Investigation: The UAE aims to impose its tutelage on Yemen to serve its ambitions

On Dec 26, 2022

Although years have passed since the UAE announced the withdrawal of its forces from Yemen, it continued to implement a series of plots, seeking to impose its tutelage on large parts of the country to serve its ambitions.

Observers unanimously agree that the UAE’s conspiracies against Yemen, which have been going on for years, come due to the privileges of the geographical location that Yemen enjoys and push the country to be prey for its goals of gaining regional influence.

This comes after years of the state of war and the policy of the conflicting and interfering powers in fragmenting the status of Yemen as a sovereign state, and then the dispute over its legal status between the parties and guardians, led by the Emirates.

According to Yemen falling under Chapter VII, it became subject to the tutelage of multiple international actors and their allies in the region, as it benefited from the conditions of protection in its favour, and stabilizing the current situation in Yemen imposed the security approach in favour of the forces that share influence and hegemony over the Yemeni corridors.

In light of the developments of the multipolar international conflict, as a result of the transformations of the Russian-Ukrainian war and the US-Chinese competition in the region, supervision and securing sea lanes has become part of the inter-battle, which multiplies the challenges in a country that lacks a national authority such as Yemen.

For decades, Yemen has been subject to the security approach, which has remained the criterion determining the international powers’ dealings with their internal crises. The threat of terrorist organizations, such as al-Qaeda, has governed the forms of American interventions in Yemen under the pretext of combating terrorism.

This resulted in the continued violation of Yemeni airspace and killing innocent victims. In addition, the cross-border attacks carried out by the Houthi group on Saudi oil installations made Yemen a threat to energy resources in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf.

So the war was subjected to the security approach, including the political track, in exchange for ignoring the Saudi attacks against the Yemenis.

Although securing the seaports and reducing the threat of war on Saudi Arabia has become the declared goal of the international powers in Yemen, it reflected varying levels of disagreement between the allies.

Several international and regional powers are active in the Yemeni seaports, straits and coasts under the pretext of securing global navigation and confronting hostilities targeting trade.

In addition to monitoring the implementation of UN resolutions regarding Yemen, specifically the arms embargo, i.e. impeding the flow of Iranian arms shipments to its agent in Yemen, the Houthi group, the US Navy, through its fleet, carries out military tasks in supervising the seaports.

This is because it is the global power that protects global commercial interests, the British Navy, and the military presence of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, according to their intervention in Yemen.

The Yemeni coasts and sea ports include many wide geographical areas that differ in terms of the local powers that are subject to their authority, as the authority of the Presidency Council supervises, at least nominally, the coasts of the Gulf of Aden, the Arabian Sea, and even the island of Socotra in the Indian Ocean.

However, the data confirm the absence of a unified military and security forces under the authority of the Presidential Council, which monitors the seaports, as the nature of the security and military forces differs according to the local authorities and their loyalties, even if some of them are dominated by the Southern Transitional Council, which the UAE supports.

Despite the limited hostilities in the Gulf of Aden, according to reports from the British Navy, which were dominated by announcements about boats smuggling African migrants, the Arabian Sea, including the Gulf of Oman, remained an open arena for multiple activities governed by the conflicts of regional and international powers.

In addition to the attacks on oil ships off the coast of Oman in recent years, which prompted Britain to intensify its military presence in the Yemeni city of Al-Mahra, Iran is preparing through its Navy to maintain an advanced position near the Omani coast to confirm its regional influence in the face of Saudi Arabia and America in the first place which is also working to restrict Iranian activity.

This is due to the US fleet announcing the thwarting of smuggled Iranian arms ships destined for the Houthi group in Yemen and accusing Iran of violating the arms embargo, in addition to the escalation of the Houthi group’s attacks on the oil export ports in Hadramout and Shabwa, which, on the other hand, increases the risks of securing these passages.

Saudi Arabia, through its intervention and the authority of its proxies, ensured stationing in the seaports in southern Yemen in areas that do not intersect with its national security claims, along with the UAE, which is stationed on the island of Socotra, which it attaches great importance in the context of its expansion project in the Yemeni coasts and ports.

In addition, the situation of the western Yemeni coasts, including the strategic ports, appears more complex, whether in the local, regional and international context, while the Houthi group, which controls the city of Hodeidah, oversees part of the western coasts.

Including Isa Port, the forces of Brigadier General Tariq Muhammad Abdullah Saleh, backed by the UAE, oversee the city of Mocha, as well as Bab al-Mandab, the most important global trade passage.

Although the Stockholm Agreement imposed a special status arrangement for the city of Hodeidah and its port, the authority remained subject to the Houthi group, in addition to the repositioning of Tariq’s forces at the end of last year, which enabled the group to expand in some areas to the west, where the Houthi group was able to utilize its positioning on the western coasts in Its struggle against its local and regional opponents, by targeting commercial and civilian ships with sea mines.

And if the formation of the group as a naval force in recent months escalates the challenges in the Red Sea region in the future, the political situation in this strategic region fuels the state of conflict and its continuation due to the diversity of countries bordering the Red Sea and the divergence of their internal conditions and regional alliances, including their security priorities.

In addition to the keenness of the main regional power in the Red Sea, such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, to conclude alliances to consolidate their political position, the growth of Israeli influence represents a double danger by establishing relations with some Arab countries or exploiting regimes loyal to them in the Horn of Africa. Therefore, the plan is to restore alliances in the Red Sea region in their favour, even if it comes as usual under the pretext of confronting Iran.

Add to that the UAE is stationed through the authority of its agent Brigadier General Tariq in Bab al-Mandab.

In a country like Yemen, overlooking the most crucial sea coasts and outlets from the Bab al-Mandab Strait on the Red Sea to the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Aden, its survival is a state of security that guarantees the interests of the guardians and their tools.