Egypt is most likely going to play role.
Relations are warming up between SL, UAE and Egypt. It is also possible King Salman more open minded than his predecessor.
SL foreign minister visited Egypt recently and he was welcomed by his counterpart.
After that he past Ethiopia where his Ethiopian counterpart met with him. I believe he went there to discuss trade, security and to ensure the Arab movement was no threat to Addis or Addis-Hargeisa relations. Ethiopia already endorsed the Arab coalition plan when PM Desalegn paid a visit to KSA in December 2015 along with chief of the army, Gen. Samora Yenus and the head of the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS), Getachew Assefa.
According to local media Arab military personnel visited Berbera to access the airport.
They added they were satisfied but they are interested in an area about 15km outside Berbera to construct a military base including new port for naval access. It is said equipment has already arrived.
UAE is already building bases in Eritrea. The projects were originally designed for Djibouti but relations collapsed between UAE and Djibouti so UAE decided to encircle Djibouti.
Full article: https://martinplaut.wordpress.com/2016/ ... -uae-base/In the Red Sea: Djibouti’s loss, Eritrea’s gain
Next the Emirates turned towards the Horn of Africa and Indian Ocean. This process was driven by their strident intervention in Yemen, which began when Yemeni President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi was ousted from Aden by Houthi rebels and subsequently requested military intervention citing Article 51 (self-defense) of the Charter of the United Nations and also the Charter of the Arab League. On March 26, Saudi Arabia announced the beginning of Operation Decisive Storm, the pan-Arab military operation to halt the advance of Yemen’s Houthi militia.
Saudi Arabia and the Emirates initially sought to use Djibouti, just across the Gulf of Aden, to support the liberation of Aden, but a twist of fate intervened. In late April 2015, an altercation between the chief of the Djibouti Air Force and Emirati diplomats derailed relations between the two countries. There were actually fisticuffs after an Emirati aircraft taking part in the Gulf Coalition operations over Yemen landed without authorization at Djibouti-Ambouli International Airport. Emirati Vice Consul Ali al-Shihi even took a punch, setting off a diplomatic spat. The dispute escalated quickly due to pre-existing tensions concerning a long-running legal dispute over the contract for the Doraleh Container Terminal, the largest container port in Africa, operated by Dubai Ports World, the Dubai-based Emirati port operator and one of the biggest U.A.E. soft-power assets. On May 4, 2015 the United Arab Emirates and Djibouti formally broke off diplomatic relations. Djibouti evicted Saudi and Emirati troops from a facility at Haramous adjacent to Camp Lemonnier. This former French Foreign Legion outpost (used by U.S. Africa Command and Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa) also had been leased to the Gulf coalition in early April to support its operations in Yemen.
But Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates had an on-hand replacement: neighboring Eritrea, Djibouti’s regional rival, which boasts rudimentary ports on the Red Sea just 150 kilometers further north. On April 29, the very day that Djibouti evicted Gulf troops, Eritrean President Isaias Afewerki met with Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdel Aziz and concluded a security and military partnership agreement with the Gulf states offering basing rights in Eritrea. High-level delegations from the Gulf Cooperation Council had already met Eritrean officials that year to discuss using Eritrea as potential base for operations. This insurance policy paid dividends: potentially crippling strategic risk in the anti-Houthi campaign – the loss of Djibouti – was overcome with ease and within days.
Build-up at Assab
As part of the partnership agreement, the United Arab Emirates concluded a 30-year lease agreement for military use of the mothballed deep-water port at Assab and the nearby hard-surface Assab airfield, with a 3,500-meter runway capable of landing large transport aircraft including the huge C-17 Globemaster transports flown by the Emirati air force. The Gulf states agreed to provide a financial aid package and undertook to modernize Asmara International Airport, build new infrastructure, and increase fuel supplies to Eritrea.
The early operations at Assab were hasty but effective. On April 13, a CH-47 Chinook carried an eight-man team of Emirati Presidential Guard special operators and Joint Terminal Attack Controllers (JTACs) into the Little Aden peninsula, the site of Aden’s refinery and oil storage tanks. These forces called in airstrikes and naval gunfire missions, enabling forces loyal to President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi and local Aden popular resistance committees to hang onto two defensive pockets with their backs to the sea. Emirati landing ships dropped Saudi and Emirati security forces and U.A.E.-trained local militias mounted into the defensive pockets in May.
If true, is it good or bad news for SL?
Discuss.
