An unholy alliance: UAE flew Daesh terrorists into Yemen’s killing fields?

Alexander Rubinstein

The de facto alliance between the US with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, al-Qa’eda and now Daesh in Yemen has led to one of the worst humanitarian disasters in modern history,

These were the remarks of US-based journalist Alexander Rubinstein for MintPress in his report, titled: “An Unholy Alliance: UAE Flew Daesh Terrorists into Yemen’s Killing Fields”.

Ali Abdullah al-Bujairi — a Yemeni politician who served as a senior member on the failed UN-brokered transitional government and as Yemen’s ambassador to Iraq under former president Ali Abdullah Saleh — is holding the United Arab Emirates responsible for facilitating a transfer of senior Daesh militants into war-torn Yemen.

He said: “The UAE has recently transferred Daesh commander Abu Bakr az-Zokhri of Sudanese, nom de guerre, Khaibar as-Somali, from Iraq to Aden to recruit and strengthen Daesh militants in Yemen.”

Since the toppling of the so-called caliphate of Daesh — with Raqqa, Syria as its capital — the terrorist outfit has gained a foothold in a number of other countries. In Afghanistan, the US is helping to facilitate the terrorist group’s spread.

According to the 2018 Global Terrorism Index report from the Institute for Economics & Peace, “despite its loss of territory in Iraq and Syria Daesh was still active in ten countries. The collapse of Daesh in Iraq and Syria has moved the group’s activities elsewhere, in particular to the Maghreb and Sahel regions, most notably in Libya, Niger, and Mali, and Southeast Asia, particularly the Philippines.”

The report states: “In 2017, the terror group’s reach was felt in many corners of the world. Daesh committed attacks in 286 cities around the world in four different regions, that is, Asia-Pacific, Europe, West Asia-North Africa, and the Russia-Eurasia region. However, those hit hardest by the group’s terror have mostly been in West Asia and North Africa.”

It further said: “Of all Daesh attacks, 98 percent of incidents and 98 percent of deaths occurred within the West Asia-North Africa region. Ninety percent of all terror attacks and 81 percent of terror-related deaths from Daesh occurred in Iraq alone.”

These figures, however, do not include Daesh’ chapter in Afghanistan, nor does it include Daesh affiliates in Egypt.

The campaign by the US with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, al-Qa’eda, and now Daesh in Yemen has led to one of the worst humanitarian disasters in modern history, with large portions of the population at risk for starvation, millions displaced, and scores of civilians and children killed.

While the Saudi-led coalition’s dealings with the Yemen affiliate of Daesh remain largely unexplored, the main partners have their own ties to al-Qa’eda in the country. This unholy alliance meant to depose the popular Ansarallah Movement, has seen the coalition, of which the supposedly democratic regime of the US became a member without prior authorization from Congress, work hand-in-glove with al-Qa’eda.

According to the UN Security Council, actually little is known about the presence of Daesh in Yemen, with the numbers of fighters believed to be in the low-to mid-hundreds.

The US claims it conducted a total of 36 airstrikes against terrorist groups in Yemen in 2018, but the overwhelming majority targeted al-Qa’eda, and the US has not struck Daesh in Yemen.

While Daesh has attacked Ansarallah and Shi’a Muslim targets in Yemen, it has no territory. Al-Qa’eda on the other hand, controls large swaths of the southeast.

While the extent and nature of U.S. relations with Daesh in Yemen is unclear, its relationship with its regional rival al-Qa’eda, which is best described as that of “frenemies,” is more widely known.

In December, the US Congress voted to end support for Saudi Arabia’s war on Yemen, but the US remains authorized to fight on Yemeni soil because of the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF). The bill allows use of force against groups allegedly associated with the 9/11/2001 incidents of New York.

The US, however, was a member of the Saudi-led coalition for years. This partnership became unpalatable to mainstream media pundits and audiences over the summer when a US-made bomb was used by Saudi Arabia on a bus in an airstrike that left 40 children dead.

While al-Qa’eda is supposed to be an ostensible enemy of the United States, it appears to be a friend of a friend in the very least. In February, it was revealed that Saudi Arabia and the UAE gave US-made weapons to al-Qa’eda fighters in the country.

CNN reports: Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, its main partner in the war, have used US-manufactured weapons as a form of currency to buy the loyalties of militias or tribes, bolster chosen armed actors, and influence the complex political landscape. One of those militias linked to al-Qa’eda, the Abu Abbas brigade, now possesses US-made Oshkosh armored vehicles, paraded in a 2015 show of force through the city.

Abu Abbas, the founder, was declared a terrorist by the US in 2017, but the group still enjoys support from the Saudi coalition and was absorbed into the coalition-supported 35th Brigade of the Yemeni army.

In October 2015, military forces loyal to the government boasted on Saudi-and UAE-backed media that the Saudis had airdropped US-made TOW anti-tank missiles on the same frontline where al-Qa’eda had been known to operate at the time.

Speculation that the Saudi-led coalition was working with terrorists was finally legitimized in the mainstream media over the summer, when the Associated Press revealed that “the coalition cut secret deals with al-Qa’eda fighters, paying some to leave key cities and towns and letting others retreat with weapons, equipment and wads of looted cash, [while] hundreds more were recruited to join the coalition itself.”

Shockingly, the AP revealed that key participants in the pacts said the US was aware of the arrangements and held off on any drone strikes. Coalition-backed militias actively recruit al-Qa’eda militants, or those who were recently members, because they’re considered exceptional fighters.

In one case, a tribal mediator who brokered a deal between the Emiratis and al-Qa’eda even gave the terrorists a farewell dinner.

The US had been fighting on two fronts in Yemen: one against al-Qa’eda, and another alongside the Saudi-led coalition, which includes the UAE, against the legal Ansarallah-led government of Yemen, which is of course, the prime target of this unholy alliance. In contrast to the 36 bombing missions the US claimed to have conducted against al-Qa’eda in Yemen in 2018, the US refueled fighter jets of the Saudi-led coalition more than 9,000 times between March 2015 and July 2017.

This dynamic has fostered an alliance of convenience between the US and al-Qa’eda, materialized by the flow of US-made weapons from the US to Persian Gulf sheikhdoms, which, in violation of US rules, use them as bargaining chips with the terrorists.

In fact, as AP reported, citing a senior American official: “The US was aware of an al-Qa’eda presence among the anti-Ansarallah ranks.” Even the Saudi-backed fugitive president of Yemen, Mansur Hadi, “tapped” Adnan Rouzek to be a “top military commander.” Rouzek was a senior al-Qa’eda official who escaped from prison in 2008 with other members and continues to be photographed with known al-Qa’eda operatives. His militia under Hadi “became notorious for kidnappings and street killings, with one online video showing its masked members shooting a kneeling, blindfolded man.”

In November 2017, Hadi picked Rouzek to coordinate the military campaign and serve as a top commander of a new fighting force, and gave him $12 million for a new offensive.

Another coalition-backed warlord on the US list of designated terrorists due to his ties to al-Qa’eda is Sheikh Abul Abbas.

In 2017, Abul-Abbas’ forces attacked security headquarters and freed a number of al-Qa’eda suspects. According to a security official, though the attack was reported to the coalition, the perpetrators were rewarded with “40 more pickup trucks.”

The security official requesting anonymity, said: “The more we warn, the more they are rewarded. Al-Qa’eda leaders have armored vehicles given to them by the US-backed Saudi-UAE coalition while security commanders don’t have such vehicles.”

He added: “Elements of the US military are clearly aware that much of what the US is doing in Yemen is aiding al-Qa’eda while pretending to be its enemy.”

While Saudi Arabia has been roundly denounced for its attacks on civilians and the infrastructure in Yemen, particularly since the unrelated slaying of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul, Turkey, less attention has been paid to UAE war crimes in the country. NGOs and reporters have charged the Emiratis of running a network of secret prisons in the south that use torture as a feature of detention.

 While the UAE is now being charged with helping to spread Daesh into new theaters of conflict, the US is doing the same in Afghanistan since last year.

According to the Global Terrorism Index report: “The Afghanistan-based Daesh affiliate “was responsible for 14 percent of terrorism deaths, or 658 people, in 2017, a 26 percent increase from the prior year. In neighboring Pakistan, Daesh affiliates were “responsible for 233 deaths.”

Meanwhile, the two deadliest attacks in South Asia” in 2017 were committed by Daesh in Afghanistan and Pakistan, killing 93 and 91 persons respectively. 

On repeated occasions last year, Russia and Iran have charged the US with using unmarked helicopters to transfer Daesh fighters into the Haska Meyna region in Afghanistan.

In March of 2018, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif told a congregation of diplomats, academics and journalists in Pakistan: “We see intelligence, as well as eyewitness accounts, that Daesh fighters, terrorists, were airlifted from battle zones, rescued from battle zones, including recently from the prison of Haska [Meyna].

He said: “This time, it wasn’t unmarked helicopters. They were American helicopters, taking Daesh out of Haska prison.

“Where did they take them? Now, we don’t know where they took them, but we see the outcome. We see more and more violence in Pakistan, more and more violence in Afghanistan, taking a sectarian flavor.”