US praises UAE for countering ISIL and Al Qaeda in Yemen,
On a visit to Oman this month, US Secretary of Defence James Mattis called joint American and UAE counter-terrorism operations against Al Qaeda in Yemen a model for US troops in the war-ravaged country.
Mr Mattis then made reference to the battle to recapture the southern port of Mukalla, which was held by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (Aqap) but recaptured in April 2016.
“The UAE, with some American help – intelligence help principally – had gone in, organised the local tribes and Mukalla Port fell in 36 hours after being held for a year,” he said. “And so we’re there to help that sort of an effort.”
The two countries’ joint efforts against Aqap have since intensified, liberating Shabwa, Abyan, Ahwar and other towns around Hadramawt province.
Experts who spoke to The National credited military effectiveness, strategic alignment and local elements for strengthening US-UAE bonds in the war.
For the US, Yemen’s strategic importance is its geographical location “on one of the busiest highways for international maritime trade in the entire world”, said Nicholas Heras, a senior fellow at the Centre for a New American Security in Washington, where he focuses on Yemen.
“Whatever instability occurs in Yemen has the potential to threaten or jam up vital global trade routes,” Mr Heras said.
The importance of Yemen also lies in the recent past.
“Al Qaeda’s strongest local branch is in Yemen and it has used this position to plan attacks against the US,” Mr Heras said.
The attack on the USS Cole destroyer in 2000, the attempt by shoe bomber Richard Reid on an American Airlines flight in 2001, the assault on the US embassy in Sanaa in 2008, and the ink cartridge bomb plot at East Midlands Airport, the UK, in 2010, all illustrate the threat of Aqap to American interests.
While the Pentagon says only a small number of US troops are in Yemen, Mr Heras considers the military to be “deeply involved in the Yemen conflict, in ways that would surprise the American people”.
“It is not overstating it to say that Yemen is the hottest war being fought by US soldiers in the Middle East that Americans have never heard about,” he said.
Mr Mattis last week successfully urged Congress to block a bill that would have required any US troops not involved in fighting Al Qaeda to leave Yemen within 30 days.
But when it comes to fighting Aqap and ISIL in Yemen, the level of US-UAE co-operation is now so close that the US military “has agreed to conduct joint kinetic operations with Emirati forces”, Mr Heras said.
That is something “American generals only sign off on for the most competent partner militaries”, such as Nato, he said.
John Arterbury, a Yemen analyst at research and analytics company Navanti Group, told
The National that the narrow focus of the US mission in Yemen, “fighting Aqap and ISIL, while pushing for a halt to the civil war and an increase in aid” had helped its success.
“Aqap is on the back foot. UAE-backed local forces have systematically driven the group from towns and cities, and are now pursuing it into more remote areas across South Yemen,” Mr Arterbury said.
“Securing rural valleys over the past month in Hadramawt and Shabwa provinces are prime examples of this.”
The US considers the UAE as a state with capable armed forces and an abiding interest in southern Yemen, Mr Arterbury said.
“These complementary aims and abilities make the US and UAE natural partners in regards to pursuing counter-terrorism efforts in the country’s south.”
On the ground “the UAE works with tribes and other local networks, providing lucrative incentives to collaborate against Aqap”.
But Mr Arterbury said that any involvement in southern Yemen must also take into consideration the powerful bloc favouring southern secession, which “will be a tricky feat for any state involved in Yemen”, he said.
One area where the UAE and the US differ is on targeting the Houthis. While the US is active “especially at Bab Al Mandab, to support the mission of interdicting Iranian supplies to the Houthis”, it does not directly target the fighters in the conflict, both experts said.
This month, however, Gen Robert Ashley, director of the Defence Intelligence Agency, warned of the Houthis’ increased naval threat.
Gen Ashley said new capabilities included “anti-ship missiles, explosive-laden boats and mines”, making the Yemen war a “threat to vital international shipping lanes through the Red Sea”.
The long-term challenge of ending the war is the most daunting in Yemen.
“US-UAE backed efforts have proven relatively successful so far in displacing Aqap but the real challenge will come in a post-conflict setting”, Mr Arterbury said.