UAE shoots down three hostile drones amid Houthi missile attacks

The Biden administration is sending an additional warship and more fighter jets to the Gulf to help defend the United Arab Emirates in the face of missile attacks from Yemen’s Houthi rebels.

The UAE shot down three hostile drones that penetrated UAE airspace yesterday, the UAE’s ministry of defence announced today, in the fourth attack since January 17. The interception was “away from populated areas” and happened at dawn, according to Emirati officials.

The USS Cole, a guided missile destroyer, would be sent to “partner with the UAE navy”, the American defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, said.

He also announced “fifth generation” fighter jets, a category that includes the latest F-22 and F-35 models, would be deployed to the Gulf state, most likely at Abu Dhabi’s Al Dhafra airbase.

The move was “a clear signal that the United States stands with the UAE as a longstanding strategic partner”, Austin told the de facto ruler of the UAE, Crown Prince Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan of Abu Dhabi.

US officials confirmed that Al Dhafra’s American anti-missile capabilities were among those deployed over the last 16 days as the Houthis unleashed three previous attacks on the UAE.

In the first, two Indian workers and a Pakistani were killed when a drone struck an oil storage facility near Abu Dhabi. However, in that attack and the two that followed, most recently on Monday, missiles were intercepted before they could reach their targets.

Repeated redeployments of military assets to the Gulf by the Trump and Biden administrations have demonstrated the difficulties both presidents have had in fulfilling their promises to withdraw from the Middle East in favour of a greater focus on Asia.

In Biden’s case, the focus during his election campaign was on the Yemen war, where he promised to end backing for Saudi Arabia, which is fighting on the pro-government side against the Iran-backed Houthis.

However, Saudi Arabia is allied in the fight with its neighbour the UAE, a key Gulf security partner of the US, which itself announced it wanted to decrease its commitments in Yemen three years ago. A reduction in US and UAE support was seen as a sign of weakness by the Houthis, who renewed their efforts to seek outright victory with a large-scale offensive across the centre of the country.

It was a fightback led by a UAE-sponsored pro-government militia in the war against that offensive that triggered the Houthi retaliatory attacks on Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

Biden may also be looking to send a message to Tehran. The US and its European allies have been suggesting that a new nuclear deal with Iran is in the offing in talks in Vienna, but it also wants to expand negotiations into broader regional issues, such as the war in Yemen.