How the UAE built a circle of bases to control the Gulf of Aden

By Oscar Rickett, Middle east Eye

Newly built runways and ports offer snapshot of Abu Dhabi’s regional ambitions and deepening strategic ties with Israel

From the islands of Socotra in the Indian Ocean to the coasts of Somalia and Yemen, satellite imagery analysed by Middle East Eye reveals a greatly expanded network of military and intelligence bases built by the United Arab Emirates.

This ring of control, in and around one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, has escalated rapidly since the 7 October Hamas-led attacks on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza.

The UAE’s allies, including Israel and the US, have been party to the creation and expansion of the bases.

Israeli officers have been on the ground in the islands and Israeli radar systems and other military and security apparatus allow the UAE to monitor and thwart attacks launched by the Houthis, the Iran-aligned movement that has fired missiles at Israel in solidarity with the Palestinians and targeted ships going through the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.

The UAE and Israel have an intelligence-sharing platform known as Crystal Ball, whereby they “design, deploy and enable regional intelligence enhancement” in partnership, according to a slide show designed to promote the pact.

“The relationship between the UAE and Israel was very developed even before formal diplomatic relations were established, but it was kept quiet. Not secret, just quiet,” Alon Pinkas, an Israeli diplomat who served as an adviser to four foreign ministers, told MEE.

The bases have not been constructed on territory formally held by the UAE.

Instead, they are to be found in areas nominally controlled by its allies, including Yemen’s Southern Transitional Council (STC), the Yemeni military commander Tareq Saleh, and the regional administrations of Somaliland and Puntland, which are both part of Somalia, whose government is at odds with the UAE.

Military bases, runways and other facilities have been constructed or expanded on Abd al-Kuri and Samhah, two islands that are part of the Socotra archipelago, which is now administered by STC; at the airports of Bosaso and Berbera in Puntland and Somaliland; Mocha in Yemen; and Mayun, a volcanic island in the Bab al-Mandab strait, through which 30 percent of the world’s oil is shipped.

This network of bases facilitates the control of this vital stretch of water by the UAE and its allies, and has been developed in close coordination with Israel, according to Israeli sources.

They facilitate a joined-up network of missile defence and intelligence sharing between Israel, the UAE and other allies.

As the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a pro-Israel US think tank, puts it: “Multilateral air-defence coalitions have become key to the post-October 7 Middle East defence landscape, with countries sharing radar, intelligence and early warning systems.”

While this string of bases is vital when it comes to monitoring global shipping traffic and any Houthi or Iranian activity in the area, Bosaso and Berbera have, according to multiple diplomatic and local sources, become increasingly important for the UAE’s support of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan’s war.

The creation of a network of bases surrounding the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden mimics the way in which the UAE has used its unparalleled financial power to establish outposts in many of the countries that surround Sudan, including the southeastern part of Libya controlled by General Khalifa Haftar, Chad, the Central African Republic, Uganda, Ethiopia and Kenya.

The UAE also has two bases inside Sudan, which has been at war since April 2023: Nyala in South Darfur and al-Malha, 200km from el-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, which has been under a brutal RSF siege for over 500 days.

Though it has always denied it, the United Nations has deemed multiple, in-depth reports – including from Middle East Eye – on the UAE’s patronage of the RSF, which the US has said is committing genocide in Sudan, to be credible.

Middle East Eye has written to the UAE’s foreign ministry and its embassy in the UK for comment.

The United Arab Emirates has said previously that “any presence of the UAE on Socotra island is based on humanitarian grounds that is carried out in cooperation with the Yemeni government and local authorities”.

Wealth and power

For much of this century, the UAE, led from the emirate of Abu Dhabi by Mohammed bin Zayed (MBZ), has sought to project its power out from the Gulf across the Horn of Africa.

A member of the al-Nahyan family, which has ruled Abu Dhabi since the 18th century, MBZ is an implacable enemy of political Islam and a key ally of the US, which leans heavily on the UAE for its regional policy.

While the UAE has a population of 10 million, just one million of those are Emirati, the rest are expats and foreign labourers.

Jalel Harchaoui, an analyst who focuses on North Africa and political economy, told Middle East Eye that “because countries like Ethiopia, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, and Sudan are increasingly fractured and misgoverned, the UAE can exert a level of sway that would be impossible if these nations resembled, say, Algeria’s government, with full territorial control.

“Sudan and Libya exemplify this crisis: spaces where an aggressively revisionist foreign state armed with extraordinary wealth, lobbying power, and transactional diplomacy can wield disproportionate influence,” Harchaoui said, referencing the UAE’s intervention in Libya in 2011 and in Sudan on the side of the RSF.

Added to this, the US, despite maintaining “isolated interventionist projects like Israel and Greenland”, has “abandoned any notion of liberal hegemony and democratic idealism globally”.

“Mohammed bin Zayed understood these dynamics around 2009-2011,” Harchaoui told MEE. “Despite its microscopic size and lack of a noticeable army, the UAE recognised both its strengths and – crucially – its vulnerabilities if it remained passive.

“In this context, a ferocious, violent UAE launched a hegemonic project spanning both sides of the Red Sea,” he said.

Source: Middle East Eye