http://warontherocks.com/2016/09/west-of-suez-for-the-united-arab-emirates/
West of Suez for the United Arab Emirates
Alex Mello and Michael Knights
September 2, 2016
Bases on the Horn of Africa serve Emirati power projection ambitions.
Britain militarily withdrew from areas “east of Suez” in 1971,
triggering the Trucial States to form today’s United Arab Emirates.
Now, 45 years later, this Arab country is increasingly focused on
projecting military power “west of Suez.” Events such as the Arab
Spring in 2011, Iran’s growing confidence and escape from nuclear
sanctions, plus the rise of the Islamic State have convinced Emirati
leaders to become more activist in managing the risks facing their
federation. Most recently this has resulted in this tiny Gulf nation
establishing its first power projection base outside of the Arabian
Peninsula in the Eritrean port of Assab. Over the last year, this port
was built up from empty desert into a modern airbase, deep-water port,
and military training facility.
The progression of Emirati expeditionary operations is fascinating to
retrace. In the 1980s and 1990s, the Emirates sent de-mining forces to
Lebanon, peacekeepers to Somalia, and Apache attack helicopters to the
NATO intervention in Kosovo. In the 2000s, the United Arab Emirates
provided fully-armed attack helicopters to Lebanon and equipped Yemeni
government forces with armored vehicles and weapons to fight the
Houthi rebellions in the north of that country. An Emirati special
forces and stabilization force spent 12 years in Afghanistan as part
of the NATO International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
After the 2011 Arab Spring, the United Arab Emirates sent its troops
alongside the Saudi military to stabilize the Bahraini capital of
Manama. In parallel with a domestic crackdown on Muslim Brotherhood
elements in the Emirates, their military intervened in Libya to
support nationalist and tribal militias against the regime of Muammar
Qadhafi, Salafi militants, and –most recently – the Tripoli-based
Islamist coalition Libya Dawn. The United Arab Emirates welcomed the
2013 military coup that evicted the Muslim Brotherhood government in
Egypt and has since worked to tighten military relations with Cairo,
including joint airstrikes within Libya from Egyptian airbases, naval
exercises, and the provision of U.A.E.-owned IOMAX AT-802U
counter-insurgency aircraft to Egypt’s campaign against the Islamic
State in Sinai.
In the Red Sea: Djibouti’s loss, Eritrea’s gain
Next the Emirates turned towards the Horn of Africa and Indian Ocean.
This process was driven by their strident intervention in Yemen, which
began when Yemeni President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi was ousted from
Aden by Houthi rebels and subsequently requested military intervention
citing Article 51 (self-defense) of the Charter of the United Nations
and also the Charter of the Arab League. On March 26, Saudi Arabia
announced the beginning of Operation Decisive Storm, the pan-Arab
military operation to halt the advance of Yemen’s Houthi militia.
Saudi Arabia and the Emirates initially sought to use Djibouti, just
across the Gulf of Aden, to support the liberation of Aden, but a
twist of fate intervened. In late April 2015, an altercation between
the chief of the Djibouti Air Force and Emirati diplomats derailed
relations between the two countries. There were actually fisticuffs
after an Emirati aircraft taking part in the Gulf Coalition operations
over Yemen landed without authorization at Djibouti-Ambouli
International Airport. Emirati Vice Consul Ali al-Shihi even took a
punch, setting off a diplomatic spat. The dispute escalated quickly
due to pre-existing tensions concerning a long-running legal dispute
over the contract for the Doraleh Container Terminal, the largest
container port in Africa, operated by Dubai Ports World, the
Dubai-based Emirati port operator and one of the biggest U.A.E.
soft-power assets. On May 4, 2015 the United Arab Emirates and
Djibouti formally broke off diplomatic relations. Djibouti evicted
Saudi and Emirati troops from a facility at Haramous adjacent to Camp
Lemonnier. This former French Foreign Legion outpost (used by U.S.
Africa Command and Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa) also had
been leased to the Gulf coalition in early April to support its
operations in Yemen.
But Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates had an on-hand
replacement: neighboring Eritrea, Djibouti’s regional rival, which
boasts rudimentary ports on the Red Sea just 150 kilometers further
north. On April 29, the very day that Djibouti evicted Gulf troops,
Eritrean President Isaias Afewerki met with Saudi Arabia’s King Salman
bin Abdel Aziz and concluded a security and military partnership
agreement with the Gulf states offering basing rights in Eritrea.
High-level delegations from the Gulf Cooperation Council had already
met Eritrean officials that year to discuss using Eritrea as potential
base for operations. This insurance policy paid dividends: potentially
crippling strategic risk in the anti-Houthi campaign – the loss of
Djibouti – was overcome with ease and within days.
Build-up at Assab
As part of the partnership agreement, the United Arab Emirates
concluded a 30-year lease agreement for military use of the mothballed
deep-water port at Assab and the nearby hard-surface Assab airfield,
with a 3,500-meter runway capable of landing large transport aircraft
including the huge C-17 Globemaster transports flown by the Emirati
air force. The Gulf states agreed to provide a financial aid package
and undertook to modernize Asmara International Airport, build new
infrastructure, and increase fuel supplies to Eritrea.
The early operations at Assab were hasty but effective. On April 13, a
CH-47 Chinook carried an eight-man team of Emirati Presidential Guard
special operators and Joint Terminal Attack Controllers (JTACs) into
the Little Aden peninsula, the site of Aden’s refinery and oil storage
tanks. These forces called in airstrikes and naval gunfire missions,
enabling forces loyal to President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi and local
Aden popular resistance committees to hang onto two defensive pockets
with their backs to the sea. Emirati landing ships dropped Saudi and
Emirati security forces and U.A.E.-trained local militias mounted into
the defensive pockets in May.
The naval lifeline sustained by Assab port and airbase allowed the
pro-Hadi forces to retake Aden in August 2015’s Operation Golden
Arrow. Emirati landing ships and chartered commercial vessels made
repeated runs between the new Emirati naval base at Fujairah on the
Gulf of Oman and the bare-bones Assab port. U.A.E. Air Force C-17s and
C-130s were also seen at Asmara International Airport in the Eritrean
capital. By late July 2015, the buildup at Assab airfield was
complete, with the base serving as a logistics support area and
staging hub for the brigade-sized Emirati armored battlegroup that
would spearhead the Aden breakout. This was composed of two squadrons
of Leclerc main battle tanks, a battalion of BMP-3 infantry fighting
vehicles, and two batteries of G6 howitzers. The Emirates also shipped
a 1,500-man strike force of U.A.E.-trained Yemeni troops mounted in
U.A.E.-provided armored vehicles after they were trained and equipped
at Assab.
In mid-July 2015, the Emirati battlegroup began landing at the Little
Aden oil terminal. Emirati Al-Futaisi-class landing ships and other
landing craft including the Swift, a former U.S. Navy vessel, made
repeated runs between Assab port and Aden. In October and November
2015, Assab served as the logistics hub for the deployment of three
450-man Sudanese mechanized battalions to Aden. The two Sudanese
battalions undertook a lengthy route movement from Kassala on the
Sudan-Eritrea border to Assab port and were shuttled across to Aden by
U.A.E. vessels. Assab port also served as the base for the Gulf naval
blockade of the Red Sea ports of Mokha and Hodeida, with several
Emirati navy vessels including new Baynunah-class corvettes and
Rmah-class logistics vessels docking at the port through late 2015 and
2016. Since the offensive against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula
(AQAP) in Hadhramout in April 2016, Assab has also served as a
transshipment hub for Emirati vessels delivering humanitarian aid and
reconstruction materials, including generators and fuel to Mukalla.
A major aerial hub and training base
Significant expansion of Assab airfield has turned the site from an
austere forward operating location into a powerful expeditionary base,
the first Emirati power projection site outside the federation’s
homeland. Emirati forces doubled the airfield’s available tarmac space
and built an air traffic control tower and new hangars.
By early 2016, the airfield was hosting several Apache attack
helicopters of the Emirati Joint Aviation Command as well as
Presidential Guards’ Special Operations Command Chinook, Black Hawk,
and Bell 407MRH helicopters conducting operations over southwest
Yemen. In November 2015, AT-802 ground attack turboprops of the UAE
Special Operations Command’s Aviation Group 18 also began flying
strike sorties across the Bab al-Mandeb Strait from Assab. New Yemeni
air corps pilots trained on U.A.E.-donated aircraft at Assab prior to
their transfer to Al-Anad Air Base to the north of Aden in October
2015.
A huge containerized housing and tent city were also built as the base
was developed for Yemeni counterterrorism forces being trained and
equipped by the United Arab Emirates to liberate southern Yemeni
cities such as Mukalla held by AQAP. Units of the Aden
counterterrorism force and Hadhramout Tribal Confederation mobile
infantry were flown into Assab to be trained and equipped by the UAE.
The scale and speed of the training effort is impressive: new units
trained using UAE-provided tactical vehicles before being transported
back into Aden for the anti-AQAP offensive that kicked off in May. A
mixed battalion-sized U.A.E. battlegroup remained based at Assab
throughout the spring and summer of 2016, allowing U.A.E. troops from
the similarly-sized battlegroup engaged in operations against AQAP in
Yemen to rotate to a nearby rest and recuperation site.
In late 2015, the United Arab Emirates also began constructing new
deep-water port facilities on the coast directly adjacent to Assab
airfield, removing the need for U.A.E. military convoys to transit
through Assab city as they travelled from the airbase to the port ten
kilometers to the south. The U.A.E. National Marine Dredging Company’s
dredging vessels began work in late 2015. By May 2016, a 60,000 square
meter square of coastline had been excavated and dredged, and a
700-meter pier built. Emirati forces also extended a security
perimeter around the airfield and port facilities and re-routed the
P-6 coastal highway between Assab and Massawa around the outer
perimeter of the base.
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.
Received on Sat Sep 03 2016 - 16:02:27 EDT