United Arab Emirates “isolates” its base in the Eritrean nerve

The moment the UAE announced its decision to withdraw from the war in Yemen in mid-2019, it began dismantling parts of a military base it runs in Eritrea, according to satellite images from Planet Labs Inc., analyzed by the Associated Press. Images showing the demolition of the facilities at the base that was built in the Eritrean city of Assab on the Red Sea in 2015, where Abu Dhabi built a port and expanded an airstrip some 3,500 meters long, using the facility as rear base for carrying heavy loads. Sudanese weapons and forces to Yemen. Abu Dhabi has invested millions of dollars to upgrade this facility, which is located about 70 kilometers from Yemen, as it built barracks, hangars and fences on the nine-square-kilometer base, which was built by colonial Italy in the 1930s. Over time, Leclerc tanks, G6 self-propelled howitzers and BMP-3 armored fighting vehicles were installed at the airport.

Abu Dhabi used Assab military base to hold detainees

Based on the above, Ryan Pohl, an analyst at the intelligence company “Stratfor”, considered that the UAE “is reducing its strategic ambitions and withdrawing from the places where it had a presence … Its deployment of this great force left it to discovered”. to more risks than it now wants to take. “Alexander Melo, a security analyst at Horizon Clint Access, said Abu Dhabi” is trying to do more than it can militarily and economically … Once it discovered that Yemen It was not worth it for it, decided to end the matter, and ended suddenly.
The military base’s barracks included Emirati and Yemeni forces, while satellites photographed Sudanese forces as they landed in the Yemeni coastal city of Aden. Records show that the ship carrying the soldiers, “Swift-1”, was traveling to and from Assab. Later, in 2016, this ship was attacked by the Yemeni army and the “people’s committees”, while the UAE government said at the time that it was carrying “humanitarian aid”, a claim that did not convince the experts of the ONU. The Emiratis also used the base to house the detainees, who were facing increasing international pressure due to ill-treatment by the Saudi-Emirati coalition.

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