Qatar And UAE Leaders Meet For First Time Since Gulf Thaw
Gulf Cooperation Council states meeting in December 2021
Qatar's emir met the de facto ruler of the United Arab Emirates in the first such interaction between the two leaders since four Arab states agreed to end a dispute with Doha over a year ago.
Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani met Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan on the sidelines of a lunch hosted by China's president on Saturday during the Winter Olympics, Qatar's state news agency said.
UAE news websites published a video clip of the two leaders speaking.
Abu Dhabi has yet to restore diplomatic ties with Doha since Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt agreed in January 2021 to end a row that led them to boycott Qatar in mid-2017, though a senior Emirati official visited Doha last August.
Saudi Arabia and Egypt last year appointed ambassadors to Qatar. All but Bahrain have restored travel and trade links.
The dispute erupted over accusations that Doha supported terrorism -- a reference to Islamist groups -- and its ties with regional adversary Iran and Turkey. Doha denies the charges.
The UAE, under a more conciliatory foreign policy driven by economic priorities, is engaging with both Tehran and Ankara, with which ties were badly strained over the role of Islamist groups following 2011 Arab Spring uprisings
Israel's defense minister visited the US Navy Fifth Fleet's headquarters in Bahrain on Thursday amid heightened tensions following drone and missile attacks on the United Arab Emirates.
Israel's Defense Ministry said on Wednesday Benny Gantz would sign a security cooperation agreement with Bahrain, which along with the UAE normalized relations with Israel in 2020, partly out of shared concerns about Iran.
Bahrain hosts the Fifth Fleet's headquarters as well as some operations for CENTCOM, a US military coordination umbrella organization for the Middle East that Israel joined last year.
"Against a backdrop of increasing maritime and aerial threats, our ironclad cooperation is more important than ever," Gantz said on Twitter after the naval base visit.
Israel this week is joining a 60-nation US-led Middle East naval exercise alongside the UAE and Bahrain and, for the first time, publicly alongside Saudi Arabia and Oman, two counties it has no diplomatic relations with.
Israel's defense ministry gave no details of what a security accord with Bahrain would include.
Gantz flew to Bahrain for the two-day trip on an Israeli air force transport plane. It was the first time an Israeli defense chief had visited the Gulf nation or that an Israeli military aircraft had landed there.
The UAE on Wednesday said it intercepted three that entered its airspace over unpopulated areas in the fourth such attack in the past few weeks.
Twitter and Facebook have suspended pages and profiles of an Iranian disinformation unit that was targeting nationalist and ultra-religious Jews in Israel.
According to the BBC on Thursday, the alleged foreign interference campaign ran an elaborate network across multiple social media platforms posing as an ultra-Orthodox Jewish news group that supports extreme right-wing groups. The aim appears to have been sowing discord and inflame tensions with Palestinian.
The Israeli disinformation watchdog FakeReporter uncovered the group's Iranian origin, saying it sought to fuel "religious war" by amplifying "fear, hatred and chaos".
The network, which remains active on the messaging channel Telegram, recirculated articles and posts supporting far-right politicians, encouraged protests and promoted anti-government and anti-Arab sentiment.
Facebook says the accounts were part of attempts to reappear after it took down "a small Iranian influence operation" last March, adding that Iran-based groups are persistent and well-resourced.
The social media network called the Aduk -or strictly religious - was created as a Hebrew acronym of "Virtual religious union for the religious community".
The network was well versed in the Israeli culture and politics and went to extensive lengths to look genuine. They had created a page for a fictitious bakery in an ultra-Orthodox Israeli town, and in another case stolen the online identity of an ultra-religious Jewish man from Russia who died four years ago.
Tourists rest at the Habtoor Grand Resort, in Dubai, February 1, 2022.
The United Arab Emirates said it intercepted three drones that entered its airspace over unpopulated areas early on Wednesday in the fourth such attack in three weeks.
The unprecedented first three assaults, including a missile attack on Monday during a visit by Israel's president, were launched by Yemen's Iran-backed Houthis in an escalation with a military coalition led by Saudi Arabia, which includes the UAE.
The Houthis have not taken responsibility for the latest attack, which was claimed by a little-known group calling itself the "True Promise Brigades", according to US-based SITE Intelligence Group, which follows jihadist websites.
The group's only other claim was in January 2021, when it said it launched a drone at Saudi Arabia.
If confirmed, the claim by the "True Promise Brigade" could indicate an upswing in violence involving militias seeking to help Iran oppose Western and Gulf Arab adversaries, according to some analysts.
"If Alwiyat al-Waad al-Haq came out of hibernation and did launch drones at the UAE ... then this was likely an Iran-directed or at very least Iran-tolerated operation," Michael Knights at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy said in a Twitter post, using the group's Arabic name.
Sunni Muslim Gulf powers have called on global powers trying to salvage a nuclear pact with Iran to also tackle Shi'ite Iran's regional proxies and missiles program.
Iran's foreign minister discussed Yemen with his Emirati counterpart by telephone on Wednesday.
The UAE largely reduced its military presence in Yemen in 2019 and has been engaging with Tehran under de-escalation efforts largely driven by economic priorities.
Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani speaks during a meeting with Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, in Doha, Qatar, December 8, 2021.
US and Qatari leaders will discuss a broad agenda in Washington on Monday, including Iran and energy security in the aftermath of a potential Russian invasion of Ukraine, US officials said.
Qatar is the world's largest supplier of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and may divert supplies to Europe if the Ukraine conflict disrupts Russian gas deliveries to the continent. Russia supplies about one-third of Europe’s gas.
President Joe Biden's agenda for the Oval Office meeting with Qatar's emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani will also include the Iran nuclear talks and relations with Afghanistan, where Washington's interests are now represented by the small Gulf country.
Qatar’s foreign minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani visited Tehran on January 27 and held talks with senior officials. Iran denied that the visit was related to facilitating direct talks between Tehran and Washington, as some media had reported.
Qatar has maintained friendly ties with Iran despite serious tensions other Arab Gulf states have with Tehran.
Tamim will also meet separately with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and discuss arms sales and other military issues with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, an official told reporters.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog meets with Abu Dhabi's Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan in Abu Dhabi. January 30, 2022.
Iran-backed Houthis fired a missile at the United Arab Emirates in the third such attack in January, while Israeli President Isaac Herzog was visiting the country.
UAE defense ministry said on Monday that the attack, 20 minutes past midnight was intercepted. There was no news of any missile hitting a target, but debris fell on an uninhabited area.
Yemen's Houthi group said on Monday it had fired a number of ballistic missiles at Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates, and had also fired several drones at Dubai, the regional business hub.
A senior official described the attacks as "useless" provocations that would be dealt with to safeguard national security and sovereignty. "Those who test the UAE are mistaken," the official, Anwar Gargash, said in a Twitter post.
The attack followed reports in Iranian media affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) on Sunday. Tasnim and Fars news agencies reported quoting Houthi officials that the Yemeni rebels were planning large attacks against the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
"Future strikes on the UAE will be more effective and more powerful than before and the UAE may lose its capability to run the country," Lieutenant-General Abed Al-Thour the Deputy Chief of the Ideological Department of the Houthi armed forces told Tasnim in an exclusive interview. He added that the Houthi military is determined to "go deep inside the UAE to achieve its military goals".
The spokesman of the State Department reacted to the attack in a tweet, saying, “We condemn the latest Houthi missile attack on Abu Dhabi. While Israel’s president is visiting the UAE to build bridges and promote stability across the region, the Houthis continue to launch attacks that threaten civilians.”
The Biden Administration lifted the terrorist designation for Houthis as soon as it assumed office last year, a move questioned by critics as an attempt to encourage the group to accept peace proposals. Houthis have refused to take any conciliatory step, such as agreeing to ceasefire.
Herzog, who was on a historic trip to UAE less than two years after establishing full relations, spent the night in Abu Dhabi. He discussed security and bilateral relations with the UAE’s de facto ruler Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
The spokesman of Iran’s foreign ministry, Saeed Khatibzadeh, commenting on Herzog’s visit to the UAE said, “Those who normalize relations [with Israel] should know…that the first victims would be” themselves.
"We are determined in our strategic vision and goals to help build a stable and prosperous region for all and provoking us is useless," said Gargash, diplomatic adviser to the UAE president.
The UAE's defense ministry said coalition warplanes had destroyed missile launchers that were located in Yemen.
The UAE is part of the Saudi-led coalition that has been battling the Houthis for nearly seven years in a conflict largely seen as a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
The Houthis, who have repeatedly launched missile and drone attacks on Saudi Arabia, have warned they would continue targeting the UAE unless it stopped "interfering" in Yemen.
The UAE largely ended its military presence on the ground in 2019 but holds sway through Yemeni forces it arms and trains and which recently joined battles against the Houthis in key energy-producing regions.
