The UAE expands military presence in the Horn of Africa

The United Arab Emirates is developing a strong military foothold in the Horn of Africa.
Recently, it secured a renewable 25-year contract to establish an air and naval base in Somaliland's coastal city of Berbera.
Last year - in 2015 - the UAE signed a 30-year lease agreement for military use of the port of Assab in Eritrea.
When it comes to security cooperation, the UAE train and equip counterterrorism and security unites in Somalia. And in Puntland, it paid to establish a maritime police force by providing training and equipment.
Alex Mello is the lead security analyst at Horizon Client Access, a security consultancy group based in New York. He says that the war in Yemen is the main reason why the UAE is fast expanding its military presence and influence in the Horn of Africa. The United Arab Emirates is fighting, since early 2015, alongside other Middle-Eastern nations against Houthi militias backed by Iran.
“The UAE has been building influence in the Horn since the mid-2000s," Mello said. "The military bases are just the latest phase. For years, the UAE has invested in the Horn of Africa, East Africa and the Indian Ocean islands supporting tourism, port infrastructure, natural gas, food security and development aid.”
The port and air base in Eritrea’s port city of Assab is their main logistics hub for all their operations in Yemen. “This year, they’ve also begun developing it into what’s going to be a long-term, permanent base that will allow them to monitor naval traffic”, adds Mello.
The UAE’s military investment in the Horn of Africa seems to pay off. Alex Mello says it graduated from a local power into regional force that has the capacity to do power projection far from the UAE homeland. A win-win situation
To what extent are states like Eritrea, Somaliland, Puntland and Somalia benefitting from an Emirati military presence and influence?
The UAE has been extensively funding the security services as well as intelligence and counter terrorism services in Somalia, Somaliland and Puntland. An invaluable input for states with limited resources.
According to Alex Mello Somalia could seek Emirati assistance to be more effective in fighting the Al Shabab militia, a thorn in its side that just will not go away.
“The UAE has gained a lot of experience from operations in Afghanistan and Yemen in local level counter-insurgency, counter-terrorism work. In a sense, they have an advantage, over the United States for example, because they are more familiar with the terrain.”
Furthermore, Mello said, the military and security aid ties in with the economic aspect: “The air and naval base in Somaliland is being built now after the UAE won a very big contract in May to manage and expand the port of Berbera.”
The 30-year contract won by Dubai Ports World will help break up Djibouti’s monopoly on land-locked Ethiopia’s freight and, if it works out, will prove to be economically very lucrative for Somaliland.
Mello believes that the United Arab Emirates is beginning to emerge as a powerful actor in the Horn of Africa and beyond.
“It’s been really interesting to see how their presence there has evolved from the 2000s to where we are now. And I think it will definitely expand in the coming years. We’ll probably see the UAE develop more of a blue-water power projection capability. They are going to expand their navy in the next couple of years and that will allow them to really project power all along the East African seaboard, the Indian Ocean. That comes with increased economic influence in the area. source http://m.en.rfi.fr/africa/20161224-uae-discreet-yet-powerful-player-horn-africa

UAE Presence Expands in Africa

UAE Presence Expands in Africa

www.shephardmedia.com | December 20, 2016

The United Arab Emirates has signed an agreement to establish a second foreign military base in the Horn of Africa.

The new base, according to the source present at the negotiations, will be established at the coastal city of Berbera in Somaliland and will be an air and naval base. According to the government source the MoU was signed in the last week of September when a senior Somaliland delegation was in the UAE.

The self governing semi-autonomous Somaliland and the UAE enjoyed close political, economic and military ties since 2012.

The cooperation between the two countries intensified after the UAE’s involvement in the Yemen operations where the region’s strategic location south of the Bab al Mandeb strait proved crucial to their projection capabilities.

An area of 40km sq compromising of Berbera airport and sea front have been provided to the UAE for a period of 25 years and is renewable, the source added.

The base has been provided in exchange for security training, support and protection to the autonomous region, the source added, providing a much needed security blanket to Somaliland which borders Somalia to the south.

Just five kilometres away from the base UAE ports giant, Dubai Ports World, has signed earlier this year a $442 million deal to develop Berbera port. The 30 year deal will see the commercial port expanded and doubled in size next to a large free zone and other infrastructure projects to provide a new gate way to Ethiopia, Africa’s fastest growing economy.

According to Alexander Mello, security analyst at New York based Horizon Client Access the UAE’s plan to operate their Eritrean Assab base simultaneously with the Berbera base is quite plausible.

‘Assab is still a pretty austere base, the work the UAE is doing there – especially the the expansion of the hangars and apron and building a new docking facility for UAE vessels 10km north of of current Assab port – is consistent with a long-term UAE presence,’ Mello said.

The UAE has been putting up aircraft shelters and deployed half a squadron of Mirage 2000 fighters to the base in September, Mello added, which again is consistent with a long-term presence.

‘They might be speeding up development of Berbera now to have a base out of Houthi missile range. It’s possible Assab will be focused more on supporting ops in Yemen and Berbera will be primarily used for conducting naval and air ops in the Bab al-Mandeb and Gulf of Aden with the U.S. and Egypt,’ he said.

Shehab al Makahaleh, political analyst at consultancy group Geostrategic Media, said that despite the UAE previously adopting a cautious foreign policy the recent financial chaos, the Arab Spring and Islamic militancy has forced the UAE to safeguard their national security by securing major sea ports in Africa.

‘The UAE is increasingly focused on projecting military power, the unrest has prompted the UAE to have its own base in the Eritrean port of Assab. In 2015, this simple port was built up from empty desert into a modern airbase, deep-water port, and military training facility,’ he said.

Al Makahleh said that ‘the rapid militarization’ in the Horn of Africa by Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Turkey, Iran, China, Russia, the UK, France – and the American presence on the west coast – under the aim to preserve the security and stability of the region has turned out to be a competition for its resources.

Source: https://www.shephardmedia.com/news/mil-log/uae-presence-expands-africa/

Saudi Arabia and the GCC are Expanding To Eritrea. Geopolitical Implications for Ethiopia

By Andrew Korybko

Global Research, November 18, 2015

Katehon 16 November 2015

Region: Middle East & North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa

Recent media reports indicate that Saudi Arabia and the UAE have contracted Eritrea’s government for assistance in the War on Yemen, using the East African state as a transit and logistics base for their operations, as well as 400 of its troops for cannon fodder in Aden.

Add to it the Qatari soldiers that have already been present on the ground for a few years to “mediate” the border dispute with Djibouti, and the most important members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) have unexpectedly converged in what many might think to be among one of the most unlikeliest of places. While it may have been difficult to foresee this happening, in hindsight it actually makes quite a lot of sense, and contrary to the conventional assessment that this is about Yemen, the argument can be made that it’s also just as much about Ethiopia as well. Unbeknownst to many, Qatar is the “ox driving the cart” in this case, and whether they like it or not, the rest of the GCC states will be reluctantly forced to follow its destabilizing lead if Doha decides to throw Ethiopia into chaos.

The research expands on the briefing first laid out by South Front and should be seen as a continuation of their original work. It begins by setting the context for what’s been going on along the Horn of Africa lately and how the GCC’s military advances fit into the larger context of recent history. The piece then investigates the levers of influence for how Qatar could destabilize Ethiopia as well as its radical ideological motivations for doing so. Finally, the article concludes with a scenario study of how Qatar could engineer an Unconventional War to bring down Africa’s next up-and-coming power readmore