The British Broadcasting Corporation "B.B.C" published an investigative report on the role of the United Arab Emirates in financing and carrying out political assassinations in the southern governorates of Yemen, with the assistance of American mercenaries and former Al-Qaeda members it hired.
The BBC was not the first to reveal the UAE’s role in executing political assassinations in the governorates managed by its agents. Rather, it was preceded by the American “Buzzfeed News” website. However, the investigation published by the British channel and prepared by the Yemeni journalist Nawal Al-Maqhafi over four continuous years, it included documents, photos, videos, testimonies and confessions made by American mercenaries who participated in carrying out the assassination operations through a private American security company called “Spear”, founded by the Hungarian-Israeli security contractor Abraham Golan. Further, the investigation revealed that the murders targeted more than 160 political and religious figures, most of whom belonged to the Islamic-oriented Yemeni Islah Party.
What is the UAE’s motivation to target the Islah Party in Yemen?
There is no case of revenge or past hostility that broke out between the UAE and the Yemeni Islah Party. Therefore, there is no justification for the UAE to commit a revengeful reaction against Islah. However, it seems that the UAE has been undertaken a harsh, hostile stance towards the trends of moderate political Islam, especially the political movements associated with the Muslim Brotherhood.
In fact, this Emirati hostility towards the Islamists exaggerated following the outbreak of the Arab Spring revolutions of 2010-2011, which increased the level of fear and terror among the traditional monarchies regarding the expected change that did not happen.
Hence, the UAE was quick to ban the activity of the Society for Reform and Social Guidance, a moderate advocacy charity, and arrested dozens of its members, most notably its chairman, Sheikh Sultan Al Qasimi, in 2012, and he is still under detention in Abu Dhabi up to date. Sultan Al Qasimi is the descendant of a family that belongs to the ruling family in the Emirate of Ras Al Khaimah.
Weeks ago, the Emirati judicial authorities retried 84 Emirati citizens on charges of terrorism, most of whom were affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, and all of them were former detainees who had overstayed their sentence in Emirati prisons.
The real reason behind their arrest in 2012 is that they signed a document demanding that the UAE leadership to bring about necessary political reforms in the country. The Gulf leaders were not satisfied with protecting themselves from change in their countries, but also declared a joint war on the Arab Spring revolutions; whether by containment, as it was the case in Yemen, or by suppression, as happened in Tunisia, or by supporting the coup, as happened in Egypt.
The UAE took it upon itself to fight the Muslim Brotherhood and all movements affiliated with it throughout the Arab world.
In Yemen, the UAE participated in the Arab coalition against the Houthi group in Yemen, in March 2015, and its participation was not for the sake of Saudi Arabia or for the sake of (legitimacy), but rather to achieve two main goals: the first represented by a strong Emirati desire to seize the coasts of Yemen and Yemeni ports to enhance the status of Jebel Ali Port. The second goal aims to expand the settlement area of DP World, which controls the ports of the Horn of Africa, in addition to the ports of the southern Arabian Peninsula (Yemen). Thus, the UAE will become an economic center linking East Africa and South Asia. By this, the UAE’s motives behind its control over the port of Aden, the ports of Al-Dhaba and Al-Shahr in Hadramaut, the port of Qishn in Al-Mahra, the ports of Balhaf and Qena in Shabwa, and the port of Mocha in Taiz were exposed.
In order for the Emirati control over Yemeni waters to be sustainable, it must fuel internal Yemeni conflicts, ensure the separation of southern Yemen from the north, and limit the large political components spread throughout the Yemeni geography, including the Yemeni Congregation Reform (Islah) Party. This is the second goal of the UAE’s involvement in the Arab coalition.
Consequently, the UAE used all means of violence to uproot the Islah Party from southern Yemen so it proceeded to remove the Islah leaders from their government positions, as happened with Nayef al-Bakri, the former governor of Aden, then the exclusion of the governor of Shabwa, Mohammad Saleh bin Adio, and before that the exclusion of the governor of Al-Baydha, Nayef Al-Qaisi and the two former governors of Al-Jawf; Al-Hassan Abkar, then Amin Al-Ukaimi. The Emirati influence even reached the US Treasury Department, which included the two reformist leaders, Nayef Al-Qaisi and Al-Hassan Abkar, on the terrorist list, upon the request of the Emirates.
Moreover, the UAE also worked to exclude military leaders affiliated with the Islah Party, whether by imposing their change by a presidential decision, or by bombarding them with air strikes, as happened in more than one incident, in which hundreds of officers and soldiers were killed by UAE fighters.
The UAE's aggressive acts aim to demonize the Islah Party with the intention of forcing it into intellectual regression and political apostasy, and returning it to the stage of underground work, so that it becomes qualified to practice violence against its origins, and this is what ensures the sustainability of political conflicts throughout Yemen.
The UAE also established secret prisons and launched several campaigns of detentions and enforced disappearances against Islah Party affiliates, to the point that whoever the UAE was unable to arrest, it demanded that he be exiled outside the country, as happened with Sheikh Hamoud Saeed Al-Mikhlafi.
In addition to all of this, the British investigative report also confirmed that the UAE paid tens of millions of dollars in exchange for hiring American guerrillas to carry out assassinations against leaders and activists of the Islah Party in Yemen.
Despite the great effort expended in this report, it dealt with only a small number of the victims of this dark file and the organized crime that the UAE managed in Yemen. The investigation was limited to a period of time ranging between 2015 and 2018, while the UAE is still practicing and plotting assassinations through its tools and arms in the country, and the most recent was the murdering of an Islahi political figure occurred last December, targeting the imam of a mosque in Lahj Governorate, and with the same killing tactics used by the “Spear” company. Thus, one may ask if the number of victims of Emirati assassinations in Yemen reached (160) persons over three years, then what will be the total number of victims over the forthcoming five years?!
Perhaps the most critical issue that this investigation revealed was the recruitment of dozens of Al-Qaeda members to carry out assassinations, and their inclusion in the so-called elite forces. The most prominent of these elements is the well-known leader of Al-Qaeda, Nasser Al-Shaibh, who was imprisoned on charges of terrorism, and was also one of the most noticeable perpetrators involved in targeting the American destroyer (USS Cole). Ironically, he is today a commander in one of the armed factions affiliated with the UAE in southern Yemen.
This is decisive evidence that the UAE is executing a systematic plot to uproot political parties and moderate components that believe in peaceful, competitive political action, and replace them with extremist religious entities, closed regional formations, and armed factions that owe absolute loyalty to UAE. It is noticeable also that anyone who refuses to deal with the UAE or rejects its instructions and stands in the way of its ambitions and plans, he will be considered as a terrorist who deserves to be killed in its own way!
The UAE's aggressive acts aim to demonize the Islah Party with the intention of forcing it into intellectual regression and political apostasy, and returning it to the stage of underground work, so that it becomes qualified to practice violence against its origins, and this is what ensures the sustainability of political conflicts throughout Yemen.
The strange thing is that, despite this Emirati hostility towards the Islah Party, the party still hopes to restore its relationship with the Emirates, and recently the acting Secretary-General of the party, Abdul Razzaq Al-Hijri, said in a press statement that: “The UAE has a misunderstanding with the Islah Party, but we hope to overcome it.” He confirmed.
