trust them anymore,” before telling them to keep policies as is.
Amidst ongoing regional diplomatic activity, the major missing piece in the diplomatic jigsaw is the normalization between Cairo and Tehran; can they set aside differences, end decades of tensions, and write a new chapter in West Asia-North Africa relations?
Forty-four years after severing relations, amid an uptick of diplomatic activities across the region, Egypt and Iran are finally taking cautious steps towards rapprochement. For decades, the two countries have followed divergent paths on foreign policy.
Yet, recent developments in West Asia, following reconciliations between several countries, have prompted talk of a potential breakthrough.
These developments include Saudi Arabia and Iran’s Beijing-brokered rapprochement, Syria’s return to the Arab League, Riyadh’s resumption of ties with Damascus, a thaw in Turkiye’s relations with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Egypt, in addition to the onset of direct talks with the Ansarallah-led government in Yemen.
‘Silence from Egypt is a position’
The prospect of a rapprochement between Iran and Egypt has stirred different responses from the two nations. Tehran has openly expressed its willingness to mend ties with Cairo, even from the highest levels of authority.
In contrast, Egypt’s silence has been deafening – literally. In mid-May, Egyptian media quoted one source saying, “The ongoing official silence from Egypt is a position.” This steadfast silence by the Egyptian government is reminiscent of its stance towards Turkiye.
That lull was eventually broken when Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan unexpectedly shook hands in Doha during the FIFA World Cup in Qatar.
This surprising gesture raises the question: Could an Iranian-Egyptian handshake be on the horizon as well? The diplomatic landscape seems to be shifting, leaving room for speculation and optimism over a potential reconciliation between these two geostrategic regional states.
On 14 May, Fada Hossein Maleki, a member of the Iranian parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, revealed that negotiations between Iran and Egypt were underway in Iraq, with the intention of re-establishing relations between and reopening embassies.
But the most important Iranian announcement was made by the Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei himself, who welcomed the restoration of relations with Egypt during his meeting on 29 May with the Sultan of Oman Haitham bin Tariq, whose country traditionally plays the role of regional mediator.
Shadi Ibrahim, a researcher in international relations and security studies at Istanbul University, informs The Cradle that the differences between Tehran and Cairo differ from Egyptian-Turkish disputes, as the issues with Iran “are primarily external and not internal, unlike Ankara, which Cairo sees as a competitor for influence and wealth in the region.”
According to Ibrahim, Egyptian-Iranian rapprochement was not initially on Cairo’s agenda due to these external reasons that date back to the Iranian revolution. However, with Arab Persian Gulf capitals – that sought to isolate Iran since 1979 – now mending ties at breakneck speed with Tehran, the process of reconciliation with Egypt is now also beginning to take shape.
A chequered history
Historically, the relationship between Egypt and Iran has experienced alternating phases of close alliance and intense hostility. A connection between the two regional states was solidified in 1939 when then-Iranian Crown Prince Mohammad Reza Pahlavi married Princess Fawzia, the daughter of King Fuad I of Egypt and Sudan. However, their subsequent divorce in 1945 led to a crisis between the two nations when her brother, King Farouk of Egypt, insisted on the divorce and refused Princess Fawzia’s return to Iran.
As relations thawed, the Free Officers Revolution overthrew King Farouk in July 1952, and Egypt raised the banner of Arab nationalism and confrontation against Israel. Given pre-revolutionary Iran’s recognition of Israel in 1960, relations deteriorated once again and remained uneasy until the death of President Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1970.
Under the leadership of Nasser’s successor, President Anwar Sadat, Egypt, and Iran experienced a resurgence in ties. However, the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, shattered the progress as it toppled the pro-western and pro-Israel Shah, who subsequently sought refuge in Egypt, where he remained until his death in 1980.
Iran’s revolution stood in hostile opposition toward the Zionist occupation state – just as Egypt was finalizing its Camp David peace treaty with Tel Aviv. The same reasons that drove Abdel Nasser to sever ties with Iran in 1960 were echoed in Khomeini’s decision to do the same with Egypt in 1979.
Decades of frozen relations between Egypt and Iran finally started to warm up with the January 2011 uprising that toppled President Hosni Mubarak. In a significant step, Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi visited Tehran in April 2012, marking the first visit by an Egyptian president to Iran in three decades.
This was followed by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to Cairo in February 2013, signifying a new chapter in their relationship and the announcement of embassy reopenings.
However, the subsequent Sisi-led and Saudi/Emirati-backed coup against Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood-dominated government in July of the same year halted the progress of relations with Tehran, albeit with a reduced level of hostility. Egypt, thereafter, adopted a strategy of “neither hostility nor friendship.”
Post-Camp David
Since the 1978 signing of the Camp David Accords, Cairo has aligned itself with US policy against Iran. Any shifts in relations between the two regional states today “come in the context of bilateral polarization and the competition of regional powers among themselves,” political analyst Abd al-Rahman Adel tells The Cradle.
In recent years, Egypt’s status has diminished in light of regional changes, which shifted the balance of power to favor wealthy Persian Gulf sheikhdoms. This transformed Cairo from an “active power” into a “state affiliated with the new forces in the region.”
During this period, the polarization between Persian Gulf Arab states and Iran – as well as among the Gulf states themselves – ignited unrest and conflict. An economically strained Egypt, reliant on the Gulf’s largesse, positioned itself as a reliable ally in its geopolitical struggle against Iran, aiming to achieve a sense of balance, particularly in Yemen.
Though with time, “these countries discovered that Egypt’s role was modest and its participation was limited, contrary to expectations,” Ibrahim explains to The Cradle. Aid to Egypt from the Gulf was severely curtailed as a result.
Impact of Saudi-Iran normalization
The rise of new global powers like Russia and China coincides with the declining US status in West Asia and Washington’s shift of focus to the Ukraine war and China’s backyard. Then in March, a significant development occurred with implications for Egyptian-Iranian relations.
Tehran and Riyadh agreed to normalize their relations in Beijing, China, after seven years of estrangement. This breakthrough served as a green light for countries in the wider region, including Egypt, to engage in dialogues with Iran. Prior to that, in August 2022, Kuwait and the UAE had agreed to restore full diplomatic relations with the Islamic Republic.
In February of last year, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian announced that a new page had opened in Iran’s relations with the countries of the region, saying “our hand is open to our neighbors,” and stressing that “strengthening relations with neighbors, especially Arab countries, is a key priority in Iranian politics.”
In May, Amir-Abdollahian expressed hope that Tehran and Cairo will resume relations, stating: “We have always welcomed the development of relations between Tehran and Cairo,” adding, “The heads of our missions – interests sections – in Tehran and Cairo have good meetings. There is good access to the authorities of both countries.”
Iraqi mediation efforts
Multiple sources claim that Iraq has been hosting talks between representatives from Iran and Egypt since March, with Iraq’s Prime Minister Muhammad Shia al-Sudani leading mediation efforts. Despite all the positive speculation, however, Iraqi sources say that the communication has not yet led to understandings to start normalizing relations. Sources point out that Cairo is still not enthusiastic about normalizing ties for reasons that have not yet been disclosed.
Iraqi political sources tell The Cradle that Sudani aims to establish himself as a key interlocutor between Iran and Arab countries, as his predecessor Mustafa al-Kadhimi sought to do. While the Iraqi president has informed Riyadh of his intention to mediate between Cairo and Tehran, the Saudis have reportedly not shown much enthusiasm.
The sources emphasize that Cairo is unlikely to take serious steps toward improving relations with Iran until the relationship between Tehran and Riyadh reaches a more favorable level.
It is expected that Egyptian President Sisi would require clear support from his Saudi and Emirati patrons – Mohammed bin Salman and Mohammed bin Zayed – before restituting Egyptian-Iranian relations.
Simultaneously, the Sultanate of Oman is playing an important role in facilitating negotiations between Cairo and Tehran. Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi disclosed that Omani Sultan Haitham bin Tarik had conveyed a message from Cairo expressing its desire to improve relations. However, Arab diplomatic sources indicate that Oman’s efforts are still in their infancy, and have not yet resulted in significant progress.
Limited gains; minimal impact on Israel
Researcher Ibrahim believes that the restoration of relations between Egypt and Iran may not lead to much more than “the economic benefit of the Egyptian regime and breaking the isolation imposed on Iran.” In any case, this economic openness is likely to remain limited, with little room for substantial growth and expansion, particularly in light of Israel’s presence along the borders.
Ibrahim and Adel agree that “the Egyptian-Iranian rapprochement will be on a limited scale and will not in any way harm the Egyptian partnership with Israel, nor will it contradict American policy.”
According to Shadi, “Iran will benefit more from these relations.” Transforming relations from negative to positive, even if it is limited to the economic or religious tourism sector, “may represent a step towards a greater role in the future in issues important to Iran, such as the conflict with Israel.”
However, Shadi points out that Cairo is well aware of this, and “will not allow Tehran to compete with it in the Palestinian file.” Cairo benefits here from its geographical location and the fact that Egyptian lands are the only passage to the world for the Iranian-backed Palestinian resistance factions in Gaza. This reality reinforces Egypt’s position and ensures that it remains a pivotal, albeit passive player in the Palestinian context.
As the situation continues to unfold, it is unclear how Egypt’s relationship with Iran will develop and whether it will lead to a broader transformation in regional dynamics or primarily serve as a limited and pragmatic engagement.
The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.
A partial view of Abu Dhabi’s Musaffah industrial district, the area that came under aerial attack by Yemeni missiles in April 2022. (Photo Credit: AFP)
Israel’s haste to aid its Arab partner came in stark contrast to the muted response of the US
The UAE received extensive security assistance from Israel in April 2022 following a series of missile and drone strikes deep inside Abu Dhabi launched by Yemen’s Ansarallah resistance movement.
According to an updated version of the book “Trump’s Peace” by Israeli journalist Barak Ravid, Tel Aviv sent a delegation of Mossad and army intelligence officials and transferred a shipment of batteries from the SPYDER air defense system to the UAE following the daring attacks that also rocked Saudi Arabia.
“We really appreciated it,” an Emirati official is quoted as having said in the book.
Tel Aviv’s haste to help its Arab ally came in stark contrast to the muted response of the US. This situation caused great discontent in Abu Dhabi and fueled ongoing tensions with President Joe Biden.
Ravid goes on to claim that former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett proposed developing a so-called “Middle East Air Defense Alliance (MEAD)” to Emirati leader Mohamed bin Zayed (MBZ) just months before the Ansarallah strikes.
This system would reportedly entail “a network of radars around the region that would operate under the umbrella of the US Central Command (CENTCOM).”
Abu Dhabi and Tel Aviv normalized ties in 2020 under US sponsorship. Since then, the two nations have significantly bolstered trade and defense cooperation.
The UAE has also helped shield Israel at the UN Security Council for its abuses against Palestinians and the illegal expansion of settlements in the occupied West Bank.
The two nations are also coordinating on the occupation of Yemen’s Socotra Archipelago in a bid to have joint military control of a strategic maritime area where at least 20,000 shipping vessels pass through this year.
The transformation of Yemen’s strategically-located Socotra Island into an Emirati-Israeli military intelligence hub has raised concerns for the Ansarallah movement and its allies, significantly increasing the geopolitical stakes of the Yemen war.
Located off the southern coast of Yemen in the Arabian Sea, the Socotra archipelago has become a focal point of regional and international interest because of its strategic proximity to one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.
On 21 June, 2020, the Yemeni island was militarily occupied by Saudi Arabia’s Emirati coalition partner, which has aggressively pursued a policy of establishing and controlling ports throughout West Asia and the Horn of Africa since 1999.
The archipelago consists of four large islands: Socotra (3,796km2), Abd al-Kuri (130.2km2), Samhah (39.6km2), and Darsah (7.5km2), as well as three small islets.
Socotra, the biggest of the islands, lies 350 km south of the Arabian Peninsula and 95 km from Somalia. It is surrounded by the Gulf of Aden, the Indian Ocean, and the Arabian Sea, and faces the Horn of Africa from the west. Around 20,000 shipping vessels pass around Socotra each year, including 9 percent of the world’s annual global petroleum supply.
The War on Yemen
The assault on Yemen was launched on 26 March, 2015, in an announcement by Saudi Ambassador Adel al-Jubeir from Washington DC, in which he stated that a coalition of ten countries, led by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, would take military action to reinstate the government of Yemeni President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi.
Hadi had been ousted in popular protests in 2014, after losing the capital city, Sanaa, to the joint forces of the Ansarallah movement and their allies in the country’s armed forces. Based in northern Yemen, the Ansarallah movement had been advocating for fair representation in the government for a long time.
With US-backing, Saudi Arabia launched “Operation Decisive Storm,” and the air strikes began. Initially expected to last only a few weeks or months – and according to MbS himself, just “a few days” – the Yemeni war has now entered its eighth year and taken on a markedly different shape than the coalition initially contended.
Two years into the war, the Emiratis began pursuing their own hidden agenda of establishing a “self-styled maritime empire” in Yemen, which veered sharply from Riyadh’s objectives. To achieve this goal, Abu Dhabi sought to control the country’s southern coastline and its ports and enlisted the help of a local Yemeni proxy called the Southern Movement.
The Southern Movement was formed by secessionist tribes and groups seeking to divide Yemen along the old partition lines of 1967–1990. However, the movement had to be restructured to match the UAE’s aspirations, and in 2017 it was transformed into the Southern Transitional Council (STC).
Map of the Emirati-controlled areas and ports in southern Yemen
The significance of Socotra
Socotra Island falls under the territorial jurisdiction of the exiled Hadi government, which to this day – despite his physical absence and the replacement of the “presidency” with an 8-member, Saudi-sponsored Presidential Leadership Council (PLC) – remains Yemen’s internationally-recognized government.
However, on 30 April, 2018, the UAE deployed hundreds of troops with artillery and armored vehicles on the island, which is located 350 km away from the mainland conflict, without any prior coordination with Yemeni authorities.
The Riyadh-backed Yemeni government condemned the Emirati aggression, backed by local islanders protesting against the occupation of their territory. The Saudis were forced to intervene by sending troops and training locals to deter the UAE from seizing the island.
But later that year, UAE General Khalfan al-Mazrouei arrived on Socotra Island and has since been considered its de facto ruler. Under his leadership, the Emiratis gained the loyalty of local tribes by using bribery under the guise of “humanitarian aid.” They offered Socotra residents UAE passports and promised them an improved quality of life.
UAE General Khalfan al-Mazrouei arrives in Socotra, 2018
The STC seizes Socotra
On the morning of 21 June, 2020, the UAE-backed STC separatists forcibly seized control of Socotra and ousted the Saudi-backed, pro-Hadi forces.
The UAE had been planning and preparing for this operation for two years, using its Yemeni proxies to gain full control over the Socotra archipelago. The Emirati flag was raised across the territory, and UAE telecommunication companies replaced Yemeni ones. Consequently, all phone calls from Socotra now register Emirati phone networks.
UAE-Israel normalization
Three months after the seizure of Socotra, the highly-controversial Abraham Accords was signed in Washington DC between Israel and the UAE, along with Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan. On the Arab side, the normalization thrust was led by Abu Dhabi, which quickly moved to expand its diplomatic, military, and economic ties with Tel Aviv.
Shortly after the signing of the Abraham Accords, reports and images of Israeli “tourists” visiting Socotra began to emerge. According to an Al-Mayadeenreport, however, the Israeli visitors were not tourists, but rather, military experts.
An Israeli “tourist” in Socotra Island; picture via Twitter
Abd al-Kuri Island
In February 2023, Ansarallah released a statement condemning the UAE’s eviction of residents from Abd al-Kuri, the archipelago’s second-largest island. The resistance movement accused Abu Dhabi of carrying out a long-planned operation to transform Socotra into an Israeli-Emirati military and intelligence hub.
These actions by the UAE are not isolated incidents. In another 2022 episode, Ansarallah accused Abu Dhabi of transferring fishermen from the small island of Perim (13 km2) to other parts of the Taiz Governorate. Several months later, satellite imagery revealed the construction of a military base runway on the volcanic Island. Perim is now empty of its original inhabitants, according to media reports.
An Emirati military base on Perim Island (Mayyun in Arabic) on the Bab al-Mandab Strait
Perim Island has historically divided the Bab al-Mandab Strait into two waterways – whoever controls the island holds strategic influence over the strait. While Ansarallah’s statement about Emirati designs on Socotra was not entirely new, it raised hackles throughout the Arab world by confirming Israel’s military and intelligence presence on this key Yemeni island.
The UAE’s maritime ambitions
Many have questioned Abu Dhabi’s motivation for seizing Socotra and risking its relationships with Saudi Arabia and neighboring Oman (virtually overnight surrounded by UAE ports and bases). The UAE’s actions may be entirely attributed to the strategic vision of its President Mohammed bin Zayed (MbZ) and his no-longer secret desire to establish an Emirati maritime empire –from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea – by controlling the region’s key waterways.
The UAE’s economic reliance on these waterways is a clear driver of MbZ’s plans: non-petroleum commodity re-exports make up almost half of Abu Dhabi’s total exports. As such, maritime security is a top priority in the country’s foreign policy calculations.
The UAE currently controls 12 ports off the coast of Yemen, including Aden, Makha, Mukalla, Al-Dabba, Bir Ali, Belhaf, Rudum, Zoubab, Al-Khawkhah, Al-Khouba, Qena, and Al-Nashima. The country is also building a new port in Al-Mahra that will cost an estimated $100 million.
By controlling these ports and the Bab al-Mandab Strait, the UAE can dominate one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world, elevating its position in global and regional trade to a strategic player.
In addition to its aggressive accumulation of Yemeni ports, the UAE also has a significant presence in the Horn of Africa, where it currently controls two ports in Eritrea and one in Somalia. It previously owned a port in Djibouti, but this became a point of territorial friction between the two countries. The UAE’s control over these ports and their strategic location in the region allow it to project its power and expand its influence in East Africa.
Why is Socotra important to Israel?
The UAE and Israel share mutual security concerns over Iran’s regional ascension over the past decade. The Islamic Republic’s naval presence is expanding into many new waterways, and its seaborne activities from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea alarm both nations. Given Washington’s growing reluctance to engage its armed forces in West Asia, MbZ turned to the region’s military behemoth and main Iranian rival to help him execute his vision. Unlike Israel, no other regional state has the ability to garner unconditional US support – nor the willingness to cavalierly defy international law and territorial integrity.
Abu Dhabi has calculated that it stands to benefit from Israel’s intelligence network and early warning systems, particularly after its cities were subject to unprecedented Ansarallah missile and drone strikes in January 2022.
For Tel Aviv, its physical presence in any Arab state is perceived as a victory, which aligns with its ambitions for regional expansion. By establishing a base on Abd al-Kuri Island, Israel can reinforce its maritime security – around 25 percent of its trade passes through the Bab al-Mandab Strait. Another objective of the Israeli-Emirati military and intelligence hub could be to gather data or engage in espionage activities in the southern Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa.
During the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, Yemen – in partnership with Egypt – blocked the passage of Israeli ships and tankers from accessing the strategic strait, leading to disastrous consequences for Israel.
The tactic could be replicated under Ansarallah Chief Abdel Malak al-Houthi’s leadership, since the movement considers Israel one of its main regional adversaries. While it may seem like a distant possibility, if the war concludes under current Riyadh-Sanaa peace efforts and Ansarallah gains control of Yemen’s south, the movement will enjoy unusual leverage to obstruct Israeli shipments whenever Tel Aviv launches regional aggressions. It should be noted that Ansarallah has already publicly threatened, on several occasions, to strike sensitive Israeli sites with its new missile capabilities.
Moreover, there has been an ongoing “ghost ship war” between Israel and Iran for several years, with occasional reports of Iranian or Israeli ships being attacked in these waterways. Israel’s presence on Socotra Island could provide it with leverage over Iran in their waterway stand-off and enable Tel Aviv to counter Ansarallah inside Yemeni territory.
NATO’s Combined Maritime Forces
It is important to note that the involvement of the US in the Israeli-Emirati collaboration and actions in Yemeni waters is not confirmed. However, it is true that the US has been a maritime security provider for the Persian Gulf monarchies for decades, and its NATO-led Combined Maritime Forces (CMF) have been present in West Asian waters since 1983 – including leading hostile actions against Iraq and Somalia.
The CMF alliance has assumed responsibility for the security of four bodies of water: The Red Sea, Persian Gulf, Arabian Sea, and the Gulf of Aden.
But with China’s rapid rise as a global economic competitor, US policy pivotedfurther eastward, and Washington has sought to subcontract out its West Asian security policies to its regional allies.
As such, last December, the CMF assigned command of its Red Sea task force to the Egyptian Navy, who took over from US naval forces. In this regard, the UAE, backed by Israel, may be another candidate to lead a NATO-backed naval security operation in the region.
Map of the NATO-led Combined Maritime Forces (CMF) areas of operation in West Asian waterways
Implications for Iran and Saudi Arabia
Any Israeli expansion is likely to alarm Iran and vice versa, potentially leading direct or proxy clashes in various regional theaters. However, the presence of the UAE – Iran’s second-largest trading partner – in southern Yemen may limit Tehran’s options. Unless Iran perceives a serious security threat from the new “Arab-Israeli alliance,” it is unlikely to take any significant actions that could harm its trade relations with Abu Dhabi.
The war against Yemen has severely damaged Saudi Arabia’s image as a regional powerhouse. During the last few years, all major Saudi cities have been the subject of Ansarallah missile and drone strikes – including the country’s key oil infrastructure.
It has been humiliating for the Persian Gulf’s wealthiest and most heavily militarized state to have its vulnerabilities so completely exposed by West Asia’s poorest nation. In contrast, the UAE has thus far only benefited from the Yemen war and expanded its influence in the region.
Recently, there have been reports of a possible breakthrough in negotiations between Riyadh and Ansarallah, and observers are hoping for an early roadmap to end the conflict during the holy month of Ramadan. Obstacles are aplenty: The UAE is notably absent from the discussions, the Emirati-backed Yemeni separatists – the STC – reject any solution that doesn’t leave them in control of the south, and the US has sought to scuttle any final solution that undermines Washington’s regional leverage.
Liberating the island
Of all the stakeholders with interest in Socotra Island, none are ultimately as important as the Yemeni ones, primarily the UAE-backed STC, the Saudi-backed PLC, and Iran-backed Ansarallah.
In his most recent televised appearance, Ansarallah’s Abdel Malik al-Houthi stated: “We seek to defeat the aggression, whether on the islands, on land or at sea, and from anyone who violates our independence and the sovereignty of our country.” Unlike other leaders, al-Houthi’s threats are usually translated into action and Ansarallah will not hesitate to strike the Israeli-Emirati bases or seize their ships if the aggression continues.
Ansarallah is currently the strongest player in Yemen, controlling more than 80 percent of the country in terms of population density. On the other hand, the PLC is the most vulnerable of the three main Yemeni players, and Riyadh’s recent rapprochement agreement with Tehran has further weakened the group. If an agreement is reached between Riyadh and Sanaa, the PLC will have one of two options: to hand over their weapons or merge into Ansarallah’s armed forces.
On the other side of the spectrum, the UAE-backed STC is worried about ongoing peace talks and fears being left alone to fight head-to-head with Ansarallah-aligned armed forces.
The question now is whether there will be a peace deal between Saudi Arabia and Ansarallah that excludes the UAE and its Yemeni proxies. If that happens, Sanaa’s armed forces will almost certainly turn their big guns on the Emiratis and their Yemeni interests. The Saudis will have already calculated this outcome as they seek to advance a deal with Ansarallah. In this event, it is unlikely that Riyadh will come to Abu Dhabi’s assistance. Their common goals in Yemen ended years ago.
The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.
The UAE has temporarily suspended the purchase of Israeli defense systems due to the chaotic actions of Jewish supremacist officials belonging to the far-right coalition government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to Israel’s Channel 12.
“Until we can ascertain that Prime Minister Netanyahu has a government he can control, we can’t work together,” UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed (MbZ) reportedly told Israeli officials.
Channel 12 noted, however, that intelligence and security cooperation between Tel Aviv and Abu Dhabi is continuing.
Netanyahu’s office vehemently denied the report, calling it “baseless” and saying that Israel and the UAE are constantly holding “fruitful diplomatic contact … including today.”
Earlier this month, US news outlet Axios revealed that Netanyahu’s planned trip to the UAE – initially scheduled for January – was postponed due to “Emirati concerns” that the visit would exacerbate “regional tensions with Iran.”
No new date has yet been set for this visit.
Netanyahu said following his victory in last year’s elections, his first foreign trip as prime minister would be to the UAE.
According to Channel 12, Emirati leaders are particularly peeved over National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s recent raid of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and the statements made by Israeli Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, calling for Palestinian villages to be “wiped out.”
Smotrich’s comments were made after Israeli settlers carried out a pogrom in Huwara, killing one Palestinian, injuring nearly 400, and destroying dozens of homes and vehicles. This rampage also drew the ire of the UAE.
Last year, Tel Aviv and Abu Dhabi inked their first arms deal since the signing of a normalization agreement in 2020. At the time, this was described as “one in a series of even bigger deals.”
In recent weeks, the two nations unveiled a jointly developed, unmanned naval vessel and coordinated to strike down a resolution at the UN Security Council for a “complete and immediate” cessation of Israeli settlement activity in Palestinian territory.
Israel and the UAE also maintain deep security cooperation in Yemen and have previously worked together in lobbying US officials to re-list the Ansarallah resistance movement as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO).
عند وقوع أزمات كبرى، يظهر الحجم الفعلي لبلد كلبنان. حتى لقاء باريس الخماسي، أول من أمس، الذي كان مخصصاً لمناقشة الملف اللبناني، تحوّل في جانب منه إلى البحث في التطورات العاجلة في المنطقة جرّاء الزلزال المدمّر الذي ضرب سوريا وتركيا فجر الاثنين، بعدما أظهرت عمليات الإنقاذ هول الكارثة. تركيا، الدولة التي يتعامل معها العالم كقوة إقليمية كبرى، تحتاج أمام هذه المأساة إلى المساعدات التي تتدفق عليها، فيما يعي العالم جيداً أن سوريا المنهكة والمحاصرة أكثر احتياجاً إلى دعم شامل ومستدام.
في لبنان، لم يكن متوقعاً من مسؤولين لا يهتمون لأحوال شعبهم أن يبادروا إلى خطوات نوعية تجاه الشعب السوري. فهؤلاء، كالعادة، يعملون تحت الضغط الخارجي، الأميركي تحديداً. وليس متوقعاً ممن لم يخض معركة الحصول على استثناء من العقوبات الأميركية لاستجرار الغاز المصري أو يجرؤ على قبول هبة إيرانية غير مشروطة، أن يبادر إلى خطوات واضحة لمساندة بلد شقيق، قدم الكثير لنا إنسانياً وسياسياً.
الجاحدون والفاشيون فقط هم من يسيّسون أي خطوة إزاء كارثة إنسانية كالتي أصابت الشعب السوري. هؤلاء، ممن يعيشون بيننا أو ينتشرون في العالم، لا يمكن إلا احتقار من يتحدث منهم عن نظام وشعب وعن موالاة ومعارضة، عندما يقارب مسألة الدعم الذي تحتاجه سوريا في هذه المحنة. احتاجت حكومة الرئيس نجيب ميقاتي إلى صوت مرتفع حتى تقوّي «ركابها» وتقرر إرسال وفود أو مساعدات، علماً أن لهذا الأمر رمزيته. فيما القرار الذي يمكن أن يتخذه لبنان، ويشكّل فارقاً بالفعل، هو فتح المعابر اللبنانية أمام كل أشكال الدعم المتوجهة صوب سوريا، ورفض الإذعان لكل أنواع الضغط والترهيب والعقوبات التي يرفعها الغرب الأميركي – الأوروبي. مثل هذه الخطوة من شأنها المساعدة على تسهيل تقديم مساعدات كبيرة لسوريا، من قبل أشخاص أو جهات أو مؤسسات لا تريد الخضوع للعقوبات الأميركية، ومستعدة لتقديم الدعم عبر لبنان.
عربياً، يبدو أن تطوراً ما حصل، تمظهر في الحركة السياسية التي بدأها رئيس دولة الإمارات محمد بن زايد، بإبلاغه الجانب الأميركي قراره إرسال مساعدات مباشرة عبر مطار دمشق، قبل أن يتبعه قرار ولي العهد السعودي محمد بن سلمان إطلاق حملة تبرعات يذهب قسم منها إلى سوريا، إضافة إلى برنامج دعم من الحكومة السعودية نفسها.
وبحسب المعطيات، يناقش بن زايد مع الجانب الفرنسي المبادرة إلى استعادة التواصل مع سوريا من الباب الإنساني تمهيداً لما هو أكثر. وهو أثار ذلك في اتصال مع الرئيس إيمانويل ماكرون، ونُقل أن الأخير لم يرفض الفكرة من حيث المبدأ، وهو وإن حاول إعطاء الأمر بعده الأخلاقي والإنساني، إلا أن القرار النهائي يبقى رهن أمور كثيرة، تبدأ بالموقف الأميركي ولا تنتهي عند صقور الفاشيين في الإدارة الفرنسية. فيما المهم الآن مراقبة نشاط عواصم عربية كالجزائر والقاهرة وأبو ظبي والرياض، للبحث في إمكانية اختراق الجمود بما خص الملف السوري عبر مدخل المساعدات الإنسانية لمواجهة أعباء الكارثة، وفتح الباب أمام مراجعة تعيد ربط سوريا بالعالم العربي بشكل طبيعي، وإنهاء القطيعة التي قامت من قبل متآمرين دمروا سوريا وهجروا أهلها.
مساع عربية لإقناع فرنسا بتغيير موقفها وفتح الأبواب أمام مساعدة سوريا من دون شروط
طبعاً، لا يجب توقع الكثير من النتائج. لكن من المهم أن يتصرف العرب بقليل من الشهامة والأخلاق الإنسانية. ومن يعتقد أنه يمكن ترك سوريا تموت بعد كل ما أصابها، يقوم بفعل سياسي واضح ينم عن حقارة غير مسبوقة. فيما الأبواب مفتوحة اليوم أمام من دعموا مؤامرة تدمير سوريا للتصرف بمسؤولية ولو من الباب الإنساني. والتحدي نفسه يواجه دولاً قادرة مادياً مثل قطر، إضافة إلى عواصم غربية لا يمكنها الاختباء خلف مليون يورو قرّرت ألمانيا دفعها للمتضررين من الزلزال أو قدر هزيل من المساعدات قدمتها فرنسا عبر منظمة أطباء بلا حدود. بينما تشير معطيات واردة من العاصمة الفرنسية إلى أن عملاء الغرب من المعارضين السوريين يحذرون السلطات الأوروبية من تقديم الدعم إلى مناطق تقع تحت سيطرة النظام، ويطالبون بإحياء «الخوذات البيض» التي لا تعدو كونها مجموعة من المرتزقة تعمل لدى الاستخبارات الغربية وتمدها بمعطيات ذات طابع أمني، أو عبر منظمات غير حكومية أقامها أرباب المعارضة السورية ويعيشون على حسابها.
ولعل من «حسنات» الكارثة أنها كشفت المزيد من العنصرية التي تتحكّم بالغرب تجاه منطقتنا كلها، وليس سوريا فقط، وبما يتخطى كل الحدود، إلى درجة نشر صحيفة «شارلي إيبدو» الفرنسية رسماً كاريكاتورياً للدمار في تركيا، مع تعليق: «لسنا بحاجة حتى إلى إرسال دبابة»، ما يعبّر عما يتمناه هؤلاء لكل الدول العربية والإسلامية والفقيرة في العالم، وعن عقلية فاشية واستعمارية لا تفارق أذهان هؤلاء ومخيلاتهم.
وإذا كان أحد يتوهّم باستخدام الكارثة لابتزاز الدولة السورية من أجل تقديم تنازلات سياسية مقابل الدعم، فإن الأخبار الواردة من دمشق تؤكد أن على من ينتظرون من الرئيس بشار الأسد أن يخرج إلى المنابر مستجدياً أو ليتلو فعل الندامة، استعادة سنوات انتظار استسلام الأسد يوم وصل مرتزقتهم إلى مشارف دمشق!
Key Arab heads of state convened this week for an emergency meeting that excluded the Saudis and Kuwaitis. The likely hot topics under discussion were Egypt’s economic collapse and Israel’s aggressive escalations.
On 18 January, the United Arab Emirates hastily arranged a consultative summit in Abu Dhabi, which included the leaders of four member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).
Heads of state of the Sultanate of Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, and the UAE attended the urgent summit, along with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi and Jordan’s King Abdullah II.
The absence of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS), the de facto ruler of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and either Kuwaiti Emir Nawaf al-Ahmad or his Crown Prince Mishaal al-Ahmad was noted with some surprise. No official statements or press leaks have yet emerged to explain the omission of the two GCC leaders or their high-level representatives from the urgent consultations.
This surprise summit came on the heels of a tripartite meeting in Cairo on 17 January, which included President Sisi, King Abdullah, and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Directly afterward, the Jordanian monarch flew to Abu Dhabi carrying a message for Emirati Emir Mohammed bin Zayed (MbZ) that prompted him to immediately convene a summit the next day.
What was so urgent to necessitate an emergency meeting of Arab leaders? Why did the top Saudi and Kuwait leaders give the summit a miss? There are several possibilities behind this swift convening of key Arab leaders in Abu Dhabi.
First, is the rapid deterioration of Egypt’s economy after the decline of the Egyptian pound to its lowest levels in history (32 pounds to the US dollar). Spiraling inflation rates, harsh conditions imposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) – most notably the floating of the national currency and a heavy reduction of private contracting and trade companies affiliated with the Egyptian army – have added sharply to the economy’s downward turn.
There are reports that the IMF has asked GCC countries to provide $40 billion in immediate aid to Egypt, otherwise the state’s collapse is imminent and inevitable.
Second, are the dangerous policies currently under consideration by the right-wing government of Israel’s new Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. These include, most notably, threats to storm the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, the practical abolition of Jordan’s Hashemite Custodianship over Jerusalem, the illegal annexation of the West Bank, and the deportation of hundreds of thousands of its Palestinian residents to Jordan.
Third, former Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim, warned his neighbors a few days ago on Twitter of an imminent US-Israeli aggression against Iran that could fundamentally shake the security and stability of the Gulf.
The risk of economic collapse facing Egypt was perhaps the most important and urgent factor on the summit agenda. Financial assistance from the Gulf – once a reliable source of emergency aid – has completely stopped. Even if it continues, funds will no longer arrive in the form of non-refundable grants and unconditional deposits, as in years past.
That approach to funding has changed as Saudi Finance Minister Mohammed bin Jadaan made clear in his speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on 18 January. In previous statements, Egypt’s President Sisi has confirmed his country’s financial woes by revealing that Gulf states have stopped their aid completely.
The absence of the Emir of Kuwait from the consultative summit may be understandable in this context – if, in fact, Egypt’s economy was the top of the summit’s agenda. The Kuwaiti National Assembly (parliament) has adopted a decision to prevent his government from providing a single dollar in aid to Egypt.
Gulf states have provided Egypt with $92 billion since the ‘Arab Uprisings’ began to tear through the region in January 2011.
Currently, Kuwait’s own internal governmental crisis, in addition to the deterioration of its relationship with Cairo over its deportation of Egyptian workers, can explain the emir’s absence. What is not understood so far, is why Saudi’s MbS was a no-show in Abu Dhabi.
While Emirati leader MbZ’s warm and friendly reception of his Qatari counterpart Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani raised hopes of easing bilateral tensions, news leaks suggested that Saudi-Emirati relations are in their own state of crisis – based on growing differences over the Yemeni war and other regional issues. Perhaps this crisis is what led to a thaw in Qatari-Emirati relations.
In addition, Egyptian-Saudi relations have collapsed to an state unprecedented for years. A report last month by US media outlet Axios revealed that Egyptian authorities have halted practical procedures in their transfer of the strategic Tiran and Sanafir islands to Saudi sovereignty. Egyptian official media has also launched a fierce attack on the Saudi-owned “MBC Egypt” channel and its presenter Amr Adib, accusing him of working for the Saudis amid fears the station will stop broadcasting from Egypt.
Besides the economic aspects, the differences, squabbles, and fluctuating relations between the countries of this axis, there are other issues of significant gravity that may have been addressed at the Abu Dhabi summit.
A key topic may have been the ambitions of Netanyahu’s unprecedentedly right-wing Israeli government – notably its prevention of Jordan’s ambassador from visiting Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque, as a first step to abolish the Hashemite Custodianship over the ancient city.
While the failure to invite Palestinian President Abbas to the Abu Dhabi summit (there is an Emirati veto against it) may suggest otherwise, Jordan – currently under US and Israeli pressure to participate in the second Negev summit in Morocco – and its monarch may have pressed this issue in Abu Dhabi.
Gulf states that have normalized relations or opened communications with Israel would have been asked to use their influence to de-escalate these pressures. The ramifications of continued Israeli aggressions in Jerusalem and the West Bank are a direct threat to Jordan’s security and stability.
Interestingly, all the states represented at the Abu Dhabi summit – with the exception of the Sultanate of Oman and Qatar – have signed normalization agreements with Israel. The absent Saudis and Kuwaitis, have notably not yet joined that club.
Details of the Abu Dhabi emergency summit of heads of states have not yet emerged, but the days ahead could provide some answers. Will billions flow to Egypt to extract the country from its financial crisis? Or will the Arab House remain the same? We will have to wait to see.
The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.
The world of ‘influencing’ and ‘content creation’ seems to be tone-deaf to “Israel” killing, bombing, and assaulting the people of Palestine.
Dear followers, your ‘influencers’ seem ignorant about Israeli crimes
So a mere handshake or even a simple eye contact will eventually initiate some sort of disruption unless you are ‘okay’ with the crimes that are being committed and these crimes sit well with you.
Now let’s delve deeper; consider this enemy, “Israel”, the occupation that was ‘established’ on the backs of Palestinians and formed due to “Israel’s” horrific massacres in Palestine.
This is called normalization
Moving on to another set of rules: When a country that used to consider “Israel” an enemy in the past, intentionally decides to build diplomatic relations with “Israel”, this is known as “normalization agreements”. When a single diplomat steps foot in “Israel”, that is called normalization. When direct talks happen, that is called normalization. When an athlete faces another Israeli athlete in sports tournaments, that is called normalization. And when a group of Arab influencers pose for photos at an event where they are taking lessons on content creation from an Israeli, this is called normalization.
‘Influencers’ & ‘content creators’ for “Israel”
Behind the scenes of endless selfies, likes, and comments, over 3000 ‘influencers’ and ‘content creators’ attended and spoke at the ‘1 Billion Followers Summit’ in Dubai, where the Israeli ‘activist’ Nuseir Yassin was a co-host.
The event included dinners and celebrations, and the contributors ‘lit a fire in the desert’. Sounds fun doesn’t it?
Nuseir Yassin is known for his pro-“Israel” stance regarding the Palestinian struggle for freedom. He intentionally disregarded, through his self-described ‘humane videos’, the Palestinian Nakba, the Palestinian suffering, and most importantly, Israeli war crimes.
Nuseir is vocal about the ‘two-state solution’ in Palestine and believes that Palestinians and Israelis should ‘co-exist’.
In his last video about the Palestinian struggle, Yassin disregarded the Palestinians’ right to self-defense and called them ‘attacks’ on “Israel”. Nusseir Yasin usually introduces himself as “Arab-Israeli”.
Applying the before-mentioned set of rules, these Arab influencers’ existence in the same room and event as Nuseir, interacting, laughing, taking notes, and speaking with him, is called normalization.
Keynotes into normalization
Looking into the “agenda” of the Summit on the website, various topics were discussed during the two days event.
Starting from day one, after the opening ceremony, the first speaker was Nuseir Yassin.
Yassin’s topic, as it appeared on the website, was “Why Creators Will Conquer The World”. What was said during each speech or lecture cannot be found on any platform, given that the event was ‘exclusive’. On the Summit’s YouTube channel, few videos are posted and most of them are teasers or wrap-ups of the event.
Users can rarely find any content that is related to what Nuseir or other speakers said. Is censoring part of the summit? Or is it because some attendees were not supposed to be there?
In one of these short videos that were published by a particular news outlet, Nuseir was seen talking with the audience and giving a lecture about content creation with a picture displayed for them that says “And if you look like me… GOOD LUCK..”
In the video, Nuseir was filmed talking and lecturing the crowd about ‘history’ and how ‘throughout history, people could only impact 150 people…”
Why does normalization always have to be ‘fun’?
For additional background information on this topic, Nas Daily is a popular page that publishes videos on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok. Each platform has a vast number of followers.
On its Instagram account, Nas Daily writes the following slogan: ‘We Bring People Together’ at the top of its page.
Interestingly, on its Youtube platform, the ‘1 Billion Followers Summit’ posted a teaser titled “1 Billion Followers Summit – The Expo of Content Creation”. The video says ‘connecting 1 billion people under the same roof.’
In another ‘shorts’ video on YouTube, the Summit posted a video that says ‘The world of social media gathers under one roof!’
Sounds familiar?
The vlog-styled videos are identical to those of Nas Daily. The scripts, the tone, even the shooting style, and the enthusiasm, all give the same vibes.
The Summit is powered by New Media Academy, the same academy that funded and embraced Nas Daily for its videos where they whitewash Israeli crimes.
On the Summit’s LinkedIn, one can see how employees in Nas Daily actually worked for this big event. Parikshit Sachdeva appeared to be Nas Daily’s social media manager as he was a community manager in the ‘1 Billion Followers Summit’.
Another example is: Nizar Salman worked for Nas Daily as a project manager for 1 year and 9 months. Salman was an event lead for 8 months at the Summit.
The contributors to the event added the ‘mystery celebrity speaker’ into the event to make it more ‘exciting’. The speaker turned out to be the former TV presenter and comedian Trevor Noah.
Yassin was the one who hosted Noah during a debate that many attended and listened to.
In addition to Noah, many international YouTubers attended the event such as Jordan Matter and Matpat. The speakers came from the US, Canada, Poland, Lebanon, India, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and many more.
When it comes to Arabs, activist Saleh Zaghari, appeared in a video justifying his participation in the event by saying that he was seeking to provoke those in charge of the conference by raising the Palestinian flag in the event.
However, after Zaghri was heavily criticized by social media activists, he later apologized and admitted that he made a mistake by attending this event.
While the ‘1 Billion Followers Summit’ happened over the course of two days, 3 and 4 December, on 5 and 6 December, a different event took place in Abu Dhabi. The two events may look different on the surface, regarding the objectives and topics, but both meet at the same end; normalization with “Israel”.
Around 300 decision-makers and representatives of 47 international space institutions attended the first edition of the Abu Dhabi Space Debate this month. The event focused mainly on topics related to ‘space sustainability, accessibility, and security’.
All looks normal, doesn’t it?
After his unwelcomed visit to Bahrain, and after he met with UAE’s President Mohammad bin Zayed Al Nahyan at his private home in Abu Dhabi, the Israeli President Isaac Herzog took part in the Space Debate where he made a speech.
Herzog, during his speech, urged to “move onwards and upwards, not with the competition of a cold war,” but rather with “our warm peace.” The Israeli occupation’s President called for countries to “collaborate in here on the blue planet we call home.”
The UAE was the first Gulf state to normalize ties with “Israel”, kicking off a wave of normalization that saw Bahrain, Sudan, and Morrocco swept by the tide.
The Israeli occupation and the United Arab Emirates have long been exchanging visits, drawing more and more criticism for the Arab nation that abandoned the Palestinian cause.
Spot the ‘influencer’ in the audience
After the Space Debate took place, many Lebanese activists strongly condemned the presence of a Lebanese filmmaker and content creator.
Lebanon is among the countries that still have a strong stance regarding the normalization agreement with “Israel” and considers “Israel” as an occupation.
Lebanon criminalizes normalization with the Israeli occupation in its law. The Lebanese criminal code, the 1955 Boycott Law, and the Code of Military Justice all say that any type of contact between Lebanese and Israeli citizens is prohibited; punishment can range from a few months in prison to death.
Many Twitter activists argued that the Lebanese filmmaker, Kazim Fayad, should not be present at an event that the Israeli President spoke at. After the backlash, Fayad had to issue a statement regarding the matter.
The filmmaker claimed that he was not able to leave the hall where the event was taking place and that the only reason he was attending was that he had booked interviews with several news outlets.
It is worth mentioning that the speakers of the event were published ahead of the ceremony, in addition to the many news outlets that reported that Herzog arrived in the UAE to attend the Space Debate. It does not stop here. Looking closer into the event itself, which was posted in its entirety on YouTube, there was a 40-minute break between the end of the last debate that took place and Herzog’s arrival at the event. Thus, giving Fayad, and other so-called “influencers” plenty of time to dodge a possible encounter with the enemy’s President.
Now one cannot help but wonder: do the influencers realize what they are really ‘influencing’?
The real question here is whether the millions of followers, that these ‘influencers’ have, know what subliminal messages they are intaking on daily basis, through swiping, liking, and commenting on those influencers’ social media stories, videos, and pictures.
In both events, Israelis were present. In both events, Arabs were present. And in both events, prominent figures, TV presenters, and social media influencers were present. Should any questions be raised? The answer is yes.
Anti-Israel protests rage in Bahrain, Herzog forced to change plans in Manama
People in Bahrain have staged fresh demonstrations across the Persian Gulf country to reiterate their support for the Palestinian cause, and to condemn the establishment of full diplomatic relations with the Tel Aviv regime, and the visit by Israeli president Isaac Herzog to Manama.
Protesters in the village of al-Markh chanted slogans in protest against the normalization of ties, voiced solidarity with the Palestinian nation in their struggle against the occupying Israeli regime and called for the expulsion of Israeli tourists from Bahrain. People take part in a rally in al-Daih, Bahrain, on December 3, 2022, against Israeli president Isaac Herzog’s visit to the tiny Persian Gulf country. (Photo via Twitter)
They chanted slogans including “We shall never accept humiliation,” “Normalization is treason” and “Bahrain is the cemetery of Zionists”. The demonstrators also trampled upon the Israeli flag.
A similar rally was also held in the village of al-Daih, where participants held up placards against Herzog’s visit and normalization of relations with Israel. They waved Palestinian national flags and chanted “Death to America” and “Death to Israel.”
Elsewhere in the coastal village of Dumistan, demonstrators called for the immediate and unconditional release of political prisoners.
Herzog arrived in Manama on Sunday and was welcomed by Bahraini Foreign Minister Abdullatif bin Rashid al-Zayani and Bahrain’s envoy to Israel Khaled Yousif al-Jalahma upon landing in Manama.
As a result of the protests, Herzog’s itinerary was changed at the last minute, though Bahraini officials said they would not allow protests to take place during the visit.
He is set to head to al-Qudaibiya Palace, where he will meet King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifah over lunch.
Earlier, Herzog had been slated to meet with members of the local Jewish community, and then hold a meeting with the Bahrain Economic Development Board.
Israel’s Channel 12 reported on Thursday that the regime’s so-called security service, Shin Bet, had decided to boost Herzog’s security detail for the trip following an online social media campaign from Bahraini opposition activists.
On Monday, the Israeli president will take off for the United Arab Emirates to meet with his Emirati counterpart Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who is also the Abu Dhabi ruler and known colloquially as MBZ. Herzog will also attend the Abu Dhabi Space Debate.
Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates signed US-brokered normalization agreements with Israel in an event in Washington in September 2020. Sudan and Morocco followed suit later that year. Palestinians have condemned the deals as a treacherous “stab in the back.”
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The Biden administration is now paying the price for its chaotic and inconsistent policy on Saudi Arabia
On Wednesday, US President Joe Biden issued his national security strategy, which boasted, among other things, of his country’s unique capacity to “defend democracy around the world”.
US President Joe Biden at the White House, on 4 October 2022 (AFP)
One of the standout phrases of this unashamed piece of geopolitical fiction was this one: “We are forging creative new ways to work in common cause with partners around issues of shared interest.”
This statement was released just days after Opec+, led by Saudi Arabia and Russia, unleashed the biggest shock to oil markets this century by cutting production by two million barrels a day.
It’s chaos – not in the unstable Middle East, but in the corridors of the National Security Council
Despite Riyadh’s latest protestations that the decision was based only on “economic considerations”, the move has triggered a tidal wave of anger among Democratic members of Congress, who are now threatening to suspend arms sales to the kingdom for a year. National security adviser Jake Sullivan has also said the White House was looking into a halt to arms sales. As 73 percent of the kingdom’s arms imports come from the US, this is no mere rhetorical threat.
“If it weren’t for our technicians, their airplanes literally wouldn’t fly… We literally are responsible for their entire air force,” Ro Khanna, a Democratic congressman from California, told reporters. “What galls so many of us in Congress is the ingratitude.”
Incidentally, the same is true of the British firm BAE Systems, which supplies and maintains aircraft for Saudi Arabia, but the UK government is staying silent.
It should not. Because the national security strategy shows that, among other things, the US has lost control of its allies, especially in the Middle East and particularly in the Gulf.
Courting a ‘pariah’
To take Biden’s tenure as an illustration, one of the first things he did upon taking office was to appoint Brett McGurk, a diplomat who had served under previous presidents, as his National Security Council coordinator for the Middle East.
McGurk is famous, or rather infamous, among Sunni political circles in Iraq – let alone pro-Iran Shia ones – for being rather too close to Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia and latterly its prime minister. McGurk set up the disastrous “fist bump” encounter between Biden and Mohammed bin Salman by negotiating an agreement between Israel, Saudi Arabia and Egypt over the transfer of two uninhabited but strategically placed islands in the Red Sea, Tiran and Sanafir.
How, then, could Mohammed bin Salman poke such a large finger in Biden’s eye just before the midterm elections, if McGurk had been doing his job? It’s chaos – not in the unstable Middle East, but in the corridors of the National Security Council.
Biden and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on 16 July 2022 (AFP)
Or take the decisions that Biden made over Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi journalist and Middle East Eye columnist murdered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018. Biden abandoned the principles he touted as a presidential candidate to treat the Saudi crown prince as a pariah, the moment he took office.
Upon the publication of a summary of a CIA report on the murder, which concluded that Mohammed bin Salman had ordered the killing, Biden had an opportunity to put US weight behind a UN investigation into the killing. He notably declined to do so.
The US announced visa restrictions against 76 Saudis implicated in the plot, but did nothing against the man its intelligence services said was behind it.
“The relationship with Saudi Arabia is bigger than any one individual,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at the time of the so-called Khashoggi ban. “What we’ve done by the actions that we’ve taken is really not to rupture the relationship, but to recalibrate it to be more in line with our interests and our values.”
Dennis Ross, a former Middle East negotiator, applauded Biden for “trying to thread the needle”, telling the New York Times that the affair was “a classic example of where you have to balance your values and your interests”.
Not unnaturally, Mohammed bin Salman concluded that he had gotten away with it. Now, Biden is paying the price.
State of surprise
The American foreign policy establishment has been, since the end of the Cold War, in a permanent state of surprise.
There was surprise that it had “lost Russia” at the end of the 1990s; surprise at the devastation caused by its invasion of Iraq; surprise over Vladimir Putin’s 2007 Munich speech, in which the Russian leader called out the US’s “almost uncontained hyper use of force in international relations”; surprise at Putin’s intervention in Syria; surprise over the fall of Kabul; and surprise that strategic decisions such as expanding Nato eastwards would ultimately lead to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
At least the US is showing consistency in its faulty analytics and strategy, and massive blind spots. You can now rely on it to make the wrong choice
A world power that, until Putin’s intervention in Syria, held a monopoly on the use of international force but has squandered its authority in a series of mainly unforced errors. That is why it can no longer lead the democracies of the world.
Alienating China at the very time the US needs President Xi Jinping to contain Putin and stop him from using battlefield nukes, which he is quite capable of doing, is perhaps the biggest strategic mistake it is currently making.
At least the US is showing admirable consistency in its faulty analytics and strategy, and massive blind spots. You can now rely on it to make the wrong choice.
Saudi foreign policy cannot be untangled from the personality of its de facto ruler, Mohammed bin Salman. He is to international relations what a Nintendo game console is to careful reflection. He presses a button and thinks it can happen. He has an idea, and it has to be true.
I recently met an academic in Tehran who believed Mohammed bin Salman had moved beyond his Game Boy past. He is involved in backchannel negotiations with the Saudis.
Saudi Arabia: Mohammed bin Salman is now the state
“A senior Saudi diplomat told me that MBS started as a kid playing video games,” he told me. “Killing Khashoggi, starting a military intervention in Yemen which would last ‘two weeks’, the siege of Qatar, getting rid of [Lebanese Prime Minister Saad] Hariri were all video games for him, buttons you can press, enemies disappearing from the screen. Out of necessity, he is becoming more strategic.
“Strategic maturity does not come from what you would like to have. It comes out of necessity,” the academic added. “I don’t think the Saudis decided to move beyond that strategic relationship with America. The American hand is still strong. But there are differences happening. The Americans are not seen with the same confidence that was seen in Riyadh.
“Where does it leave the Saudis? The Saudis have been trying to build relations with China and Russia and in the region. Vision 2030 cannot move without calm all around the kingdom. The Saudis see Yemen in two tracks: one, the Saudi-Yemeni track [with the Houthis]; two, the national reconciliation track. But the two rely on each other, and MBS is moving towards a compromise.”
The Iranian academic admitted that this was music to his ears, which was why he thought his Saudi counterpart was playing it, but nor could he discount the temptation to believe it.
Machiavellian tutor
Mohammed bin Salman admires Putin personally. Multiple sources have told me that the inspiration for the Tiger Squad – which killed and dismembered the body of Khashoggi and tried to do the same to Saad al-Jabri, a former minister of state and adviser to deposed crown prince Mohammed bin Nayef – came from the killing of former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko in London and the attempted poisoning of defector Sergei Skripal in Salisbury.
But beyond that, Mohammed bin Salman sees the limits of the kingdom’s ties to the US. He used former President Donald Trump as his ticket to the top of the Saudi royal family, but now that the Trump clan is – for the moment – out of power, he sees no reason not to court Russia.
But he remains impulsive, and his tutor in the modern art of Machiavelli, UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed, is more astute.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (left) with Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed in Abu Dhabi, in November 2019 (AFP/Saudi Royal Palace)
In distinction to his pupil, Mohammed bin Zayed still sees his country’s growing trade alliance with Israel as his ticket to influencing US policymakers. It was his ambassador in the US, Yousef al-Otaiba – not the Saudi ambassador – who introduced Mohammed bin Salman to the Trump family and to Washington.
But Mohammed bin Zayed hates being told what to do. One official familiar with relations between the Saudi and Emirati crown princes told me of a plan Mohammed bin Salman once had to run a maglev railway around the Gulf. Only a few of these systems, such as the Shanghai Transrapid, are running in the world, due to the enormous cost of construction.
“MBS makes a plan and tells everyone else how much to invest without consulting them,” the official said. “He had an idea to run a maglev train going around the Gulf. Its [cost] was $160bn, because it’s $1bn a mile. Abu Dhabi’s share was huge. They were furious and stopped the plan.
“MBZ resents being told what to do by MBS, because he thinks he created him. MBS could not conceive of a relationship to him where he is subservient.”
New era of power projection
So while Mohammed bin Zayed went to Russia courting Putin, his officials distanced themselves from the Opec+ oil cut. The Financial Times reported that the UAE and Iraq had “expressed misgivings”.
Foreign policy in the hands of Mohammed bin Zayed is more nuanced than in those of his Saudi protege. This means that every move Mohammed bin Zayed makes is reversible, and therefore tradeable. He calculates each move before he makes it.
Although the two men look in public to be close to each other, in reality, Mohammed bin Salman is moving faster than his neighbour wants him to. The one thing that Mohammed bin Zayed does not want is for Mohammed bin Salman to become his own man. At the same time, the one thing that Mohammed bin Salman will not tolerate is for anyone else to issue him orders.
The US is being tested as much by its allies as by its foes. And for good reason
It happened once over Yemen, where the announcement of the pullout of UAE troops left the Saudi crown prince on his own.
Biden and his advisers may be tempted to take a successful pushback of Russian troops in Ukraine as a starting gun for a new era of American power projection around the world – one whose target is China. But even if Putin is turned back in Ukraine, they would be profoundly wrong to do so.
The US is being tested as much by its allies as by its foes. And for good reason: they sense that the US won’t resume the role of unchallenged leader, which it held briefly for three decades.
The US has learned no lessons from the fall of Kabul. It reacted to its military defeat in Afghanistan by trading up. A geographically limited conflict in Central Asia was replaced by a potentially much larger conflict with China. Large parts of the world have rightly lost faith in this type of leadership.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
David Hearst is co-founder and editor-in-chief of Middle East Eye. He is a commentator and speaker on the region and analyst on Saudi Arabia. He was the Guardian’s foreign leader writer, and was correspondent in Russia, Europe, and Belfast. He joined the Guardian from The Scotsman, where he was education correspondent.
The roll call was a Eurasian thing of beauty – featuring the leaders of Russia and Belarus (EAEU), West Asia (Azerbaijan, Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Qatar, Palestine) and Central Asia (Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan).
China and Vietnam (East and Southeast Asia) attended at the level of vice presidents.
CICA is a multinational forum focused on cooperation toward peace, security, and stability across Asia.,Kazakh President Tokayev revealed that CICA has just adopted a declaration to turn the forum into an international organization.
CICA has already established a partnership with the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU). So in practice, it will soon be working together side-by-side with the SCO, the EAEU and certainly BRICS+.
The Russia-Iran strategic partnership was prominently featured at CICA, especially after Iran being welcomed to the SCO as a full member.
President Raeisi, addressing the forum, stressed the crucial notion of an emerging “new Asia”, where “convergence and security” are “not compatible with the interests of hegemonic countries and any attempt to destabilize independent nations has goals and consequences beyond national geographies, and in fact, aims to target the stability and prosperity of regional countries.”
For Tehran, being a partner in the integration of CICA, within a maze of pan-Asia institutions, is essential after all these decades of”maximum pressure” unleashed by the Hegemon.
Moreover, it opens an opportunity, as Raeisi noted, for Iran to profit from “Asia’s economic infrastructure.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin, predictably, was the star of the show in Astana. It’s essential to note that Putin is supported by “all”nations represented at CICA.
High-level bilaterals with Putin included the Emir of Qatar: everyone that matters in West Asia wants to talk to “isolated” Russia.
Putin called for “compensation for the damage caused to the Afghans during the years of occupation” (we all know the Empire of Chaos, Lies and Plunder will refuse it), and emphasized the key role of the SCO to develop Afghanistan.
He stated that Asia, “where new centers of power are growing stronger, plays a big role in the transition to a multipolar world order”.
He warned, “there is a real threat of famine and large-scale shocks against the backdrop of volatility in energy and food prices in the world.”
Hefurther called for the end of a financial system that benefits the “Golden billion” – who “live at the expense of others” (there’s nothing “golden” about this “billion”: at best such definition of wealth applies to 10 million.)
And he stressed that Russia is doing everything to “form a system of equal and indivisible security”. Exactly what drives the hegemonic imperial elites completely berserk.
“Offer you can’t refuse” bites the dust
The imminent juxtaposition between CICA and the SCO and EAEU is yet another instance of how the pieces of the complex Eurasia jigsaw puzzle are coming together.
Turkey and Saudi Arabia – in theory, staunch imperial military allies – are itching to join the SCO, which has recently welcomed Iran as a full member.
That spells out Ankara and Riyadh’s geopolitical choice of forcefully eschewing the imperial Russophobia cum Sinophobia offensive.
Erdogan, as an observer at the recent SCO summit in Samarkand, sent out exactly this message. The SCO is fast reaching the point where we may have, sitting at the same table, and taking important consensual decisions, not only the “RICs” (Russia, India, China) in BRICS (soon to be expanded to BRICS+) but arguably the top players inMuslim countries: Iran, Pakistan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Qatar.
This evolving process, not without its serious challenges, testifies to the concerted Russia-China drive to incorporate the lands of Islam as essential strategic partners in forging the post-Western multipolar world. Call it a soft Islamization of multipolarity.
No wonder the Anglo-American axis is absolutely petrified.
Now cut to a graphic illustration of all of the above – the way it’s being played in the energy markets: the already legendary Opec+ meeting in Vienna a week ago.
A tectonic geopolitical shift was inbuilt in the – collective – decision to slash oil production by 2 million barrels a day.
The Saudi Foreign Ministry issued a very diplomatic note with a stunning piece of information for those equipped to read between the lines.
For all practical purposes, the combo behind the teleprompter reader in Washington had issued a trademark Mafia threat to stop “protection” to Riyadh if the decision on the oil cuts was taken before the US mid-term elections.
Only this time the “offer you can’t refuse” didn’t bite. OPEC+ made a collective decision, led by Russia, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
Following Putin and MBS famously getting along, it was up to Putin to host UAE President Sheikh Zayed – or MBZ, MBS’s mentor – at the stunning Konstantinovsky Palace in St. Petersburg, which datesback to Peter the Great.
That was a sort of informal celebration of how OPEC+ had provoked, with a single move, a superpower strategic debacle when it comes to the geopolitics of oil, which the Empire had controlled for a century.
Everyone remembers, after the bombing, invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003, how US neo-cons bragged, “we are the new OPEC”.
Well, not anymore. And the move had to come from the Russians and US Persian Gulf “allies” when everyone expected that would happen the day a Chinese delegation lands in Riyadh and asks for payment of all the energy they need in yuan.
OPEC+ called the American bluff and left the superpower high’n dry. So what are they going to do to “punish” Riyadh and Abu Dhabi? Call CENTCOM in Qatar and Bahrain to mobilize their aircraft carriers and unleash regime change?
What’s certain is that the Straussian/neocon psychos in charge in Washington will double down on hybrid war.
The art of “spreading instability”
In St. Petersburg, as he addressed MBZ, Putin made it clear that it’s OPEC+ – led by Russia, Saudi Arabia and the UAE – that is now setting the pace to “stabilize global energy markets” so consumers and suppliers would “feel calm, stable and confident” and supply and demand “would be balanced”.
On the gas front, at Russian Energy Week, Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller made it clear that Russia may still “save” Europe from an energy black hole.
Nord Stream (NS) and Nord Stream 2 (NS2) may become operational: but all political roadblocks must be removed before any repairing work starts on the pipelines.
And on West Asia, Miller said additions to Turk Stream have already been planned, much to the delight of Ankara, keen to become a key energy hub.
In a parallel track, it’s absolutely clear that the G7’s desperate gambit of imposing an oil price cap – which translates as the weaponization of sanctions extended to the global energy market – is a losing proposition.
Slightly over a month before hosting the G20 in Bali, Indonesian Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati could not make it clearer: “When the United States is imposing sanctions using economic instruments, that creates a precedent for everything”, spreading instability “not only for Indonesia but for all other countries.”
Meanwhile, allMuslim-majority countries are paying very close attention to Russia. The Russia-Iran strategic partnership is now advancing in parallel to the Russia-Saudi-UAE entente as crucial vectors of multipolarity.
In the near future, all these vectors are bound to unite in what ideally should be a supra-organization capable of managing the top story of the 21st century: Eurasia integration.
Pepe Escobar is a veteran journalist, author and independent geopolitical analyst focused on Eurasia.
(The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of Press TV.)
Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:
In an unusual foray into diplomacy, William Burns pressed Mohammed bin Salman on oil production, prominent detainees, and the kingdom’s relationship with China
Last month, as part of a regional tour, CIA Director William Burns quietly met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Jeddah, a port city in western Saudi Arabia. The unusual meeting, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, is the first known encounter between the United States’ top spy and Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler — and, according to three sources familiar with the matter, the latest attempt by high-ranking U.S. officials to appeal to Saudi Arabia on oil amid rising U.S. gas prices. Also on the table, two of the sources told The Intercept, were Saudi weapons purchases from China.
President Joe Biden has so far refused to meet with MBS, as he is known, owing to the crown prince’s role in ordering the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. But in February, Biden made an effort to begin repairing the relationship with the kingdom, asking King Salman to increase the country’s oil production in return for U.S. military support for its “defense” against Yemen’s Houthis. According to a Saudi readout of the call, Biden was denied. Though Burns again asked for an oil production increase last month, Saudi Arabia announced last week that it would be sticking to its production plan, once more denying the U.S.’s request.
A spokesperson for the CIA declined to comment on Burns’s travels. The Intercept’s sources — a U.S. intelligence official, two sources with ties to the U.S. intelligence community, a source close to members of the Saudi royal family, and a think tank official — interviewed for this story spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
The meeting was also an opportunity to broach a subject of intense concern to Washington: Riyadh’s growing relationship with China. In addition to Burns’s ask on oil, the CIA director also requested that Saudi Arabia not pursue a purchase of arms from China, according to the two sources close to U.S. intelligence.
Saudi Arabia’s very public overtures to Beijing — most notably, exploring the possibility of selling its oil in the Chinese currency, yuan — have caused consternation in Washington. This week, in Senate testimony, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines warned of efforts by China and Russia to “to try to make inroads with partners of ours across the world,” mentioning Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as examples.
What is not publicly known, however, is that the Saudi government is planning to import ballistic missiles later this month from China under a secret program code-named “Crocodile,” the source close to U.S. intelligence said. (The other source with ties to U.S. intelligence confirmed that the discussion pertained to arms sales with China.)
Burns also requested the release of numerous high-profile Saudi royals whom MBS has detained, including MBS’s cousin, former Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, the sources said. MBN, as he is known, was heir to the throne before his ouster by Crown Prince Mohammed in 2017. Because MBN is a close partner to U.S. intelligence, the Biden administration has reportedly pressured for his release amid allegations of torture.
Relying on a CIA director to conduct high-level diplomatic engagement of this sort is extremely unusual, although it does offer at least one big advantage: discretion. Burns’s presence also served as a means of attempting to mend the fraught relationship between MBS and other top Biden administration officials, the source close to U.S. intelligence said. Last year, when Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan brought up the Khashoggi murder, MBS shouted at him, remarking that the U.S. could forget about its request to increase oil production, as the Wall Street Journal recently reported.
Burns’s meeting with MBS was one of several with leaders in the region, including in Qatar, the UAE, and Oman, the source also said. (A prominent think tank official close to the Biden administration confirmed that Burns had been traveling throughout the Middle East.) Burns’s meeting with Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed echoed the theme of his meeting with MBS, urging him to stop warming up to China, specifically referring to the construction of a Chinese military base in the UAE. Last year, the Biden administration reportedly warned the UAE that China had been building a military facility at an Emirati port and that its construction could imperil their relations. In the case of Saudi Arabia, U.S. intelligence has assessed that the country has been working with China to manufacture its own ballistic missiles domestically — raising concerns about touching off a regional arms race.
“What’s different about this is the Saudis are now looking to import completed missiles,” the source close to U.S. intelligence said.
Burns has come under criticism for conducting diplomacy for the administration, which is supposed to be handled by diplomats at the State Department. Last year, as Kabul fell to the Taliban, Burns was reportedly in the Middle East, meeting with top Israeli and Palestinian government officials. Shortly thereafter, Burns secretly met in Kabul with Taliban leader Abdul Ghani Baradar. Just last week, Burns met with Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, urging him not to interfere with his country’s elections.
“Burns has been doing a lot of the diplomatic heavy lifting, which is terrible,” a U.S. intelligence official close to the administration told The Intercept, decrying what he called the “further castration of the Department of State.” This has rankled diplomats at Foggy Bottom, who had hoped that Biden would make good on his campaign pledge to empower diplomacy after years of neglect by the Trump administration.
Concerns about Burns’s role in diplomacy and sidelining the State Department have even come from figures like Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon official and now a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. “Intelligence professionals can coerce and threaten unencumbered by the restraints of diplomacy,” Rubin wrote in a recent article for the Washington Examiner. “They are not there to debate and formulate foreign policy.” The Biden administration is currently without an ambassador to Saudi Arabia, having only last month announced its intent to nominate diplomat Michael Ratney for the position.
American. French. Sudanese. German. Colombian. Yemeni. Eritrean. You name it.
Mercenaries in Yemen are a significant factor in what prolonged the war.
It’s the twenty-first century. Corporates have armies. With as little as a few ID papers and almost no governmental regulation, you can take up state-of-the-art arms and be sent to a war that’s not your war, not your battle, and kill people whose names you can barely pronounce. The trade offer? You receive some $10,000 a week. That’s $40,000 a month. That’s more than 30x the American minimum wage for some honest work. You need not read some Veronica Roth, because we’re already living in a dystopian novel.
Let’s address the word “mercenaries.” In the very far away bureaucratic world of secret operations where sharp terms are smoothed down (recalling comedian George Carlin’s usage of post-traumatic stress disorder as a euphemism for shell-shock!), “mercenaries” is a taboo word. Instead, they’re called special forces to drive people away from the clandestine, underground nature of foreign soldier recruitment. An ancient ‘job’ dormant since the Middle Ages, the United States revived the mercenary industry with Bush’s War on Terror, and continued the venture into the UAE and Saudi-led war on Yemen, and now in Ukraine.
Putting Saudi Arabia aside for now – UAE is the perfect orbit state for Washington. With a population of only 1 million with a total of 9 million expatriates, Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan does not want to risk it all for a wealthy population that can barely manage a home without housemaids – the UAE is largely operated by foreigners rather than locals. So how was the UAE going to fight this war? An army operated by foreigners – namely US lieutenants and colonels and allies.
But why mercenaries? One reason is numbers. There was no way MBZ was going to send soldiers from his local population of 1 million to war. A foreign population, however, is cost-effective, could be bought in abundance, and will guarantee to prolong the war – especially if major terrorists like ISIS are on the ground.
Another reason is accountability. Because mercenaries operate outside the scope of direct military command – or, at least that’s what we know – Abu Dhabi benefits from zero accountability. Mercenaries can kill, maim and commit other war crimes with no investigation from a legitimate governmental body. They’re bought and sold like a commodity, where corporates, on the long run, can transform into superpowers like states in the new world.
A third reason would be, as an ex-Navy SEAL – Erik Prince – once said: Muslim soldiers could not be counted on to kill fellow Muslims. Sending Muslim soldiers, Emirati or Saudi, to kill Yemenis will bear a conflict of interest.
The Yemeni armed forces and the Popular Committees in Yemen can testify to witnessing American, Australian, Sudanese, Colombian, Eritrean, and even Yemeni mercenaries, working for Gulf and US interests in Yemen. Some were recruited out of ignorance and poverty, others were recruited out of coercion and deception, and many bear arms for major cash.
Kingfish
Erik Prince is a former US Navy SEAL who was behind the revival of the private security industry.
He also calls himself ‘Kingfish.’
Notoriously known for Blackwater and his involvement in the Iraq War, he established another private military company called Reflex Responses – or R2 – after he sold Blackwater to investors as an escape from controversy. The UAE secretly hired both companies, Blackwater and R2, to go to Yemen.
Blackwater, which has massacred scores of Iraqis and is despised in Iraq more than the US soldiers themselves, has taken pride in employing Colombians and other Latin American military personnel, from soldiers to commanders.
But, why did MBZ’s private army, a project originally launched by Blackwater, consist mostly of Colombians?
As Professor of Strategy at the National Defense University Sean McFate put it, think of the private military industry as the t-shirt industry. In America, it costs 20$ to make, but in Bangladesh, it costs 1$ to make.
Colombian mercenaries are not only cheap, but they are also trained by Washington and are more violent and rigorous than others given they are hardened by guerrilla warfare in Latin America.
The UAE hired 1,800 Colombians on the ground and tripled and quadrupled their salaries.
“They’re pretty tough warriors in my experience,” McFate said. “They obey chain of command, and they have American training.
“When you take them out of Latin America and put them in the Middle East, they have no sort of political affiliation to any Middle Eastern action or country, so they’re just truly loyal to their paymaster. So they got a lot of Latin American ex-special soldiers in Abu Dhabi. Then, as the Emirates went to war with Saudi Arabia in Yemen, that’s when the Emirates deployed these mercenaries into Yemen to kill Houthis. And they did. And now we have mercenary warfare in Yemen almost like it’s the Middle Ages again.”
Under the guise of construction workers, Colombian mercenaries became part of an American mercenary army, led by Erik Prince, who scored a $529 million budget from the UAE to create a monster.
“That is to me a pretty crazy part of the evolution of the mercenary business model that was taken from Erik Prince developing it in the US then exporting it to Abu Dhabi – then, all of the sudden, there are Colombians dying in Yemen. It’s hard to track,” said McFate.
Spear: A Delaware-based firm with an Israeli touch
“Give me your best man and I’ll beat him. Anyone,” said Abraham Golan, the Israeli-Hungarian owner of Spear Operations Group that has also operated in Yemen to commit targeted assassinations.
Golan was able to convince, over spaghetti and maybe some wine, the security advisor to MBZ that hiring his security company would be more effective than his own army – and, it worked.
On December 29, 2015, a group of mercenaries from the Delaware-based military firm planted a bomb in the Islah political party headquarters in Aden, Yemen. Escorted by UAE military vehicles front and back, one of Golan’s mercenaries, Isaac Gilmore (also an ex-Navy SEAL and Delta Force veteran), jumps from the vehicle, fires bullets at civilians around the block, as his comrade rushes to plant the explosive device just under the building. With an Emirati soldier behind the wheel, the SUV zooms off as soon as the deed is done.
Assassination targets handed out to Spears Group Operations’ mercenaries who were sent to operate in Yemen. (BuzzFeed News)
The group that Golan and Gilmore pieced together was a 12-man army, mostly consisting of former French legion officers and ex-US soldiers. The French officers were paid half of what Golan intended to pay – around $10,000 a month – which was even less than half of their American counterparts, a testimony to the commodification of military personnel and ‘market’ value.
The assassination plot to kill Anssaf Ali Mayo, a leader of the conservative Islah party in Yemen, was plotted out over spaghetti at a UAE military base with MBZ’s security advisor and ex-Fatah member, Mohammed Dahlan.
Dahlan fell from grace when he was accused of collaborating with the CIA and “Israel” – and that’s exactly what he did as he sat with Gilmore and Golan. The MBZ security advisor has his hands in a lot of political mess.
A report by Al-Khaleej Online in 2018 exposes Dahlan’s complicity in holding secret training camps in occupied Palestine.
The secret training camps, which held hundreds of Nepalese and Colombian mercenaries, were situated in the Naqab desert in occupied Palestine, where the geological nature of the region looks synonymous with that of Yemen.
Dahlan personally supervised the training and made regular visits and check-ups.
“Mohammed Dahlan visited these camps on more than one occasion to be informed,” sources revealed to Al-Khaleej Online. Dahlan was filled in on the progress of the preparations, in addition to the mercenaries’ training.
And by the way, the Aden operation failed.
The price of Washington lip service? The blood of young Sudanese men
There were two ways through which young Sudanese – even minors under 18 – got recruited to Yemen. By force and deception, and by Omar Al Bashir’s thirst for power.
Estimates and reports suggest that up to 15,000 Sudanese mercenaries were fighting in Yemen.
By force and deception: Many Sudanese became victims of forced conscription into becoming mercenaries for a private US firm, Black Shield Security Services.
Responding to online job posts as “security guards,” the UAE-based company would trick the job applicants into signing the contract, only to the surprise of the young men that, all of the sudden, they’re redirected to a military training camp in the UAE to be sent off to either Libya or Yemen. They were offered ‘large’ sums of money, more than they can ever get in an average job in their country which has been experiencing an ongoing political crisis.
The contracts signed by young Sudanese men, which had an e-Visa to enter the UAE from Khartoum attached to it, had “profession: Security Guard” written on them.
تأشيرة دخول لأحد الضحايا تابعة لشركة بلاك شيلد #الاماراتيه تقوم باستخراج عقود للسودانيين للعمل في الإمارات كحراس وبحسب معلومات نشرت في وسائط أخرى فإن السودانيين عند وصولهم يتم إرسالهم إلى معسكر الغياثي وسحب هواتفهم وإعلامهم بأنهم سيقومون بتأمين #منشات في ليبيا أو اليمن.#واكبpic.twitter.com/JPPMw66qqi
Up to 15,000 Sudanese mercenaries were reportedly deployed in Yemen, who, according to the current Sudanese Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok, were reduced to 5,000. Many of them were children.
Official recruitment is also the culprit. Omar Al Bashir, Sudan’s old ruler, whose throne was strangled by sanctions and international pressures, sold his pro-Iran alliance for financial help from the Gulf – which meant sending thousands of Sudanese men and children to kill in Yemen.
To go through with the recruitment, a private company – Rapid Support Forces – or the Janjaweed, a die-hard Bashir-backing militia, scored major bags with Saudi and Emirati officials. Both groups face allegations of systematic rape, indiscriminate murder and other war crimes from the Darfur war in which 300,000 people were killed.
Arriving by the thousands from Sudan to Saudi Arabia, the Sudanese mercenaries were handed US-made weapons and uniforms. Then, they were taken to Al-Hudaydah, Taiz and Aden. Paid in Saudi riyals, 14-year-old amateurs were paid some $480 a month, while experienced officers from the Janjaweed were paid $530 a month – both cheaper than any other mercenary, including Colombians.
The RSF profited $350 million from its role in Yemen.
Ahmed, who was 25-years-old at the time when he was sent to Al-Hudaydah, commented on this experience: “The Saudis would give us a phone call and then pull back.
“They treat the Sudanese like their firewood,” he told the New York Times.
Other than Sudan, the UAE and Saudi Arabia have also been paying Eritrea to provide troops and assistance. In 2015, the UN Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea revealed that Riyadh and Abu Dhabi signed a deal with Eritrea which allowed the coalition to use Eritrean military bases to attack Yemen. Chad isn’t left from the equation either: RSF mercenaries include hundreds of Chadian men, whose alignment lies with Bashir, hence maintaining an interest to keep him in power.
#Yemen Ansar Allah shares photos, names and ranks of 12 soldiers (10 #SaudiArabia & 2 #Sudan) captured during the last successful attack on Jizan that Saudi denied.
The aim is to exchange Yemeni prisoners with occupiers and mercenaries fighting in Yemen since 2015. pic.twitter.com/7BTDcR0XIV
There are also some 1,000 Pakistani mercenaries fighting in Yemen, despite a majority no-vote in Islamabad’s parliament.
Yemenis fighting Yemenis
As poverty, war and uncertainty brought millions of Yemenis to prolonged angst, many contemplated turning their back on their own kind.
For around $1,200 a month, Yemenis were compelled to join the Al-Fateh brigade, a mercenary-militia based in Najran, Saudi Arabia, which was formed in 2016. The brigade is an all-Yemeni mercenary hub.
The Saudis recruited over 1,000 mercenaries to the Saudi-Yemen border to defend it.
In a report by the Middle East Eye, one mercenary that goes by the name Anees narrates that some thousand Yemenis were forced to advance towards Jabara valley in Saada province, Yemen, knowing that the valley is under control of the Yemeni armed forces, and that they were positioned just behind them in Najran.
The leaders of Al-Fateh forced the mercenaries to move forward, assuring that Salafi fighters would follow and protect them.
He narrates, “Suddenly, the Houthis started to attack us from the mountains. We tried to withdraw but there were no Salafi fighters backing us up and only the Houthis besieging us from all directions.”
The Yemenis were besieged for four days, abandoned by both the Saudis and the Salafis.
“We were about to die from hunger. We had run out of food. The Saudis and the Salafis did not break the siege on us, so we fought and pushed towards Najran and only few were escaped including me,” Anees said.
Bundeswehr
Last year, former German soldiers and police officers lodged in an offering to Saudi Arabia to form a group of mercenaries – or, according to German prosecutors, a terrorist organisation – to be sent to Yemen.
Two Bundeswehr soldiers were charged with terrorism by state prosecutors for conspiring to recruit 150 men and former soldiers from the Bundeswehr armed forces. The mercenaries were to be paid $46,400 a month to conduct operations in the Arabian peninsula.
The goal of the mercenary force to be formed was to capture land held by the Yemeni Armed Forces – however, it does not stop there. The mercenary force was also to be sent to other protracted conflicts around the world, with the two convicted terrorists in full conscious awareness that the fighters will have to commit murder and kill civilians to achieve strategic goals.
The future
If the Saudi and Emirati armies were to fight and bleed, the war would not have lasted long with a population of 30 million willing to resist barefoot. Mercenaries played a significant role in the war on Yemen by sustaining the violence on the ground, continuously causing grief.
Many experts would say that the future of warfare is private. The effectiveness of state armies is diminishing, while private firms have proven to get more tasks done – however bloody and sinister.
As corporations overshadow governmental authority, warlords and investors will be more keen on keeping ‘security firms’ going in so-called “conflict zones in the Middle East,” where the flow of weapons and the funding for violence come from Western neoliberal democracies.
While the use of mercenaries was dishonorable in recent times, the West has been promoting its use. As the foreign fighters are used to carry out targeted assassinations and other forms of murder, states and governmental bodies take in less and less responsibility and accountability for the humanitarian disaster that comes with the recruitment.
A UN Mercenary Convention in 2001 forbids the recruitment of mercenaries in conflict: Only 36 countries supported the convention. Some of the countries that did not ratify it are the United States, the United Kingdom, China, France, India, Japan and Russia.
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Beirut – Last Friday, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad visited the United Arab Emirates [UAE] and met the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed [MBZ] Al Nhayan and the ruler of Dubai Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum.
In terms of timing, Assad’s visit to an Arab country is the first since the crisis erupted in Syria11 years ago.
During the meeting, Sheikh Mohammed wished that “this visit would be the beginning of peace and stability for Syria and the entire region.”
Moreover, the two leaders discussed “issues of common concern”, such as Syria’s territorial integrity and the withdrawal of the foreign forces from the country.
The Assad-Al Maktoum meeting “dealt with the overall relations between the two countries and the prospects for expanding the circle of bilateral cooperation, especially at the economic, investment and commercial levels.”
MBZ, Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince of and deputy commander-in-chief of the Emirati Armed Forces – summed up the Syrian President’s visit as “a good, peaceful and stable start for Syria and the entire region.”
Over the years, the UAE’s words had been put into action; starting with the reopening of its embassy in Damascus in December 2018, in the most significant Arab overture toward the Syrian government. However, relations remained cold.
Last fall, the Emirati Minister of Foreign Affairs flew to Damascus for a meeting with Assad, the first visit by the country’s top diplomat since 2011. The United States, a close ally of the UAE, criticized the visit at the time, arguing that the US would not support any thawing in relations with the Assad government.
The visit also implies a remarkable dimension, namely that it coincides with the anniversary of the outbreak of the Syrian crisis in mid-March 2011, in an implicit message at this time that Syria is paving the way to consider solutions to its crisis, and that Assad is quite aware that the visit to the UAE will be a milestone in the road to resolving it.
Syria was expelled before from the 22-member Arab League and boycotted by its neighbors after the conflict broke out 11 years ago.
According to the aforementioned, the visit signals a clear message that some countries in the Arab World are willing to re-engage with Syria as several countries are reviving ties with the Syrian government, including Jordan and Lebanon.
US stance regarding Asaad’s visit
When asked about Assad’s UAE visit, US State Department Spokesperson Ned Price said that Washington was “profoundly disappointed and troubled by this apparent attempt to legitimize Bashar al-Assad, who remains responsible and accountable for the death and suffering of countless Syrians, the displacement of more than half of the pre-war Syrian population, and the arbitrary detention and disappearance of over 150,000 Syrian men, women and children.”
Price downplayed the US-led wars over the past 20 years, which resulted in the death of millions of people and the devastation of several countries.
Long ago Syria has been called the heart of Arabism. At present, amid the new political developments taking place between Syria and the UAE, Damascus might become the main gate for all the Arab countries. This step was first of its kind in terms of diplomatic relations between countries of the Axis of Resistance and the so-called neutral countries, who are normalizing ties with the Zionist entity.
Bearing in mind the crisis it has been confronting since 2011, Syria must definitely be granted the Medal of Honor for standing in the forefront of countries refusing to normalize relations with the “Israeli” regime. And the coming days will prove Syria’s real position in the Arab World.
Zionist Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Mohammed bin Zayed [MBZ] held a joint meeting in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt on Tuesday to discuss a joint defense strategy in dealing with what they referred to as the ‘Iranian threat,’ as well as ‘common security interests.’
What are the ‘common security interests’ that would pool the ‘Israeli’ entity with Egypt and the UAE?
Although the so-called ‘Iranian threat’ would come to mind first, there would be several other concerns. A hint to that is the Emirati comments to ‘Israeli’ The Jerusalem Post newspaper, which mentioned that “Abu Dhabi is shocked by the US behavior,” and that “it is hard for the UAE to deal with the US administration of Joe Biden in security affairs,” also noting that ties in general have been deteriorating.
The JPost cited a source in Abu Dhabi as saying: “The United Arab Emirates is very unhappy with the US move toward removing the Islamic Revolutionary Guard from its Foreign Terrorist Organizations list.”
Some in Abu Dhabi “are in great shock,” and they view the possibility of the IRG’s designation being removed in the same way as ‘Israel’ does, the source added.
The meeting took place as the nuclear deal between world powers and Iran was nearing completion.
The US and Iran have been indirectly negotiating in Vienna to rejoin the 2015 nuclear deal for the past 11 months. The deal placed restrictions on Iran’s nuclear development in exchange for the gradual lifting of sanctions.
Most of those restrictions expire at the end of 2025. In addition, in recent years, Iran has far surpassed the deal’s 3.67% uranium enrichment limit, enriching to 60% – weapons-grade uranium is enriched to 90% – and has converted some of it to a format that is hard to dilute or transport.
The Tel Aviv regime and the United Arab Emirates expressed dissatisfaction with American concessions to the Islamic Republic.
“The leaders discussed the ties between the three countries on the background of recent developments in the world and the region, and the ways to strengthen [the ties] at all levels,” Bennett’s office stated.
Bennett’s visit to Egypt was supposed to be secret, but once the press caught wind of it, Sisi’s office did not oppose placing a Zionist regime’s flag at the meeting for the photo-op.
Sisi also accompanied Bennett to his plane when he departed Sharm El-Sheikh on Tuesday, after spending the night in the Sinai resort town.
Concern in Tel Aviv about Washington’s intention to respond to the demand to remove the Iranian Revolutionary Guard from the list of terrorism
عضو المجلس السياسي لحركة “أنصار الله”، محمد البخيتي، يؤكد لـ”كلوب هاوس” الميادين، أنّ العمليات اليمنية في العمق السعودي “ستستمر وتتصاعد”، ويشدد على “أنّنا بتنا على مشارف مرحلة جديدة”.
كلوب هاوس
قال عضو المجلس السياسي في حركة “أنصار الله”، محمد البخيتي، اليوم الإثنين، إنّه “عندما يصبح النظامان السعودي والإماراتي في خطر، يصبح وقف الحرب على اليمن مصلحة للأميركي والبريطاني”.
وفي حديثٍ إلى “كلوب هاوس” الميادين، أكد البخيتي أنّ “هذه هي المرة الأولى التي يتمّ فيها وصف عملياتنا باسم عملية كسر الحصار”.
وأضاف البخيتي أنّ “اليمن يعتمد في الزراعة على مادة الديزل”، لافتاً إلى أنّ التحالف السعودي “يعرف أنّ منع دخول المشتقات النفطية يُعَدّ منعاً للحياة في اليمن”.
ورأى القيادي في “أنصار الله” أنه لم يكن أمام بلاده خيار غير “التصعيد وضرب منشآت النفطية السعودية في العمق السعودي”، موضحاً أنّ هذه العمليات “سوف تستمر على نحو تصاعدي”.
وتابع البخيتي: “نحن جادون في تصعيدنا العمليات ضد منشآتهم النفطية”، مؤكداً امتلاك اليمن “مخزوناً كبيراً من الصواريخ الباليستية والمجنَّحة والطائرات المسيّرة”.
وكان المتحدث باسم القوات المسلحة اليمنية، العميد يحيى سريع، أكد أمس استهداف شركة “أرامكو”في جدة، وأهداف حيوية أخرى في جيزان، خلال المرحلة الثالثة من عملية كسر الحصار الثانية.
البخيتي: استمرار العدوان على اليمن خطر على الولايات المتحدة وبريطانيا
وبحسب البخيتي، فإنّ “العدوان على اليمن مرّ في عدة مراحل؛ الأولى عندما لم يكن اليمن يمتلك القدرات الجوية، وكانت السعودية في موقعٍ آمن وقتذاك. أمّا المرحلة الثانية، فتمثّلت بأنّ وقف الحرب أصبح مصلحة مشتركة للطرفين السعودي واليمني”، مضيفاً أنّ “المرحلة الجديدة هي أنّ استمرار العدوان على اليمن بات يشكل خطورة على الولايات المتحدة وبريطانيا”.
وأكد القيادي في “أنصار الله” أنّ بلاده ستصل إلى هذه المرحلة “عندما تستشعر الولايات المتحدة أنّ نظامَي آل سعود وابن زايد لم يعودا آمنين”، لافتاً إلى أنّ “من اتخذ قرار الحرب هو شخص ليس لديه أي خبرة، مثل خبرة الملك عبد العزيز، حين دخلت السعودية حرباً لمدة 3 أشهر وانسحبت”.
وقال إنّ “قيادات، مثل محمد بن سلمان، لا تفكر وفق المنطق الأخلاقي”، مشيراً إلى أنّ “هذا تحدٍّ كبير واجهناه”. وأوضح البخيتي وجود “قرار إماراتي سابق للخروج من الورطة في الحرب على اليمن”، مؤكداً حدوث “ضغوطات عليها مؤخراً”.
وتابع “أننا بتنا على مشارف مرحلة جديدة، تتأكّد من خلالها الولايات المتحدة وبريطانيا أنّ عدوانهما بات يشكل خطراً على سيطرتهما على المنطقة”.
البخيتي: نمتلك الإرادة والقدرة على التصعيد
وقال القيادي في “أنصار الله” إنّ “القيادتين السعودية والإماراتية تعرفان ماذا نقصد بالأهداف الحساسة والبعيدة”، لافتاً إلى أنه “ليس لدينا مصلحة في الإفصاح عن بنك أهدافنا الحساسة”.
وأكد البخيتي أنّ “زيادة عدد الضربات ستحدث”، مشدداً على أنّ بلاده تمتلك “الإرادة والقدرة على التصعيد وستكون الضربات موجعة للسعودية”.
ورأى أنّ “محمد بن سلمان ومحمد بن زايد لن يصحو ضميرهما. لذلك، نحن عازمون على التصعيد”، معتبراً أنّ “القوة العسكرية هي اللغة التي يفهمها التحالف السعودي”.
وشدد البخيتي على أنّ “عملياتنا في العمق السعودي ستستمر وستتصاعد، وليست مرتبطة بما يحدث في أوكرانيا وأوروبا”، مؤكداً أنه “سيكون لها وقع كبير على السعودية وإسرائيل”.
وأضاف أنّ “الأحداث الأخيرة تشكّل عاملاً مساعداً من أجل زيادة تأثير ضرباتنا في العمق السعودي”، مضيفاً أنّ “زيادة ضرباتنا ستضاعف أزمة النفط العالميّة”.
وأكد القيادي في “أنصار الله” أنّ “الموقف الدولي تجاه العملية الروسية في أوكرانيا عرّى الصورة الإجرامية للمجتمع الدولي في العالم”، مشيراً إلى أنّ “ما يحدث في اليمن، بالمقارنة مع ما يجري في أوكرانيا، كافٍ ليعرّي الجميع”.
البخيتي: قرار زيادة إنتاج النفط أصبح في يد اليمن أيضاً
ورأى البخيتي أن “من الخطأ أن نقلّل ضرباتنا في هذه الظروف”، لافتاً إلى أنه “نتيجةً للظروف التي يمر فيها العالم، أصبح لليمن دور كبير “.
وتوقّع رضوخ السعودية للمطالب الأميركية بشأن زيادة إنتاج النفط، مؤكداً أنّ “قرار زيادة إنتاج النفط في السعودية والإمارات لم يعد في أيدي الولايات المتحدة والسعودية والإمارات فقط، بل أصبح في يد اليمن أيضاً”.
وأشار البخيتي إلى أنّ الإمارات “لا تزال في دائرة الاستهداف”، مضيفاً أنّ “من يقرر موعد العمليّة المقبلة هو القيادة”.
وأوضح القيادي في “أنصار الله” أنه لا يوجد لدى الحركة اليمنية حسابات بنكية، لا في داخل اليمن ولا خارجه، متابعاً: “قالوا إنهم جمدوا أرصدة لبعض الشخصيات من أنصار الله، لكن نحن لا نملك أيّ حسابات مصرفية”.
وأردف: “أي قرار من المنظمات الدولية في حق اليمن لم يعد لديه أي تأثير بعد أن أمعنت في الحصار علينا”، مؤكداً أنّ “القرارات الدوليّة لا تؤثر فينا، لا من قريب ولا من بعيد”.
البخيتي: لا يستفزّنا التقارب بين الدول العربية
وفيما يخص زيارة الرئيس السوري بشار الأسد للإمارات، ولقاءَه وليَّ عهد أبو ظبي، محمد بن زايد، قال البخيتي إنّ “سياستنا تتماهى مع الأمتين العربية والإسلامية، وأي تقارب بين الدول العربية والإسلامية نعدّه أمراً إيجابياً”.
وأضاف: “كنت وجّهت دعوة إلى الحكومة السورية من أجل استعادة علاقتها بالمقاومة الفلسطينية (حركة “حماس”)”، مؤكداً أنه “لا يستفزنا التقارب بين الدول العربيّة”.
وتابع: “سبق أن عبّرت عن إيجابية استعادة العلاقات بين السعودية وإيران، لأنه يجب أن يكون هناك موقف موحد بين الدول العربية والإسلامية “، مؤكداً أنه “يجب أن تتوحَّد وجهتنا لنواجه “إسرائيل””.
المتوكل: فتح ميناء الحديدة سيخفّص أسعار النفط
وبشأن احتجاز السفينة النفطية، “سي أدور”، من جانب التحالف السعودي، أكد المتحدث الرسمي لشركة النفط اليمنيّة، عصام المتوكل، لـ “كلوب هاوس” الميادين، أنه “تمّ احتجاز سفن النفط، والتضييق على الشعب اليمني”.
وأضاف المتوكل أنه “لا يمكن استيراد النفط باسم الشركة النفطية اليمنية، لذا لجأنا إلى التجار ليقوموا بهذه المهمّة”، موضحاً “أنّنا مجبَرون على شراء النفط من الإمارات ودفع المستحقات مسبّقاً، وإيداعها في مصارف خارجيّة”.
وأشار إلى أنّ “سفن النفط تنطلق من الإمارات نحو جيبوتي لتلبث بضعة أيام، لتنطلق بعدها إلى بحر اليمن قبل أن تدخل المياه الإقليمية اليمنية، لتتمّ قرصنتها وسحبها إلى سواحل جيزان”.
ولفت المتوكل إلى أنّ “الحكومة اليمنية تسرق ما يقارب 165 مليون دولار شهرياً من العائدات النفطية”، موضحاً أنّ “قوات التحالف تأخذ رشوة من كل شحنة نفطية تقدَّر بنحو 8000$”، مضيفاً أنّ “ميناء الحديدة هو ميناء إنساني وفتحه سيخفّص الأسعار”.
The US State Department has expressed feeling “troubled” and unsupportive of US allies’ efforts at restoring relations with Syria.
The Syrian leader with the UAE’s Deputy Prime Minister Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan during Friday’s visit (AFP)
The US State Department Spokesman Ned Price has expressed that the US feels troubled and disappointed by the Syrian President’s visit to the United Arab Emirates since 2011.
In a statement on Friday, Price said “We are profoundly disappointed and troubled by this apparent attempt to legitimize Bashar al-Assad… As Secretary [of State Antony] Blinken has reiterated, we do not support efforts to rehabilitate Assad; and we do not support others normalizing relations,” adding that “We have been clear about this with our partners.”
Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad met Dubai’s ruler Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum in Dubai on Friday, according to the Syrian presidency.
In his first visit to an Arab state since the war on Syria started in 2011, Assad also met with Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, Emirati state news agency WAM reported.
Abu Dhabi Crown Prince expressed his hope that this visit will pave the way for prosperity, peace, and stability in Syria and the region as a whole.
The US occupation forces have long been in Syria, and the Syrian Arab tribes are strongly adamant about the rejection of the presence and practices of the US occupation forces, not to mention the theft of oil, gas, wheat, and resources.
On March 1, a Syrian military source said that a US occupation patrol, accompanied by a group of SDF militia members, tried to infiltrate the Syrian army checkpoints in the village of Ghozaliya in Tal Tamr countryside in Al-Hasakah Governorate.
According to the source, the Syrian army prevented the US patrol from entering and forced it back.
The US claims its presence in Syria is to combat terrorists, when in reality it encompasses smuggling military equipment and transferring ISIS militants from prisons to military bases.
Last year, the US threatened Arab states over restoring ties with Syria, following the Syrian presidential elections since the war.
According to senior US officials, Assad’s election victory proved the US efforts to stage a coup in Syria were a failure.
The US sanctions and economic boycott have made it difficult for Arab leaders to normalize relations with Assad’s government, but Friday’s meeting might be a sign that things are changing.
Recently, reports surfaced of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MBS) and the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Mohammad bin Zayed have declined US requests to speak to the US President in recent weeks, according to The Wall Street Journal.
While the West and Europe look for alternative energy sources, MBS has reiterated Riyadh’s refusal to abandon the OPEC+ pact for the sake of greater oil output on Friday.
UPROOTED PALESTINIANS: SALAM ALQUDS ALAYKUM 