UAE seeks to strengthen its arsenal of reconnaissance aircraft
The UAE ruling regime seeks to strengthen the country’s arsenal of reconnaissance aircraft in its wars and criminal foreign military interventions.
The UAE plans to buy two additional Global Eye reconnaissance aircraft, the Swedish defense equipment company SAB said.
Stockholm-based SABB, which manufactures Gripen fighter jets, said the order’s potential value was $1.018 billion, but final negotiations had yet to take place and a contract amendment had yet to be signed.
The UAE has previously bought three Global Eye reconnaissance aircraft in the air, sea and land. Two of them bought in 2015 and one in 2017.
Saab said the UAE had announced its intention to amend the contract at the Dubai Airshow.
The Swedish company raised 6 billion kroner ($624 million) last year to shore up its budget and meet late orders.
For his part, Robert Harward, CEO of Lockheed Martin Military Industries in the Middle East, the UAE has the latest aircraft “F-16” in the world, “Block 60”.
The UAE is the only country in the world besides the United States to have the anti-missile system Tha.
The Ministry of Defense in Abu Dhabi announced the completion of a contract with Lockheed Martin to purchase and install equipment on F-16s worth $76 million.
The UAE’s regime has kept its military spending in the federal budget allocated for the country for 2020 in light of the escalation of its foreign interventions, especially the war on Yemen.
The UAE cabinet, headed by Mohammed bin Rashid, this month announced the federal budget for 2020 totaling 61.354 billion dirhams, the largest since the state was established. The budget for this year was 60.3 billion dirhams.
The announcement of the federal budget for the new year 2020 identified some key areas of expenditure such as social development, infrastructure, economic resources and government affairs.
The announcement included 7.8 billion dirhams for other unspecified federal expenses, or 11.1 per cent of the total budget, raising questions about its fate, although its spending was linked to lobbyists financed by Abu Dhabi and state mercenaries.
The UAE’s military spending, which observers say casts a dark shadow on the country’s economy and plunged it into an unprecedented global crisis, was completely absent in the details of the federal budget.
More military deals have become an obsession with the minds and policies of the rulers of the UAE to serve their aggressive ambitions. This comes despite the escalating economic crisis experienced by the state, especially in the Emirate of Dubai.
This is due to the state of foreign wars of the rulers of the UAE, in Yemen, Libya, Tunisia, Egypt and the Horn of Africa, where the state spends billions of dollars a month to finance those wars in recent years.
The UAE is estimated to spend at least $1.3 billion a month in the Yemen war, except for ammunition, jet fuel and amortization.
The UAE has been threatened by international sanctions for its aggressive intervention in Libya after being convicted in a UN expert report of providing military support to militia warlord Khalifa Haftar.
The United Nations experts monitoring sanctions against Libya said the UAE and other countries had repeatedly violated Libya’s arms embargo and that it was “very likely” that an Abu Dhabi plane was responsible for a deadly strike on a migrant detention center.
A report by the UN Security Council’s Libya Sanctions Committee also accused Sudan and its head of rapid support forces, Mohamed Hamdan Doklo (Humaidati), of violating UN sanctions by deploying one thousand Sudanese troops in Libya with UAE funding.
The United Nations independent experts wrote that “the transfer (of military material) to Libya has occurred frequently and sometimes in a flagrant manner without regard for compliance with punitive procedures.”
The Security Council issued a statement in July urging other countries not to interfere in or cause further intensification of the Libyan conflict.
Libya plunged into chaos after a NATO-backed uprising ousted Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. Thousands of people have been killed in sporadic battles since 2014 between factions in the east and west. Violence has allowed militants and migrant smugglers to operate actively, affecting Libya’s oil industry and the country’s key institutions.
The commander of the Eastern Libyan Forces (Libyan National Army), Khalifa Haftar, backed by the United Arab Emirates seven months ago launched an attack on the internationally recognized national reconciliation government and its forces in Tripoli. But the war is currently at a standstill.
“Neither side has the military capability to effectively resolve the outcome in its favor,” the UN experts wrote in their report.
UN experts accuse Jordan and the United Arab Emirates of supplying Haftar’s troops with military materials, which they said prompted the government of national reconciliation to seek help from Turkey.
“The parties to the conflict have received weapons, military equipment, technical support and non-Libyan fighters in non-compliance with arms-related sanctions procedures,” the experts added.
“Jordan, Turkey and the UAE routinely provided weapons, sometimes blatantly, with little effort to conceal the source,” they said. “The commission also identified the presence of Chadian and Sudanese armed groups to support forces of the Government of National Accord and the Libyan National Army.”
