The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is planning to invite representative from four Gulf states to the summit in Ankara with the Iran war and the transatlantic rift likely to loom large over the talks, said people familiar with the matter.
The countries — Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates — are all members of the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative, a partnership between NATO and non-members in the broader Middle East.
UAE foreign minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed and UK MP Nigel Farage discussed bilateral ties, regional security and recent attacks on the UAE
Bloomberg reported that the United Arab Emirates unsuccessfully attempted to persuade fellow members of the Gulf Cooperation Council to join a coordinated military campaign against Iran during the early stages of the US-Israeli war.
According to the report, Abu Dhabi sought support from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman for a joint response following Iranian retaliatory missile and drone strikes across the region.
DUBAI—The United Arab Emirates has carried out military strikes on Iran, people familiar with the matter said, casting the Gulf monarchy as an active combatant in a war in which it has been Iran’s biggest target.
Its military is well-equipped with Western-made jet fighters and surveillance networks. And the attacks suggest the country is now more willing to use them to protect its economic power and growing influence across the Middle East.
(4 May 2026 16:12 BST | Last update: 2 hours 57 mins ago)
Iranian sources told MEE that Iranian intelligence had established the Emirati role in the attacks went beyond hosting US bases.
One official said: „Iranian intelligence believes the UAE also made some of its own air facilities available for operations against Iran.“ Abu Dhabi has served as an advanced platform for Israeli interests in the region, the official said.
He suggested this included „deception operations“ – false-flag Israeli attacks on Oman and at least one other country intended to look like Iranian ones.
Iran also believes that cooperation included the use of the AI infrastructure within the UAE to support data collection and analysis for US and Israeli targeting.
If Iran were to be invaded, the UAE would be treated as an aggressor, one diplomat told MEE.
That the UAE has gone way beyond its Gulf neighbours in supporting the US and Israeli attack on Iran, is down to one man, its President Mohammed bin Zayed, often referred to by the acronym MBZ.
(December 16, 2023)
Israeli leaders believed that Hamas was more interested in governing than fighting. By the time the agents discovered the ledgers in 2018, the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was encouraging the government of Qatar to deliver millions of dollars to the Gaza Strip. He gambled that the money would buy stability and peace.
Mr. Levy recalled briefing Mr. Netanyahu personally in 2015 about the Hamas portfolio.
Production Date
07 Apr 2026
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02:51:06
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Original
The draft resolution prepared by Bahrain and supported by the United States received 11 votes in favor, two against and two abstentions.
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In 2011, NATO obtained the green light to intervene in Libya when Russia abstained from a vote. Moscow later fumed that this had led to the fall of Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.
#Damascus #USEmbassy #IranUSWar
Hundreds Protest in Damascus, Storm UAE Embassy & Raise Palestinian Flag | Breaking News
Syrian protesters gathered outside the UAE embassy in Damascus to express unwavering solidarity with Palestine, vehemently opposing the newly approved Israeli law permitting the death penalty for Palestinian prisoners alongside the ongoing closure of the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
A Reuters reporter saw dozens of protesters gathering outside the UAE‘s embassy in Damascus at midday on Friday, including some chanting „the Zionist embassy“.
According to a report by Reuters, the situation escalated when a group split from a larger pro-Palestinian protest at Umayyad Square and attempted to move towards the embassy. A Syrian security official said forces intervened to stop them.
“Internal security forces prevented them from doing so and dealt with the situation,“ the official said, speaking anonymously.
The actual vote on the resolution, which was drafted by Bahrain with the support of the Arab countries in the Persian Gulf, is expected to be scheduled for Friday. But it remained unclear whether extra hours of diplomacy would bring the three veto-holding countries on board.
Russia, China and France are among the five permanent members of the council with veto power. There were also divisions over the resolution among the 10 nonpermanent members, according to diplomats.
Arab nations, led by Bahrain, seeking UN Security Council authorisation for military intervention to reopen the Strait of Hormuz have faced a major setback as Russia, China and France vetoed the proposed resolution.
The strategic Strait of Hormuz—through which approximately 20 per cent of the world’s oil and gas supplies transit—was closed by Iran on 28 February 2026 amid escalating conflict with the United States and Israel.
The initial draft, seen by The National, explicitly cited Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, which grants the Security Council authority to impose measures ranging from sanctions to military action.
Who do you not know!
On Jun 8, 2018, at 17:39, jeffrey E.
you do know that kathy ruemmler is my close buddy
(February 16, 2026)
Epstein was keen to profit from armed conflicts on the African continent. While negotiating DP World’s access to Nigeria, he was also helping Zeitlin navigate around U.S. sanctions on Ivan Glasenberg, the Israeli-South African CEO of mining giant Glencore, and Oleg Deripaska, then-chairman of the Russian aluminum titan Rusal. Glencore’s operations had been disrupted by a fraud probe into their dealings with Israeli mining kingpin Dan Gertler in Congo-Kinshasa. “Do you know Oleg Deripaska or Ivan Glasenberg?” Zeitlin asked Epstein. “Easy,” Epstein replied.
The American financier had deep ties to Israeli mining and military outfits in Africa, which he helped support alongside former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak—a close associate with whom Epstein corresponded almost daily. “With civil unrest exploding in ukraine syria, somolia, libya, and the desperation of those in power,” Epstein wrote in a 2014 email to Barak, “isn’t this perfect for you.” Barak replied, “You’re right [in] a way. But not simple to transform it into a cash flow.”
(January 8, 2026)
Egypt’s quiet is easy to explain. Cairo receives roughly $1.3bn a year in US military financing. Its hardware, maintenance chain and spare parts depend on American gatekeepers. Public outrage is a cost it cannot afford.
The UAE sits in a different position, but it faces another version of the same risk. It is a financial hub built on access, compliance and credibility. In a world where Washington can turn political conflict into legal exposure, the safest posture is often silence.
Algeria was supposed to be the outlier: despite a diplomatic relationship dating back to its 1795 treaty with George Washington, it has long defined itself through deep ties with Moscow and a fierce anti-imperial vocabulary.
If any Arab state had the ideological space to speak about sovereignty as a principle, it was Algeria. It stayed quiet anyway. That is the lesson: the distance non-aligned regimes claim is thinner than it looks when your trade, energy and finance run through chokepoints Washington can pressure.
President Volodymyr Zelensky on Dec. 30 called out India, the United Arab Emirates, and other countries that condemned the so-called „Ukrainian assassination attempt on Vladimir Putin“ while largely turning a blind eye to Russian mass attacks on Ukrainian cities.
„It is confusing and unpleasant that some countries, like India, the UAE, and a few others, condemned what they claim were our drone strikes on Putin’s residence — which didn’t even happen,“ Zelensky said during an online press conference with Ukrainian journalists.
„Where is their condemnation of the fact that our children are being bombed and people are being killed all this time? I don’t hear India, frankly, nor the United Arab Emirates.“
Israeli and Emirati online networks have worked in tandem to shape narratives around Sudan and Gaza, targeting Sudan’s army even as RSF massacres mounted in El Fasher.
On the defence-industrial side, firms are expanding inside the UAE, tightening a two-way flow of money, tech, and intelligence. Israeli defence firm Controp is opening a UAE subsidiary making it the latest emblem of this deepening security embrace.
All the while, Emirati rulers boast of their „development model“ as a „shining example for the region“: authoritarian, anti-political, drenched in consumerism and spectacle.
It is a façade of progress built on repression. A mirage of modernity concealing a machinery of tyranny.
(October 30, 2025)
The United States condemns in the strongest terms the horrific violence occurring in El Fasher. The situation is both tragic and appalling.
We have said this before, and we will say it again – the Rapid Support Forces and allied militias have committed genocide.
The RSF has and continues to systematically kill men and boys – even infants – and deliberately target women and children for rape and other forms of brutal sexual violence. These crimes are ethnically motivated.
RSF militias are targeting civilians as they flee, killing innocent people escaping conflict, and preventing those who remain from accessing life-saving supplies.
The United States condemns these abhorrent atrocities in no uncertain terms. Those responsible should be held accountable, including through sanctions, as noted by the Sudan Sanctions Panel of Experts in its most recent report.
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Colleagues, ending wars is a priority for President Trump, and the United States remains committed to working with our partners and other stakeholders to resolve the crisis.
Together, we are focused on securing an immediate humanitarian truce, halting external support, and advancing a transition to civilian governance.
Speaking on Thursday at a conference organised by the Israeli daily Makor Rishon, Smotrich, who heads the far-right Religious Zionism party, said: „Sovereignty [over the occupied West Bank] is the real test. If Saudi Arabia tells us normalisation in exchange for a Palestinian state, then the answer, my friends, is no thank you – keep riding camels on the desert sands, and we will continue to develop economically and socially, and with all the great things we know how to do.“
“That will not happen,” Trump insisted. “I gave my word to the Arab countries. We can’t do this now. We have received strong support from the Arab world. If Israel were to proceed, it would lose all American support.”
Trump’s comments come amid ongoing U.S. efforts to stabilize a fragile ceasefire in Gaza, which has held for the past two weeks, and to advance a broader regional peace initiative involving several Arab states aligned with Washington.
Vice President JD Vance criticized on Thursday a vote by the Israeli parliament to advance a bill on the proposed annexation of the occupied West Bank, calling it „a very stupid political stunt.“
„I personally take some insult to it,“ Vance said at Israel‘s Ben Gurion airport as he departed the country after his visit. „The West Bank is not going to be annexed by Israel. The policy of the Trump administration is that the West Bank will not be annexed by Israel.
Ahead of his visit to Israel, Rubio stated that the Knesset’s initial vote to extend Israeli sovereignty over Judea and Samaria risks undermining President Trump’s regional stabilization plan. He warned that such a move could prove “counterproductive” to ongoing peace initiatives and noted that several non–Middle Eastern nations are prepared to deploy troops to help secure Gaza.
Anwar Gargash, the diplomatic adviser to the UAE president, has addressed the situation in Gaza during in an interview at the Reuters NEXT Gulf Summit in Abu Dhabi.
He said much work remains to ensure…
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office publishes photos of the premier alongside US President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner, as they participate in the full cabinet meeting where ministers are due to vote on the first phase of Trump’s plan to end the war in Gaza.
According to the statement issued by Qatar, Trump promised that „aggression against the State of Qatar would not be repeated“ and reaffirmed the US commitment to the two countries‘ defense partnership.
„During the call, the Israeli Prime Minister apologized for the attack on Doha and on Qatar‘s soviergnty, which resulted in the martyrdom of Qatari citizen Badr Al-Dosari, pledging to not repeat any targeting of Qatari territory in the future,“ the statement added.