Continued UAE harassment of Oman

The UAE’s ruling regime has launched an undeclared online campaign to question the health of Sultan Qaboos bin Said.

The launch of the UAE e-flies was noted on a social media campaign based on the dissemination of false information about the health of Sultan Qaboos and that he was no longer able to manage the Sultanate because of his age.

In the context, the newspaper, Al Arab, funded by the United Arab Emirates and issued from London, fabricated report under the title “remarkable presence of Sultan Qaboos after a long absence!”

The newspaper claimed that “unusually, the Sultan had multiple meetings in the past days with Arab, foreign and local officials, which is known for avoiding the media spotlight, indicating the Sultanate’s official desire to revitalize its role in the regional files, which played on previous occasions, whether related to Fatah Western channels of communication with Iran, or sponsoring multiple negotiations concerning the Yemeni file.

The newspaper claimed that “the successive emergence of Sultan Qaboos and his meetings with Arab and foreign officials and presided over by the Council of Ministers in which to reassure the Omanis that the Sultan has recovered. He also aimed to allay the fears of his long journey of treatment regarding the Sultanate’s future and political stability.

The newspaper added that Sultan Qaboos, who has recovered, is regaining his legal presence and holding vital files, especially with regard to files concerning Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States, at a time when it is believed that his absence from these files has released the hands of second-class officials in the Sultanate to deflect Muscat’s position He was closer to the GCC countries despite the neutrality, but became inclined to Iran and its arms in the region, and pushed it to a regional position contrary to its neutrality in the Yemeni file.

The newspaper did not hesitate to accuse the Sultanate, accusing it of being a “backyard of the Houthis” and that a comprehensive solution in Yemen with Saudi participation and satisfaction “reduces pressure on the Sultanate over the accusations that it is going in the orbit of Iran and its calculations.”

The newspaper did not forget that the hesitation of the broken disc, which has been promoted on the so-called “Muscat cell” in the UAE’s attempts to create a rift between Saudi Arabia and the Sultanate, and accusation of Muscat to widen the dispute over the province of Yemen’s skilled.

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are pressing to force Oman to change its stance on many issues and adopt policies that are closely aligned with their own policies, the US intelligence website Stratfor said in a report.

Despite Oman’s neutrality in the Gulf, and with the US targeting Iran with economic sanctions, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are pushing it to cut ties with Iran.

Muscat is using its wide and distinctive relations with international and regional powers to resist pressure, describing it as having experience in the balance of power.

In May, a news reporter revealed that the Omani authorities had arrested a new spy cell that was active against the Sultanate on the orders of Dubai ruler Mohammed bin Rashid.

At the time, the Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar reported that the Omani security services were able to obtain information about an Emirati spy network active against the Sultanate, before the information led to the disclosure of its details and the names of all its personnel and companies cooperating with them.

According to the information obtained by the newspaper, the incident revealed to the Omani authorities that Mohammed bin Rashid “was interfering personally in the file network; which opens the door to the possibility of significant tension between the parties, according to the same sources.

According to the sources, Muscat has confronted Abu Dhabi with the information it has in its possession, through a threatening message that the authorities in the country choose between exposing the file and making it public or providing Abu Dhabi with the names of all old and new spies.

The UAE response was the opening of Mohammed bin Rashid, following which a line of communication with Omani officials at Duqm and Sohar ports (competitors of UAE ports) to lure them and offer them an obstruction to the development of the two ports, in return for generous bribes that included the granting of Emirati nationality with residential buildings, cars and money.

According to the sources, the Ruler of Dubai, in recruiting and luring Omani port officials, used a method that was previously used by the UAE intelligence to infiltrate intelligence agents from different countries, whereby the agent is arrested and information is taken from him about his country in return for his release, but the entire UAE effort ended in failure. After the Omani intelligence service uncovered the spy network and arrested its members.