Saudis backing Islamist militias against the Houthis in the north, whilst the United Arab Emirates is focused on countering AQAP in the south of the country.

Filed under: Important News,News in English,Wararka |

The growing Horn of Africa footprint of the United Arab Emirates

Though Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have cooperated in major security ventures such as the Manama intervention in 2011 and the Yemen war since 2015, the two leading Gulf Cooperation Council military powers are also competitors. In terms of population, oil production, and defense spending, Saudi Arabia is by a considerable margin the larger of the two, but the Emirates are determined to punch well above their weight. In Yemen, the objectives of the two Gulf States are slowly diverging, with the Saudis backing Islamist militias against the Houthis in the north, whilst the United Arab Emirates is focused on countering AQAP in the south of the country.

In the Horn of Africa region there are signs of competition as well. Saudi Arabia patched things up with Djibouti by October 2015, with Saudi access restored to the airfield at Camp Lemonier and with Djibouti receiving Saudi-donated patrol boats, helicopters, weapons, and ambulances. In March 2016, discussions were underway between Riyadh and Djibouti for the signing of comprehensive bilateral security agreement including the return of a long-term Saudi military base to Djibouti.

The Emirates appear to be adopting a broader-based approach to the Horn of Africa, East Africa, and Indian Ocean region. Abu Dhabi has long been a generous benefactor and investor in the Indian Ocean island-states such as the Seychelles, Maldives, Mauritius, Madagascar, and the Comoros. In these areas the large Emirati investment banks and foundations have supported tourism, ports, and humanitarian projects. The United Arab Emirates is interested in East Africa also, with natural gas, ports, and food security in mind. To support the development of a broader Indian Ocean and East Africa policy the United Arab Emirates is getting drawn into security cooperation relationships with a range of Horn of Africa states, aiming to reduce instability and the growth of Islamist militias in the region.

Somalia is a case in point. In early May 2015, the United Arab Emirates expanded its long-running train and equip partnership with Somalia’s counterterrorism unit and National Intelligence and Security Agency (NISA), opening a new U.A.E.-funded training center in Mogadishu where Emirati special forces operators have trained several units of Somali commandos. In late May 2015, the Emirates supplied the Interim Jubba Administration at Kismayo with a batch of RG-31 Mk. V MRAPs and Toyota Land Cruisers. These were followed in June by a shipment of Reva Mk. III armored personnel carriers, water tanker trucks, and police motorcycles for the Somali federal government’s Ministry of Internal Security and Police. In October 2015, the United Arab Emirates pledged to pay the salaries of the Somali federal government security forces over a four-year period.

The United Arab Emirates has also wooed Somalia’s regional rival, the autonomous Somaliland region. In May 2016, Dubai Ports World won a 30-year contract to manage the port of Berbera and expand it into a regional logistics hub, breaking up Djibouti’s virtual monopoly on Ethiopian freight via the Doraleh Container Terminal through the joint development by Somaliland and Ethiopia of the Berbera Corridor as an alternative logistics route. The United Arab Emirates is also said to be seeking access to the Berbera port and airstrip to support its operations in Yemen, and may provide Somaliland with a financial aid package and an Emirati-built military training center.

In Puntland, an autonomous region in northeastern Somalia, the United Arab Emirates also paid for the Puntland Maritime Police Force to be established in 2010, with anti-piracy training provided by a succession of private security companies, a cause for some controversy. The PMPF operates bases in Bosaso, Puntland’s primary port on the Gulf of Aden coast, and Eyl on the Indian Ocean coast. The PMPF air wing operates three UAE-donated Ayers S2R Thrush aircraft and an Alouette III helicopter. The UAE also finances and trains the Puntland Intelligence Agency. When the Gulf Coalition naval blockade sought to interdict Iranian weapons smuggling to the Houthis, the Emirati investment in Puntland and Somaliland seems to have paid off, shutting off known Iranian transshipment points like Bosaso and Berbera.

The UAE’s “west of Suez” moment?

In combination with the development of a closer military relationship with Egypt and Sudan, the construction of a major decades-spanning power projection base in Eritrea will give the United Arab Emirates a leading role in the protection of the Suez and Bab el-Mandab sea-lanes. The United Arab Emirates could begin to emerge as a powerful actor in the Horn of Africa, East Africa, and western Indian Ocean. Like prior trading empires from the Portuguese to the Omanis, the United Arab Emirates is aiming to become an important player up and down Africa’s eastern seaboard, mixing hard military power with soft-power approaches.

The development of large and well-armed Yemeni forces at the Assab base also points to a second way that the United Arab Emirates could become a major influence on the local balance of power. Within just a few months the United Arab Emirates trained and equipped a few thousand mobile infantry mounted in MRAPs and armed with advanced anti-tank weaponry. In many regional conflicts, battles are regularly won by such compact and cohesive forces backed by external airpower and special forces. This could have implications for the struggle against local extremist groups like Al-Shabab, which the United Arab Emirates may turn its sights on in the future. Other regional conflicts and civil wars could be influenced by Emirati security cooperation, particularly the Emirates’ ability to gift significant numbers of modern vehicles and weapons to proxy forces. The United Arab Emirates could begin to play a kingmaker role across the region.

A final implication could be the strengthening of the Emirati deterrent posture against Iran. The Yemen intervention was indirectly aimed at Iran, an effort by the Gulf states to prevent what they view as an Iranian-backed Houthi movement from taking over Yemen. The Emirati naval and air base at Assab was critical in blockading the Houthi-held ports on the Red Sea and preventing Iran from resupplying the rebels. Over the last couple of years there has been a growing clamor regarding the potential for Iran to develop “blue water” naval capabilities that might allow Tehran to project military power into the western Indian Ocean and Red Sea. In fact, it is the UAE that has achieved this first, creating the base infrastructure to sustain operations by muscular surface combat platforms like the Baynunah-class corvettes.

In addition to contesting Iranian naval expansion, bases like Assab could contribute to the United Arab Emirates’ strategic depth in an eventual clash with Iran, threatened or actual. Whereas the entire Emirati homeland’s littoral is within the range of Iranian missiles, Assab provides depth that might allow a reserve force of Emirati surface combatants, aircraft, and even submarines to remain active and able to interdict Iran’s coastline and shipping during an extended war.

The Emirates’ track record of involvement in expeditionary operations has been rather formless in the past, pointing towards the federation’s keenness to simply “get involved” in different types of operations in many parts of the Islamic world without necessarily serving any broader strategic roadmap. Although evolved out of military necessity to support the Yemen war, the development of Assab might mark the beginning of a more purposeful, considered phase of Emirati military expansion.

Alex Mello is lead security analyst at Horizon Client Access, an advisory service working with the world’s leading energy companies.

Michael Knights is the Lafer Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He has worked in the Gulf States and Yemen as an advisor to local security forces and as an analyst of regional conflicts including Yemen’s wars against the Houthis, southern secessionists and AQAP.