Three people – a Pakistani and two Indians – were killed in a series of explosions in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, on Monday (January 17). Three tank trucks exploded “near ADNOC storage tanks [la compagnie pétrolière d’Abou Dhabi] », announced the official Emirati agency WAM, reporting “six injured”.
Houthi rebels claimed responsibility for the attack: “The armed forces carried out a qualitative and successful military operation in the framework of an operation dubbed ‘Yemen’s Hurricane'”, said their spokesperson Yahya Saree in a statement broadcast on their Al-Massira channel. “Number of important and sensitive Emirati sites and facilities” were targeted with ballistic missiles and drones, he said.
Additionally, a “minor fire” happened in “the new construction area of Abu Dhabi International Airport”, added the agency without mentioning a victim. The explosion and the fire ” probably “ been caused by « drone », from “flying objects” being ” fallen down “ at the two places affected, said WAM, citing the Abu Dhabi police who have launched an investigation.
The Emirates are members of a military coalition under Saudi command, which has intervened since 2015 in Yemen to support government forces at war against Houthi rebels backed by Iran. In the evening, the coalition announced an airstrike on Sanaa, the Yemeni capital controlled by the Houthis. “In response to the threat and a military necessity, airstrikes begin in Sanaa”, she announced in a tweet from SPA, the official news agency of Saudi Arabia, which leads this coalition.
Threat of a response from the Emirates
The UAE Foreign Ministry has threatened the Houthis with reprisals. “This thoughtlessness and irresponsible absurdity are doomed to annihilation”, warned on Twitter Anwar Gargash, the diplomatic adviser to the President of the Emirates, Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
Allies of the Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain have implicated the Yemeni rebels by denouncing an act “terrorist”. Iraq also condemned the attack, as did UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres. “There is no military solution to the conflict in Yemen”, believes Antonio Guterres, urging “the parties to engage constructively and without preconditions” with his emissary “with the aim of advancing the political process to reach a comprehensive negotiated settlement to end the conflict in Yemen”, said the spokesperson.
France condemned the attacks launched by the Yemeni rebels. “The President strongly condemns the attacks on Abu Dhabi today and supports the United Arab Emirates”, declared the French presidency, specifying that France remained “mobilized in favor of a lasting political solution in Yemen”.
“The United States strongly condemns today’s terrorist attack in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, which killed three innocent civilians”, said White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan.
Intensification of the conflict
The conflict in Yemen which has killed 377,000 people has intensified in recent weeks with an increase in raids by the military coalition and ground offensives by government forces. For their part, the rebels have multiplied attacks by means of missiles and drones against Saudi Arabia, a neighboring country of Yemen.
The Riyadh-led coalition on Monday reported an increase in the number of “Drone bombs launched by Houthis from Sanaa International Airport”. She also claimed to have “intercepted and destroyed eight drones launched in the direction of the kingdom” Saudi. Since taking over the capital Sanaa in 2014, the rebels have managed to seize large swaths of Yemeni territory, particularly in the north.
On January 3, the Houthis seized the boat Rwabee flying the flag of the Emirates, off the Yemeni port of Hodeïda, claiming that it was carrying military equipment. The coalition assured that the boat was transporting equipment for a Yemeni hospital and denounced an act of “piracy”.
Iran, which has difficult relations with the Emirates, openly supports the rebels while denying supplying them with weapons, which its political opponents, Saudi Arabia and the United States, accuse.