Tag Archive for: UAE
U.N. Report Accuses Blackwater Founder Erik Prince of Libya Weapons Ban Violations, Diplomat Says
WSJ | Jared Malsin* | Mr. Prince likely to be referred to the U.N.’s Sanctions Committee, which could order a freeze on his assets or a travel ban
DUBAI—A United Nations report accuses Blackwater founder Erik Prince of assisting in violations of an international arms embargo on Libya, placing the military contractor at risk of U.N. sanctions, according to a diplomat with access to the report.
The report by the U.N. Panel of Experts that monitors the ban on transfers of weapons to Libya says companies controlled by Mr. Prince provided three aircraft to assist in sending helicopters and military contractors to help Russian-backed Libyan warlord Khalifa Haftar in 2019.
The plan to send Western mercenaries to Libya developed as foreign weapons and fighters poured into the country in 2019 and 2020 from a variety of outside powers, including Russia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, deepening a conflict that has been ongoing since 2014, the report says, according to the diplomat.
Mr. Prince is likely to be referred to the U.N.’s Sanctions Committee, which could order a freeze on his assets or a travel ban, according to the New York-based diplomat and a former official with knowledge of the situation. The permanent members of the Security Council, including the U.S., Russia, or China, could veto any potential sanctions against Mr. Prince, who has had dealings with all three countries.
“Erik Prince had absolutely nothing to do with any operation in Libya in 2019, or at any other time,” a spokesman for Mr. Prince said in an email.
A U.N. spokesman said the organization had no specific comment on the Panel of Experts report.
“It is incumbent on our member states to ensure that the sanctions are respected and enforced,” said U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric De La Rivière.
The report itself has been finalized and submitted to the U.N.’s headquarters in New York. It is unlikely to be altered before it is released to the public in the coming weeks, according to diplomats.
Mr. Prince, a former Navy SEAL, came to prominence during the Iraq war, when Blackwater provided private security guards to U.S. officials and contractors working for the company shot dead more than a dozen Iraqi civilians in a 2007 mass killing in Baghdad. Blackwater has since changed its name to Xe Services and later Academi.
Mr. Prince’s financial and political ambitions rose because of his close relationship to the Trump administration. Mr. Prince is the brother of Mr. Trump’s former education secretary, Betsy DeVos. In December, Mr. Trump pardoned the four Blackwater guards accused in the 2007 killings.
Shell companies
According to the diplomat, the forthcoming U.N. report says companies controlled by Mr. Prince sold three aircraft to people who sent Western mercenaries and military hardware to aid Mr. Haftar in the opening months of the commander’s failed assault on Libya’s internationally recognized government in Tripoli. Launched in April 2019, Mr. Haftar’s attack on the capital plunged Libya into its worst fighting since the armed rebellion that overthrew Col. Moammar Gadhafi in 2011.
According to the diplomat, the U.N. panel’s report says that firms controlled by Mr. Prince sold three aircraft through a series of shell companies to a Dubai-based company, Lancaster 6, which sent helicopters and a group of Western mercenaries to Libya to support Mr. Haftar. The plan unraveled, and the fighters left Libya.
One of the planes, a Pilatus PC-6, was delivered to Libya for use in reconnaissance and intelligence operations for Mr. Haftar’s forces, according to the diplomat with access to the report. A U.S. company, TST Humanitarian Surveys, controlled by Mr. Prince through a U.S.-based attorney, sold the plane to another company in Austria partly owned by Mr. Prince, which then sold it to Lancaster 6 in June 2019, the diplomat with access to the report said. The plane arrived in Libya days later, according to the diplomat.
The other two planes, including an Antonov An-26 cargo plane intended to transport helicopters, arrived in Jordan and didn’t fly to Libya, but were identified in the report as part of a broader plan to send military aid to Mr. Haftar.
The plan also involved several associates of Mr. Prince, according to the diplomat and the former official with knowledge of the situation. The operation was first reported last year by Bloomberg and the New York Times. Until now, U.N. investigators hadn’t directly accused Mr. Prince of being involved in the scheme.
Helicopter deal
Using funds from a Dubai-based company and a cover story involving a fake plan for a geospatial survey in Jordan, the team later obtained in South Africa three Aérospatiale Gazelle helicopters and three Super Puma helicopters. At least one of the helicopters was transported to Libya. The helicopters were purchased for a total of more than $13 million, a price well above their market value and one that suggested profit was a key motive behind the operation.
“This is basically a scheme where they wanted to make money around procurement of weapons,” said the former official with knowledge of the situation.
The role in the effort of companies based in Dubai also highlights Mr. Prince’s close ties to the United Arab Emirates and its ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Zayed. Mr. Prince has been linked to a range of mercenary efforts on behalf of the Emirates, including an effort to combat Somali pirates, according to a previous U.N. report. The U.A.E. also has been a key military backer of Mr. Haftar, sending air defenses, armed drones, ammunition and airplanes to support the militia leader’s campaigns, according to multiple U.N. reports. Mr. Prince visited Abu Dhabi in recent weeks, according to the diplomat.
The U.N. report, the diplomat said, also accuses Mr. Prince of violating a U.N. Security Council resolution by failing to provide information about the alleged violations of the arms embargo when contacted by the Panel of Experts.
In addition to naming Mr. Prince in the report, the U.N. Panel of Experts is also expected to separately refer Mr. Prince to the United Nations’ Sanctions Committee, which will make a decision about whether to impose an asset freeze or travel ban to be implemented by individual countries including the U.S., the diplomat said.
* Write to Jared Malsin at jared.malsin@wsj.com
In a Dangerous Game of Cat and Mouse, Iran Eyes New Targets in Africa
NYT | Fifteen people arrested in Ethiopia were part of what American and Israeli officials said was a foiled Iranian plot against diplomats from the United Arab Emirates.
NAIROBI, Kenya — When Ethiopia’s intelligence agency recently uncovered a cell of 15 people it said were casing the embassy of the United Arab Emirates, along with a cache of weapons and explosives, it claimed to have foiled a major attack with the potential to sow havoc in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.
But the Ethiopians omitted a key detail about the purported plot: who was behind it.
The only clue was the arrest of a 16th person: Accused of being the ringleader, Ahmed Ismail had been picked up in Sweden with the cooperation of friendly “African, Asian and European intelligence services,” the Ethiopians said.
Now American and Israeli officials say the operation was the work of Iran, whose intelligence service activated a sleeper cell in Addis Ababa last fall with orders to gather intelligence also on the embassies of the United States and Israel.
>>Read more: Iran denies plotting to attack UAE embassy in Ethiopia
They say the Ethiopian operation was part of a wider drive to seek soft targets in African countries where Iran might avenge painful, high-profile losses such as the death of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, Iran’s top nuclear scientist, said to have been killed by Israel in November, and Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, the Iranian spymaster killed by the United States in Iraq just over one year ago.
Citing Western intelligence sources, Rear Adm. Heidi K. Berg, director of intelligence at the Pentagon’s Africa command, said that Iran was behind the 15 people arrested in Ethiopia and that the “mastermind of this foiled plot,” Mr. Ismail, had been arrested in Sweden.
“Ethiopia and Sweden collaborated on the disruption to the plot,” Admiral Berg said in a statement.
Iran denied the accusations. “These are baseless allegations only provoked by the Zionist regime’s malicious media,” said a spokeswoman for the Iranian Embassy in Addis Ababa. “Neither Ethiopia nor the Emirates said anything about Iranian interference in these issues.”
The United Arab Emirates angered Iran when it normalized relations with Israel in September as part of a series of agreements brokered by the Trump administration in its final months and known as the Abraham Accords.
A spokesman for the Ethiopian police, which named just two of the 15 people arrested, declined to say why Ethiopia did not finger Iran for the plot. Several diplomats said that Ethiopia, as Africa’s diplomatic capital and home to the headquarters of the African Union, tries to avoid getting publicly embroiled in delicate issues involving major powers.
Even so, Ethiopia’s National Intelligence and Security Service said that a second group of plotters had been preparing to hit the Emirati Embassy in Khartoum, Sudan. A Sudanese official confirmed that account.
>>Read more: Ethiopia Thwarts Iranian Plot to Attack UAE Embassy
A senior United States defense official linked the arrests in Ethiopia to a failed Iranian plan to kill the United States ambassador to South Africa, which was reported by Politico in September. The American and Sudanese officials agreed to discuss the matter on condition of anonymity because of its diplomatic and intelligence sensitivity.
Still, much about the Ethiopian arrests and alleged Iranian role remained murky. The Ethiopian police have yet to formally charge the 15 plot suspects, only two of whom have been identified. Israeli officials say that as few as three of them may be actual Iranian operatives, with the others having been caught in the Ethiopian dragnet.
And the arrests in Ethiopia come at a time of heightened political sensitivity in Iran and the United States, as the Biden administration considers its posture toward Tehran and whether to revive the Obama-era nuclear deal with Iran that President Donald J. Trump scrapped in 2018.
Adding to the pressure on President Biden, Iran’s intelligence minister suggested last week that his country might seek to obtain nuclear arms if American sanctions were not lifted soon.
While Admiral Berg confirmed several details about Iran’s role in the Ethiopian arrests, other military and diplomatic officials in Washington declined to discuss it.
In contrast, officials in Israel, whose government is openly hostile to any thaw between Washington and Tehran, highlighted the purported plot as further evidence that Iran cannot be trusted.
For all its efforts, Iran has yet to deliver on its promises of vengeance for its high-profile losses, beyond a missile attack on American forces in Iraq in January 2020, days after General Suleimani was killed.
>>Read more: The United Arab Emirates is waging a war for influence over the Horn of Africa.
Any plan to hit the U.A.E., as suggested by the arrests in Ethiopia, would be a curious choice, given its potential to undermine Mr. Biden’s putative nuclear diplomacy with Iran, said Aaron David Miller, a foreign policy expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Other analysts, though, said that the U.A.E. was high on Iran’s list of enemies and that the embassy in Ethiopia might present an unchallenging target at a time when Ethiopia is distracted by a war that has been raging in its northern Tigray region since November.
“Africa is a relatively easy place to operate, and Ethiopia is preoccupied with other issues,” said Bruce Riedel, a former C.I.A. officer now with the Brookings Institution.
The murky episode seemed destined to become the latest in a series of cat-and-mouse episodes between Iranian and Israeli operatives on African soil in recent years.
During the 1990s, Iran enjoyed close ties with Sudan under the autocratic ruler Omar Hassan al-Bashir, and in the next decade it was able to dock its warships in Eritrea.
Israel struck back in 2009 with airstrikes against a convoy of smuggler trucks in Sudan that aimed to stop Iranian-supplied weapons from reaching the Gaza Strip, American officials said.
But Iran’s ties to the Horn of Africa have withered in recent years, and Israeli and Emirati involvement has grown.
The Emirates helped mediate a landmark peace deal between Ethiopia and Eritrea in 2018, and now it is Emirati warships that are docked in Eritrean ports.
In November, following a call between the Ethiopian prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, and Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, a team of Israeli drone pilots arrived in Ethiopia to help eliminate the locusts that have plagued the country’s farmers.
Weeks later, Yossi Cohen, the chief of the Mossad, Israel’s covert intelligence service, met with his Ethiopian counterpart to discuss what they termed “counterterrorism operations.”
Elsewhere in Africa, Israeli intelligence officials say they frequently tip off friendly countries about suspected Iranian activity.
In Kenya, two Iranians arrested in 2012 and charged with possession of 15 kilograms of explosives are now serving 15-year prison sentences. Kenyan officials said the men were members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Quds Force. Their lawyers said they had been interrogated by Israeli intelligence while in Kenyan custody.
Four years later, in 2016, Kenya deported two Iranians who had been arrested outside the Israeli Embassy with video footage of the facility. Iran said the men, who had been traveling in an Iranian diplomatic car, were university teachers.
Iranian agents have been suspected in attacks or thwarted attacks in countries including Georgia, Thailand and India. On Feb. 4, a Belgian court stripped an Iranian envoy of his diplomatic status and sentenced him to 20 years in prison for having organized a thwarted bomb attack aimed at an Iranian opposition rally in France in 2018.
That failed plot and another in Denmark prompted the European Union in 2019 to impose sanctions on Iran’s external spy service, the Ministry of Intelligence and Security. Israeli officials say the same agency orchestrated the operation in Ethiopia.
Sofia Hellqvist, a spokeswoman for the Swedish Police Authority, referred questions about the arrest of Mr. Ismail, the alleged ringleader, to the authorities in Ethiopia.
A spokesman for the United Arab Emirates did not respond to a request for comment.
Given the stakes, it was unclear why the Iranians might risk a rapprochement with the Biden administration by mounting an operation now.
Farzin Nadimi, a specialist on the Iranian armed forces with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said Iran may wish to send a message to the Biden administration officials that “unless they reach a deal with Iran quickly this is what they get: a dangerous neighborhood.”
Iran denies plotting to attack UAE embassy in Ethiopia
MEMO | Iran has categorically rejected the allegation contained in a New York Times report that it is planning to attack the UAE Embassy in Addis Ababa. The denial was issued by the Iranian Embassy in the Ethiopian capital.
“Neither Ethiopia nor the United Arab Emirates have spoken about Iran’s involvement in these issues,” said the Iranians. “These baseless accusations are fabricated by media outlets that are hostile to the Islamic Republic of Iran, and work as agents of the Zionist entity [Israel].”
Earlier this month, Ethiopia said that it had arrested fifteen members of an underground cell and seized weapons and explosives as part of a plot against the UAE Embassies in Addis Ababa and Khartoum. However, the New York Times claimed that Iran was behind the plot.
Quoting US and Israeli officials, the newspaper said that Iranian intelligence agencies activated a sleeper cell in Addis Ababa late last year to gather intelligence on the US and Israeli embassies in the Ethiopian capital. According to the NYT report, the operation was part of a wider plan by Iran to seek revenge for the killing of Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani with an American drone strike last year, and Israel’s murder of Iran’s chief nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in November.
Ethiopia Thwarts Iranian Plot to Attack UAE Embassy
Source | Iran is seeking to “activate sleeper cells” in Africa in order to attack “soft targets” in an attempt to avenge the killing of top commander Qassem Soleimani in a US drone strike and its top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in 2020, reported The New York Times.
When Ethiopia’s intelligence agency recently uncovered a cell of 15 people it said were casing the embassy of the United Arab Emirates, along with a cache of weapons and explosives, it claimed to have foiled a major attack with the potential to sow havoc in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.
But the Ethiopians omitted a key detail about the purported plot: who was behind it.
The only clue was the arrest of a 16th person: Accused of being the ringleader, Ahmed Ismail had been picked up in Sweden with the cooperation of friendly “African, Asian and European intelligence services,” the Ethiopians said.
Now American and Israeli officials say the operation was the work of Iran, whose intelligence service activated a sleeper cell in Addis Ababa last fall with orders to gather intelligence also on the embassies of the United States and Israel, reported the NYT.
They say the Ethiopian operation was part of a wider drive to seek soft targets in African countries where Iran might avenge painful, high-profile losses such as the death of Fakhrizadeh, said to have been killed by Israel in November, and Soleimani, killed by the United States in Iraq just over one year ago.
Citing Western intelligence sources, Rear Adm. Heidi K. Berg, director of intelligence at the Pentagon’s Africa command, said that Iran was behind the 15 people arrested in Ethiopia and that the “mastermind of this foiled plot,” Mr. Ismail, had been arrested in Sweden.
“Ethiopia and Sweden collaborated on the disruption to the plot,” Admiral Berg said in a statement.
Iran denied the accusations. “These are baseless allegations only provoked by the Zionist regime’s malicious media,” said a spokeswoman for the Iranian Embassy in Addis Ababa.
Even so, Ethiopia’s National Intelligence and Security Service said that a second group of plotters had been preparing to hit the Emirati Embassy in Khartoum, Sudan. A Sudanese official confirmed that account.
A senior United States defense official linked the arrests in Ethiopia to a failed Iranian plan to kill the United States ambassador to South Africa, which was reported by Politico in September. The American and Sudanese officials agreed to discuss the matter on condition of anonymity because of its diplomatic and intelligence sensitivity.
Still, much about the Ethiopian arrests and alleged Iranian role remained murky. The Ethiopian police have yet to formally charge the 15 plot suspects, only two of whom have been identified. Israeli officials say that as few as three of them may be actual Iranian operatives, with the others having been caught in the Ethiopian dragnet.
While Admiral Berg confirmed several details about Iran’s role in the Ethiopian arrests, other military and diplomatic officials in Washington declined to discuss it.
In contrast, officials in Israel, whose government is openly hostile to any thaw between Washington and Tehran, highlighted the purported plot as further evidence that Iran cannot be trusted.
For all its efforts, Iran has yet to deliver on its promises of vengeance for its high-profile losses, beyond a missile attack on American forces in Iran in January 2020, days after Soleimani was killed.
Any plan similar to the plot thwarted in Ethiopia, would be a curious choice, given its potential to undermine Joe Biden’s putative nuclear diplomacy with Iran, said Aaron David Miller, a foreign policy expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
“Africa is a relatively easy place to operate, and Ethiopia is preoccupied with other issues,” said Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer now with the Brookings Institution, according to the NYT.
Meanwhile, the Jewish Chronicle revealed last week that the Israeli Mossad was behind the killing of Fakhrizadeh.
He was “killed by a one-ton automated gun that was smuggled into Iran piece-by-piece by the Mossad,” it reported.
“The 20-plus spy team, which comprised both Israeli and Iranian nationals, carried out the high-tech hit after eight months of painstaking surveillance, intelligence sources disclosed.”
Ethiopia arrests 15 over UAE embassy attack plot: Reports
Al Jazeera | The country’s intelligence and security service said suspects were working on direction of foreigners, local media report.
Ethiopia’s state-run media have said authorities arrested 15 people over a plot to attack the United Arab Emirates’ embassy in the capital, Addis Ababa.
The Ethiopian Press Agency (EPA) on Wednesday cited a statement from the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) as saying that the suspects were working on foreigners’ direction.
An unspecified amount of arms, explosives and documents were seized during the operation, according to the statement, which was also cited in a report by the state-affiliated FANA news outlet.
“The group took the mission from a foreign terrorist group and was preparing to inflict significant damage on properties and human lives,” EPA said.
There was no immediate comment by the UAE’s foreign ministry or its embassy in Addis Ababa.
A second group of suspects was planning to attack the UAE’s diplomatic mission in neighbouring Sudan, the EPA said.
Ethiopia’s NISS was working with its Sudanese counterparts on that aspect of the plot, the agency said. There was no immediate comment from Sudanese authorities.
In its report, FANA cited the statement as saying that a man named “Ahmed Ismael, who is the leader of the terrorist group and a resident of Sweden, was arrested in Sweden as a result of exchange of information with European, African, and Asian security services”.
The UAE has played a key diplomatic role in bringing longtime foes Ethiopia and Eritrea since Abiy Ahmed became Ethiopia’s prime minister in 2018, while also providing financial contributions to stabilise Ethiopia’s economy.
UAE: The scramble for the Horn of Africa
MEMO | The United Arab Emirates is waging a war for influence over the Horn of Africa.
Since the 2011 Arab Spring the United Arab Emirates has been taking an active role in a number of hotspots from Egypt, Libya to Yemen. The Gulf nation has spent $26 billion annually on its defence budget since 2016 and this is expected to increase to $37.8 billion by 2025, according to Research and Markets.
A growing security and war industry with military deployments abroad, US generals often refer to the Sheikhdom as ‘Little Sparta’. As of 2020, The UAE has military bases in Eritrea, Djibouti and Somaliland, which further indicates the importance of the Horn of Africa to Abu Dhabi. The region offers excellent access to the Red Sea, the Mediterranean and the Gulf of Aden, all of which are vital to the Emirates’ economic future as a global trading hub. The military bases ensure Abu Dhabi can see off threats to its interests and secure its influence over East Africa at a time when it is expanding its income streams away from the petrodollar.
The 2015 war in Yemen and the 2017 blockade of Qatar have seen Abu Dhabi take a more aggressive role in East Africa.
Countries in the Horn of Africa have by and large welcomed growing ties with the Arab World, but in 2017 following the breaking of diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Egypt with Qatar, countries across the world were pushed to take sides.
Somalia
Although the 2017 Gulf Crisis now looks like it is coming to an end, the countries in the Horn of Africa have already paid the price for it. Somalia found itself at the unwelcome end of the dispute.
Like other Horn of Africa countries, the Somali government adopted a neutral stance towards the Qatar dispute. The UAE, however, saw Mogadishu as silently in the pro-Qatar camp and Abu Dhabi was not pleased.
In 2017, as President Mohamed Abdul lahi Farmaajo assumed office, reports circulated that Qatar and Turkey had funded his campaign and further claims of officials appointed to prominent positions within Farmaajo’s administration having ties to Doha and Ankara unnerved Abu Dhabi.
The Somali government alleges the UAE is now actively destabilising the country, accusing it of funding opposition forces. These suspicions intensified after Dubai Ports World, DP World, bypassed the central government of Somalia and signed a deal with the semi-autonomous region of Somaliland to develop and operate Berbera port. DP World even brought in Ethiopian investment and gave Addis Ababa a stake in the port.
Mogadishu declared the deal illegal and tried to block it by taking out a complaint with the Arab League. Somaliland leader, Muse Bihi Abdi, said Farmaajo’s government was declaring war by attempting to block the deal. Under the deal, Somaliland stands to get investments of up to $442 million and a separate agreement with Abu Dhabi to allow the UAE’s military bases in the region could bring in a further $1 billion, according to the International Crisis Group.
Decades of civil war and the presence of extremist groups makes Somalia a very fragile country, fears UAE involvement could harm the country are a cause of constant concern for Mogadishu.
Sudan
In 1989, Omar Al-Bashir, a military commander, launched a coup and seized political power in Sudan. By 1993, he declared himself president and his political party, the National Congress, became the dominant political force. The National Congress is Muslim Brotherhood aligned and as such was generally treated with suspicion by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. However, in the 2010s, Al-Bashir’s regime began distancing itself from the brotherhood in order to improve its relations with the GCC countries.
Closer relations with Saudi Arabia and the UAE had a price. In 2015, Riyadh formed a coalition to intervene militarily in Yemen. In 2011, the Yemeni government led by Ali Abdullah Saleh faced mass street protests known as the ‘Arab Spring’, the pressure would force him to step down in 2012. The power vacuum led to large parts of the country being taken over by the Iranian-backed Houthi group. The Saudi-led coalition aimed to crush the Houthis and declared war on them. Sudan became an important member of the war coalition.
In 2018, a popular uprising took place against Omar Al-Bashir and in April 2019 the military forced him from power. The military then formed a new government with civil opposition groups with the aim of transforming Sudan into a fully-fledged democracy and the UAE moved to minimise the potential damage to its interests caused by the revolution.
However, the fall of Al-Bashir means the UAE’s position in Sudan is not guaranteed and some fear the Emirates could try to subvert Sudan’s democratic transition.
Ethiopia
Ethiopia seems to have benefitted hugely from its partnership with the UAE, as the East African country has emerged as a big investment opportunity.
In February 2020, the UAE agreed to invest $100 million to support micro, medium and small scale projects across the country. Additionally, the UAE has pledged to build an oil pipeline between Ethiopia and Eritrea, which will provide the landlocked nation much needed energy.
Indeed this energy deal is possible after the UAE engineered a peace treaty between Eritrea and Ethiopia in 2018. The peace agreement was held up as an example of the UAE’s prowess. Ethiopia managed to gain these benefits while avoiding the polarising effects of the Qatar blockade.
In November 2020, armed conflict broke out in Ethiopia’s Tigray region between government forces and a powerful regional rebel army. The rebels’ leader openly accused the United Arab Emirates of carrying out a drone strike on Tigray, from its base in Eritrea, at the behest of Addis Ababa. While evidence has yet to emerge of the strike, it does indicate there is some local anxiety about the role Abu Dhabi might be playing in this potentially explosive situation.
Ethiopia could cause issues for the UAE and Saudi Arabia, as another close ally of the Gulf States, Egypt, has expressed anger at Addis Ababa’s dam across the River Nile. The Renaissance Dam built by Ethiopia reduces Nile water levels in Egypt, harming its energy, economic and environmental needs. Negotiations to find a solution keep breaking down and regional tensions are high.
The Horn of Africa is the playground for rising UAE aspirations and is a microcosm of what the UAE aims to replicate across the African continent. Much of this is driven by the decline of US influence globally, new regional alliances and powerhouses are emerging to manage international security. However, the UAE does not exercise total control over East Africa and is still in the early stages of developing its reach and influence. The Horn is full of flashpoints and the UAE could either help stabilise or destabilise the region.
Biden administration puts hold on foreign arms sales, including F-35s to UAE
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration has put a temporary hold on several major foreign arms sales initiated by former President Donald Trump.
Officials say that among the deals being paused is a massive $23 billion transfer of stealth F-35 fighters to the United Arab Emirates. That sale and several other massive purchases of U.S. weaponry by Gulf Arab countries had been harshly criticized by Democrats in Congress. The officials did not identify the other sales that had been temporarily halted.
The new administration is reviewing the sales but has not made any determination about whether they will actually go through, the State Department said. It called the pause “a routine administrative action” that most incoming administrations take with large-scale arms sales.
“The department is temporarily pausing the implementation of some pending U.S. defense transfers and sales under Foreign Military Sales and Direct Commercial Sales to allow incoming leadership an opportunity to review,” the department said.
“This is a routine administrative action typical to most any transition, and demonstrates the Administration’s commitment to transparency and good governance, as well as ensuring U.S. arms sales meet our strategic objectives of building stronger, interoperable, and more capable security partners,” it said.
In its waning months, the Trump administration authorized tens of billions of dollars in new arms sales, including announcing plans to send 50 F-35s to the UAE. That announcement came shortly after Trump lost the Nov. 6 election to now-President Joe Biden and followed the signing of the Abraham Accords between Israel, Bahrain and the UAE, under which the Arab states agreed to normalize relations with Israel.
Congressional critics have expressed disapproval with such sales, including a major deal with Saudi Arabia, that then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pushed through after bypassing lawmakers by declaring an emergency required it. The critics have alleged the weapons could be used to prosecute Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, which is the home of one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
Less than a month after the Nov. 10 UAE sale was announced, an effort to block the deal fell short in the Senate, which failed to halt it.
Senators argued the sale of the defense equipment had unfolded too quickly and with too many questions. The administration has billed it as a way to deter Iran, but UAE would have become the first Arab nation — and only the second country in the Middle East, after Israel — to possess the stealth warplanes.
Pterosaur Rainbow drones (UAV) are put into battle, attacking Ethiopian rebels at night, killing 500 people on the spot
UAV Network 2020-11-30 | The Asian-African conflict that was just quelled a while ago finally ended with Azerbaijan’s victory. In this war, drones as a new type of military weapons showed up on the battlefield, and soon won the world’s Concerned, some experts even predict that in future wars, drones will replace armed helicopters and become the new darling on the battlefield. This is true when used in the recent conflict between Ethiopia and the “rebels”.
Satellite data provided by a US space company recently showed that buildings in areas where Ethiopia was engaged in combat with rebels were suspected of being subjected to a wide range of precision-guided strikes, and the rebels who used buildings as shelters suffered a devastating blow. In this attack, at least 500 rebels were wiped out on the spot. The Ethiopian government forces had absolute initiative at the beginning of the battle. Such a precise air strike was definitely not done by the Su-27 of the Ethiopian Air Force. It was the Ethiopian Air Force that used the killer weapon. Judging from the current situation in Ethiopia, Ethiopia and the UAE Air Force stationed in Eritrea both use this killer weapon: it is possible to armed drones. The Ethiopian side uses the Rainbow 4 weapon. The man-machine, and the UAE Air Force, is likely to use the Pterosaur 2 armed drone.
Read More China Has Been Spying On The African Union Headquarters
Both of these drones are excellent products manufactured in China, and have been exported to many countries and regions in the world. The Pterosaur 2 was developed by my country’s Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group. The aerodynamic layout of the Pterosaur 2 and the previous Pterosaur domestic UAV is generally similar, but the size of the Pterosaur 2 is almost a circle larger than the Pterosaur, so Compared with the pterosaur, the descendant pterosaur 2 has a significant improvement over the pterosaur in terms of bomb load and maximum range. In the seven years since it was put on the market, the Pterosaur 2 has been successfully equipped in many countries, and it has achieved normalized applications. It has also performed well in actual combat. The Rainbow 4 UAV is my country’s “Rainbow” series UAV Representative products in China are also exported to the Middle East and Europe.
Read More The UAE supports Ethiopia and dispatched drones to fight the rebels
And it shines in the struggle against the armed elements. Both types of drones represent the advanced level of Chinese drones. Compared with UAVs produced in the United States, U.S.-made UAVs have always been popular in the international arms market before China’s UAV momentum has risen, but since Chinese UAVs entered the international market many countries were immediately attracted by the ultra-high cost performance of our drones. At the same time, our drones are more durable than American drones, easy to maintain, which has successfully shaken the US drones in the international market. Dominance.
In this conflict, Ethiopia once again used Chinese domestic drones. Obviously, after the conflict in the Tigray region, the use of drones in modern warfare has also been attracted by countries all over the world and started imitation.
The UAE supports Ethiopia and dispatched drones to fight the rebels
UAV Network | Tencent QQ | Ethiopia: the price is too good
According to a report by TASS News Agency on December 3, the UAV deployed by the UAE in Eritrea recently participated in the Ethiopian civil war and achieved “impressive” results. Under the continuous bombing of drones, the Tigray People’s Army kept retreating, and there was no way to deal with it. The rebels could no longer hold it, and began to surrender. On December 1, the Ethiopian government stated that senior officials of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) had surrendered to the Ethiopian army. The official who surrendered was Kerya Ibrahim, one of the nine important leaders of the TPLF.
The price of a U.S.-made Predator drone is about US$5 million, and the price of an American Reaper drone is about US$15 million. In contrast, the cost of a Chinese-made pterosaur drone is only about $1 million. But the performance of the Pterosaur UAV is not much different from that of the U.S. Predator. The Pterosaur UAV can also realize the integration of investigation and fighting, and has many actual combat records. The difference between the Pterosaur UAV and the Predator is mainly due to the relatively weak engine performance, which leads to the difference in the maximum ammunition capacity of the Pterosaur and the Predator. But if the price factor is taken into account, this may not be a problem at all. In addition, there are many restrictions on the purchase of U.S. military drones, but there are no more restrictions on the purchase of pterosaur drones. You can buy your own equipment and you can use it whatever you want.
In the civil war in Ethiopia, the pterosaur drones undertook a 24-hour non-stop bombing mission, which destroyed the rebels to life. In fact, the conflict between Ethiopia and Tigray was not a day or two; the government forces did not quickly win the victory over the rebels. The biggest difference was that there was no help from drones. The Ethiopian army has a lot of advanced equipment, including AR-2 rockets, etc., but it cannot fully utilize the advantages of these equipment. Tigray armed with rockets in hand and the government army are very impressive. But when the pterosaur drones joined, the situation changed quickly. Death was hovering over the heads of the rebels for 24 hours, and any heavy weapons that appeared would be quickly attacked. The drones made the rebels feel powerless, and the destruction of the period was terrible.
The Ethiopian military believes that these Pterosaur drones are too valuable. In fact, this batch of UAVs is not Ethiopian, it is likely to be the UAE. The UAE built military bases in the area in 2015 and deployed multiple pterosaur UAVs to fight against Husai. The UAE supports Ethiopia and dispatched drones to fight the rebels. After the Ethiopian army has seen the power of the pterosaur drone, it is believed that it will also have the idea of buying it. After all, it can have the ability to attack the ground without spending a lot of money, which is impossible for manned fighters. UAVs are very attractive to Ethiopia.
In recent years, drones have appeared on the battlefield more and more and have played a very important role. Both the TB-2 UAV and the Pterosaur UAV participated in the battlefield in Libya. The TB-2 UAV successfully destroyed multiple armored S air defense systems. The Pterosaur UAV pressed the GNA army before the Turkish army entered the battle. In the Naka conflict, Azerbaijan used Turkish TB-2 UAVs to destroy several Russian-made Sam-8 air defense systems, S300 air defense systems, and a large number of T72 tanks, which played an important role in winning the war. In the civil war in Ethiopia, drones once again played an important role. Many practical examples show that for small countries, drones may be more useful than manned fighters.