After Saudi Arabia, the emirate knows it has very little chance of avoiding a suicide bomber attack. There is no shortage of targets in this Manhattan of the sands.
Three tankers carrying fuel were destroyed by drones on Monday 17 January near Abu Dhabi airport in the United Arab Emirates, an attack claimed by the Yemeni Houthi movement which, according to the Emirati authorities, left three people dead and six injured. The three victims are two workers of Indian nationality and a Pakistani. The Houthis, supported by Iran, are at war with an Arab coalition led by Saudi Arabia and in which the United Arab Emirates participate. They regularly launch drone or missile attacks against their Saudi neighbor but have rarely targeted the Emirates, located far from Yemen.
The Houthis, supported by Iran, are at war with an Arab coalition led by Saudi Arabia and in which the UAE participates. They regularly launch drone or missile attacks against their Saudi neighbor but have rarely targeted the Emirates, located far from Yemen.
According to Emirati police, the trucks exploded in the Mousaffah industrial area near oil storage tanks and the fire spread to a construction site at Abu Dhabi International Airport.
“Preliminary investigation has found small pieces of an aircraft that may be a drone at the two sites where the explosions appear to have occurred,” police said in a statement quoted by WAM.
The Emirates have sharply reduced their involvement in the conflict in Yemen in 2019, due to the lack of a quick military solution, but they continue to arm and train forces hostile to the Houthis who recently launched an offensive against the oil-producing provinces of Shabwa and Marib.
Emirati authorities had so far denied all claims by the Houthis of attacks targeting their territory, against airports in Abu Dhabi and Dubai in 2018, as well as a nuclear power plant in Abu Dhabi in 2017.
“An attack in Dubai is a bit like the Big One in California, that giant earthquake that is expected. We know there will be one, but we don’t know when,” says the head of a Western security service. Especially since there is no shortage of symbolic targets in the emirate, which have received worldwide media coverage. In addition to the Burj Khalifa, jihadists can strike at other exuberant symbols, such as Palm Jumeirah, the artificial island in the shape of a sixteen-branched palm tree, and Burj al-Arab, the only seven-star building on the planet, which looks like a dhow. Unless they attack the Dubai International Airport, which welcomed 6.7 million passengers in May. That would be disastrous for the emirate, which welcomed 14.2 million tourists last year and expects 20 million for the World Expo it is organizing in 2020.
