Wayne MADSEN
A quadripartite “axis of evil” that includes Israel, the United States, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates is moving its military assets, conducting softening-up military action, invading and occupying foreign territory, and waging economic warfare in preparation for a military campaign against Iran and its allies. Weeks before Donald Trump scrapped U.S. participation in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear agreement with Iran, false propaganda about Iran was being promulgated by Israeli intelligence. Trump illegally pulled the U.S. signature from the agreement at the urging of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, neocon National Security Adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and three wealthy Jewish Trump campaign contributors – Sheldon Adelson, Bernard Marcus, and Paul Singer.
In an event reminiscent of the neocon and Israeli proffering of forged Niger government documents concerning Iraq’s acquisition of yellowcake uranium from the West African nation – an event that helped lead the U.S. into a disastrous military invasion and occupation of Iraq – Israel claimed to have stolen Iran’s entire nuclear weapons archive from a warehouse near Tehran. Israeli Mossad agents were said to have broken into the warehouse and transported 100,000 documents on Iran’s so-called “Amad Project” to the Azerbaijani border, where other Mossad agents took possession of the archive and transported it to Israel.
The Amad Project was represented by Israel as Iran’s continuing nuclear weapons program, a notion that International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors consider to be a fantasy of the Israelis. A spokesman for the Azerbaijani foreign ministry told the Azertag news agency, “We are absolutely convinced that this piece of information [the Project Amad archives] has nothing to do with the truth and is a complete fake.” Similarly, the Niger government called the fake uranium documents fakes, but to no avail. The neocons managed to insert the false Niger-Iraq uranium claims into his January 2003 State of the Union speech. There is now a strong suspicion that Israel convinced Trump that the Amad forgeries were real, which led him to his pullout from the JCPOA.
In recent weeks, forces of the United Arab Emirates invaded and occupied Socotra, a pristine group of islands that are claimed by Yemen and sit in the middle of the strategic Arabian Sea. Socotra’s airport and seaport are important for Israeli forces as an intermediate staging area for a military attack on Iran. It is believed that, along with a UAE force of armed military personnel, tanks, and armored troop carriers that seized the airport, seaport, and government buildings on April 30, were foreign mercenary forces of the private firm Reflex Reponses Management Consultancy LLC (R2), run by Blackwater founder Erik Prince, a political associate of Trump and brother of U.S, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. R2 is based at a military base called Zayed Military City, located outside of Abu Dhabi, the UAE capital. UAE military and R2 forces also reportedly occupied Abd al Kuri, an island that lies off Socotra.
The UAE military occupation of Socotra coincides with the creation of the U.S. Special Operations Command (Forward) Yemen within the “Yemen Area of Responsibility.” Prince’s R2 personnel have been identified mingling with U.S. military personnel in Aden in South Yemen, Eritrea, Djibouti, Somaliland, and Seychelles.
The UAE’s Joint Aviation Command is led by former U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Stephen Toumajan, promoted to the rank of major general in the UAE armed forces. Known as “General Steve,” Toumajan has been involved with Prince’s R2 in supporting UAE military operations in Yemen on behalf of the Saudi-led coalition and in Libya in support of the U.S.-supported forces of longtime Central Intelligence Agency asset, General Khalifa Haftar. Prince and Toumajan serve their master, UAE Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahayan. Like his Saudi counterpart, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman al Saud, Zayed has forged an alliance with Israel in pressing severe sanctions against Qatar, which is seen as too friendly with Iran, and cooperating in ratcheting up tensions against Syrian President Bashar al Assad.
With the connivance of Mossad, which specializes in forgeries and fake news stories, as seen with the “Amad Project” and Niger yellowcake uranium sales to Iraq, Mohammed bin Zayed (MBZ) and Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) tried to destabilize Qatar by concocting a false story and planting it on the web site of the Qatar News Agency (QNA). The false story claimed that Qatar's emir was consorting with Iran against Saudi Arabia. The bogus news story was reportedly the brain child of Yousef al-Otaiba, the UAE ambassador to the United States. Otaiba enjoys warm relations with the Israeli Mossad, as well as with Trump's son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner.
The ultimate aim of the axis of Trump, Netanyahu, MBS of Saudi Arabia, and MBZ of the UAE is to coordinate a military strike against Iran with the goal of “regime change.”
UAE occupation of Socotra, in preparation for war with Iran, has been a gradual process. It began with a UAE assistance program for the island that included a new UAE city on the island, known as "Zayed Residential City 1."
The UAE invaders met with Yemeni Prime Minister Ahmed Obeid bin Daghr, who was visiting Socotra at the time of the invasion. Not satisfied with the official reason given for the UAE invasion, bin Daghr took to Facebook to state, “On [April 30]… the first Emirati military aircraft arrived carrying two armoured vehicles and more than 50 Emirati soldiers, followed immediately by two other aircraft carrying tanks and armoured vehicles and soldiers… This raised a number of questions, and [I] left the island in a state of anxiety.”
Prince has been involved in a number of operations involving the UAE military, including its support for the re-declaration of independence by South Yemen from Yemen; its cooperation with Saudi Arabia in the genocidal civil war in Yemen, which mostly targets the Houthi-led rebel government in North Yemen; and the acquisition of naval base rights in the port of Berbera, in the self-proclaimed Republic of Somaliland. In October 2015, UAE forces, with the reported support of Prince’s R2, took control of the Yemeni island of Perim in the strategic Bab al-Mandab Strait between the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. The island had been under the control of Yemeni Houthi rebel forces battling the Saudi-supported Yemeni puppet government for control of Yemen.
There is informed speculation that the UAE is planning to annex Socotra to the UAE. The Minister of State for Foreign Affairs of the UAE, Anwar Gargash, tipped his hand as to such a possibility in a Twitter message that referred to the UAE’s “family and historic relations” with Socotra and its people. Gargash was likely referring to the fact that Socotra was once part of the Mahra Sultanate of Qishn in Hadhramaut. If the UAE plans to annex Socotra, it might include inviting a restored Sultan of the Mahra Sultanate of Qishn and Socotra to join the UAE as the eighth member of the federation. The Mahra Sultanate would have to change to an emirate or the UAE would have to alter its name to the “United Arab Emirates and Sultanates,” especially if a restored Qua'iti State of Hadhramaut, Kathiri State of Seiyun, and Sultanate of Lahej also join the UAE or “UAES” as members, thus expanding the UAE to include what is now South Yemen. If that were to occur, the Sultanate of Oman, which would lie between the bifurcated federation, would feel threatened.
Before it can expand to the south by annexing South Yemen and Socotra, the UAE had to deal with potential internal trouble at home. Sheikha Latifa, the daughter of UAE Vice President and Emir of Dubai, Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, was recently kidnapped from a yacht off the Indian state of Goa. Latifa has been a constant critic of her father’s rule and she has called for democratic reforms within the UAE. Since the age of 18, Latifa has reportedly been refused permission to leave the UAE. In February, Latifa tried to make a run for it. Sneaking into Oman, Latifa and a Finnish friend used jet skis to reach the yacht, The Nostromo, anchored in international waters and captained by Hervé Jaubert, a U.S. citizen and former French intelligence officer. Naval vessels of the UAE and India, as well as helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft of both nations, reportedly intercepted the yacht and special forces of India and the UAE – possibly including Prince’s R2 mercenaries and “General Steve’s” aircraft – forcibly removed Latifa and her Finnish companion and repatriated them back to Dubai.
The kidnapping at sea scenario is similar to MBS’s purge of senior members of the House of Saud and prominent Saudi ministers and businessmen after Kushner shared with the crown prince transcripts of U.S. National Security Agency intercepts of the Saudis’ communications. Those who expressed opposition to MBS were detained and some were tortured. Some of those tortured reportedly died of heart attacks under the stress.
The axis of evil of the United States, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE is about to embark on a destabilizing war against Iran. The mess created by these same parties in Iraq will be magnified to an even greater scale in Iran. The world can hardly stand by and allow such a calamity to occur.
Wayne MADSEN
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