The Houthi movement claimed the Tuesday attack on Abu Dhabi airport. The attack on UAE might have major strategic implications for the Middle East.
The drone strike on the at Abu Dhabi International Airport yesterday which killed at least three people represents a transformation. Houthi movement in Yemen claimed the attack to show that Saudi Arabia will have a hard way to end the war that it began.
Abu Dhabi has been a part of the Saudi-led alliance attacking Yemen and has publicly backed Yemen’s toppled administrations since seven years ago. The country has managed to stay out of the Houthi fire line for the most part. Riyadh has mostly been the target of Houthi-claimed rocket and UAV assaults, with the most recent violence against UAE occurring four years ago.
Unlike Saudi Arabia, which has a long borderline with Yemen, the United Arab Emirates is away from Yemen range and has no boundaries with it. The Houthi movement, on the other hand, looked to have had a long-term plan not to attack the country.
The Houthi movement’s military spokesperson heralded the strike as a victorious military attack on UAE. Yahya Saree also warned that the group may target further sites in the UAE in the coming weeks and months.
The war that Saudi Arabia kicked off in 2015 with the help of UAE and some other countries killed tens of thousands. Yemen is on the verge of a humanitarian crisis as a result of the war.
In a latest aggression following Houthi attack on Abu Dhabi airport, Saudi Arabia targeted the civilian regions in Sanaa. Reports confirmed that over 20 people, potentially including children, lost their lives in Tuesday attack. The single attack represents the hundreds of hostilities against Yemeni people in seven years.
Attack on UAE; The Shoe Is on the Other Foot
The Emirati presidential adviser has rejected that the assault has harmed the country’s reliability and safety. Observers, nevertheless, think the developments reveals a different reality from what Anwar Gargash deemed as the implication of the Tuesday attack on UAE.
“This attack brings home to the UAE that they were playing the game of a major power in the region,” a security expert in London explained. It made the UAE figure out that Abu Dhabi is “after all a small state with a lot of vulnerabilities,” he added.
The incident, coming on the heels of Houthi capture of a vessel under UAE flag few weeks earlier, poses a serious threat to Abu Dhabi. The events essentially amount to a suggestion that the Abu Dhabi halt its partners’ advancements in Yemen. As seen by numerous raids into Saudi soils, the Houthi movement have the potential to strike other targets in UEA.
The last time when Houthis waged attack on UAE targets was after their advancement in Yemen’s Red Sea coast. The Giants Brigades offensives in Shabwah and al-Bayda and Marib governorates are believed to underlie the current attacks.
The alleged attack on UAE is thus a game that Houthis started to caution UAE about re-entering Yemen. Houthi movement used the Emirati vulnerabilities to show a severe fist in form of economic devastation in case UAE keeps in adventures in Yemen.
The attack on UAE has other more inclusive messages too. Saudi Arabia started the Yemen war for political reasons. The Changing political and security conditions led the country to look for ways end the erosive war. It’s time for Yemen to move; “When the water rises, the fish eat the ants; when the water recedes, the ants eat the fish.”
