UAE military base is real

[AwRastaale]

Shephard
Tuesday, December 20, 2016
By Awad Mustafa


The United Arab Emirates has signed an agreement to establish a second foreign military base in the Horn of Africa.

The new base, according to the source present at the negotiations, will be established at the coastal city of Berbera in Somaliland and will be an air and naval base. According to the government source the MoU was signed in the last week of September when a senior Somaliland delegation was in the UAE.

The self governing semi-autonomous Somaliland and the UAE enjoyed close political, economic and military ties since 2012.

The cooperation between the two countries intensified after the UAE's involvement in the Yemen operations where the region's strategic location south of the Bab al Mandeb strait proved crucial to their projection capabilities.

An area of 40km sq compromising of Berbera airport and sea front have been provided to the UAE for a period of 25 years and is renewable, the source added.

The base has been provided in exchange for security training, support and protection to the autonomous region, the source added, providing a much needed security blanket to Somaliland which borders Somalia to the south.

Just five kilometres away from the base UAE ports giant, Dubai Ports World, has signed earlier this year a $442 million deal to develop Berbera port. The 30 year deal will see the commercial port expanded and doubled in size next to a large free zone and other infrastructure projects to provide a new gate way to Ethiopia, Africa's fastest growing economy.

According to Alexander Mello, security analyst at New York based Horizon Client Access the UAE's plan to operate their Eritrean Assab base simultaneously with the Berbera base is quite plausible.

'Assab is still a pretty austere base, the work the UAE is doing there - especially the the expansion of the hangars and apron and building a new docking facility for UAE vessels 10km north of of current Assab port - is consistent with a long-term UAE presence,' Mello said.

The UAE has been putting up aircraft shelters and deployed half a squadron of Mirage 2000 fighters to the base in September, Mello added, which again is consistent with a long-term presence.

'They might be speeding up development of Berbera now to have a base out of Houthi missile range. It’s possible Assab will be focused more on supporting ops in Yemen and Berbera will be primarily used for conducting naval and air ops in the Bab al-Mandeb and Gulf of Aden with the U.S. and Egypt,' he said.

Shehab al Makahaleh, political analyst at consultancy group Geostrategic Media, said that despite the UAE previously adopting a cautious foreign policy the recent financial chaos, the Arab Spring and Islamic militancy has forced the UAE to safeguard their national security by securing major sea ports in Africa.

'The UAE is increasingly focused on projecting military power, the unrest has prompted the UAE to have its own base in the Eritrean port of Assab. In 2015, this simple port was built up from empty desert into a modern airbase, deep-water port, and military training facility,' he said.

Al Makahleh said that 'the rapid militarization' in the Horn of Africa by Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Turkey, Iran, China, Russia, the UK, France - and the American presence on the west coast - under the aim to preserve the security and stability of the region has turned out to be a competition for its resources.

I don't think things are all well between Saudia, UAE and Egypt.

I reckon UAE and Egypt have similar vision and interests but KSA must be developing indifference.

Originally KSA, Egypt and UAE were all to dock at Berbera but KSA has since left the group and instead signed a deal with Djibouti. Djibouti was originally UAE idea but when things went sour, UAE went south to Berbera and Assab in Eritrea.

We know also KSA blocked SL livestock but UAE hasn't.

We know Egypt is preparing major economic agreements between Cairo and Hargeisa.

Currently they searching for a land in Hargeisa to build a trade office, huge facility to be used to exhibit Egyptian products such as medicine, agriculture and other goods.

There was a video by the Egyptian television but all I can find now is this one.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_ ... 1505410537

The Egyptians will establish technical institutions as well as commercial banks to ease the transfer of funds between the two countries.

[Museyusuf]

UAE and Egypt both have their own agenda when it comes to Somaliland. UAE is at war with the Iranian backed hauthi as well as dacish.
On the other hand Egypt is in a political war with Ethiopia. Ethiopia wants to build more dams along the blue nile, where 85% of the river nile gets its water from.
The Egyptian are scared that the amount of water flowing through the river Nile would be reduced. The majority of the Egyptian population live on the Nile delta or in and around the river. The Nile is not only the source of water for 85 million Egyptian but it also has a lot of farms that hugely depend on the river.
This is the lifeline of the Egyptian Economy.

Saudi Arabia on the other hand was supposed to be part of the coalition. I don't know what happened to them there are tensions between Saudi and Egypt as we speak. That much was evident in October, when Iran’s foreign minister, Javad Zarif, lobbied to have Egypt join international talks over Syria in order to bolster the pro-Assad contingent. Days later Egypt voted for a UN Security Council resolution on the war offered by Russia, which also backs Mr Assad. The measure, criticised for failing to address Russian airstrikes in support of the dictator, did not pass. But Saudi Arabia’s envoy to the UN described Egypt’s vote as “painful”.

Saudi Arabia got upset at the fact that Egypt a majority Sunni country was backing Syria with a Shia leader backed by Iran a Shia stronghold and Saudi Arabia's number 1 enemy.

So the Saudi choose not to back the Egypt UAE alliance in East Africa. In fact they went completely the other way choose to have their military base in Djibouti (Ethiopia ally). And sided with the Ethiopia to punish Egypt who Saudi Arabia had been pouring in $25 billion since 2013. Saudi Arabia also stopped the supply of cheap oil to Egypt. Then they even went further to visit the Dam in Ethiopia. This really angered the Egyptian. So the two Arabian superpowers are not in good terms.

http://www.economist.com/news/middle-ea ... rab-worlds

[Futurist]

Same old gossip as usual. I will believe it when it realises.

Its a good idea in principle but it has to be managed carefullly. Safeguards need to be put into place to keep Arabs far away from Somali women and children, and to keep Ethiopian prostitutes out of Berbera.

UAE need to pay at least $100m a year as a lease for the land, mooring and airspace use rights. There is no such thing as a free lunch.

If this is true, then this is actually a re-pivot from Djibouti to SL, driven by the USA, after Djibouti allowed the Chinese base. Interesting.

[MarsinQorahay]

So what your saying is that Egypt will set foot in the neighbouring country of ethiopia through UAE? Muse.

That means somaliland sided with Egypt on this nile war between the masaari and abbasinya.

[Museyusuf]

So what your saying is that Egypt will set foot in the neighbouring country of ethiopia through UAE? Muse.

That means somaliland sided with Egypt on this nile war between the masaari and abbasinya.

The Egyptian have not created any bases in SL and I don't think SL would choose Egypt over Ethiopia. What I am saying is the UAE is creating a military base there who are close allies with Egypt.

Somaliland is not getting itself involved in the Nile war. Egypt would first go to Eritrea

https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/news/ ... ddis-ababa

[theyuusuf143]

Somaliland won't side with Egypt against Ethiopia, Egyptians have nothing to offer so far so why would we take a risk without benefits . UAE is the boss they can get everything, Somali proverb says " haduu xaarku lacag lahaan lahaa, xaaji jiljileecaw baa loogu yeedhi lahaa" you know what mean, kkkk I don't want to offend the Dear Arabs.

[Xildiiid]

If the dirty Arabs establish a base in SL it's a declaration of war and we should fight these rats to the last man.

[smooth]

Pawns don't get to choose anything here, they are moved on the chess board to the mercy of the masters and various different players, and the master is UAE and the players are here axis of America-Eritrea-Egypt.

The only influence is to cosy up to one of those fractions to determine a favourable move but this requires a good leader, Ethiopia relations are already dead the moment you stepped in bed with UAE, she is already destabilising S/land through election interference's, the same way UAE is doing with Ethiopia

The writings are on the wall, you better hope they don't hang you out to dry, because this deal may not be a bad thing at all if managed well, you won't get much development if any at all, but you will have leverage, along with angering your Neighbourd and walaalo whom UAE has by the balls anyway.

There is talk of Djibouti asking the American's to leave their base because of their interference in internal affairs, Djibouti refused UAE base for similar reason especially their activities in Koonfur and being Anti Turkey whom are building the largest mosque there.

The biggest problem for S/land is UAE policy in the south to get P/land leader in charge, this goes against the interest of S/land hugely, it was Gaas whom designated Sool/Sanaag which S/land mostly controls on the ground as disputed. This leads me to believe that the UAE is more pro P/land then she is S/land, she openly transfers weapons to them, haven't seen this happen in S/land and the moment she is more strategic to counter Turks then you guys are.

How the UAE juggles this will be interesting because they are not known for their wit, I believe if they get their man in Koonfur, they will just ignore Somaliland all together once the Turks are sent packing.

It looks like the nationalist Garaxajis pushed to the corner so bad in S/land have met CC in Kenya and their is talks they will back Darood candidate in Xamar, this is turning very ugly, it's worrying times for the entire Somali peninsula.

[mahoka]

^ hawiye ladies and gents

Have you notice this push to get Somaliland to fight puntland for them? In the last few years it has been very intense.


I love the "worrying times for the Somali peninsula " at the end

[smooth]

^ hawiye ladies and gents

Have you notice this push to get Somaliland to fight puntland for them? In the last few years it has been very intense.

I love the "worrying times for the Somali peninsula " at the end

Your problem is that your 10 steps behind while everyone else has moved on at a fast pace.

So fast have things moved, we are temporarily on the same side in this battle field.

The Garaxajis I always had a soft spot for, are in Kenya looking to vote for CC in South Somalia to spark a civil war as per UAE plan.

It looks like they are also trying to kick off the same in Somaliland too with their Rhetoric.

This has put both of us temporarily on the same side in this battle, but you just don't realise it yet.

All the other DIR coalition block is voting for HSM currently except Garaxajis, if you think HSM is bad for S/land wait until you get CC.

P/land and Garajaxis and large blocks of the Darood is being used by the UAE to instigate civil war in Somalia that will also find it's way to Somaliland, can't you see this?

[Xildiiid]

Smooth,

Somalilands internal affairs is none of your business. Secondly afkaaga xeji, yaan mar dambe lagaa maqlin Isaaq, Garxajis iyo wax aanad aqoon u lahayn.

The propaganda spread by the fat neef xalweyste is false and if I was you I would focus on the AMISOM colony. Iyadaa kuu baahan.

[Sahibzada]

Our Berbera will become a great city inshallah and this is only the first step.The revenue from this base will help fill our governments coffers

[smooth]

Smooth,

Somalilands internal affairs is none of your business. Secondly afkaaga xeji, yaan mar dambe lagaa maqlin Isaaq, Garxajis iyo wax aanad aqoon u lahayn.

The propaganda spread by the fat neef xalweyste is false and if I was you I would focus on the AMISOM colony. Iyadaa kuu baahan.

I have been to Somaliland more then 6 times in my life time, probably more then you, I also have more invested in there then you and family living there.

I know your upset by comments on Garaxajis but I am talking about realities here, they are in Kenya, and they are the only DIR block that have met CC and looking to vote for him, therefore effectively becoming my enemy, if your against this, that's fine and I will leave, but if you argue for it, I will nail that hammer right on top of your head.

Every move CC makes I am pretty much aware and the people that he meets, and he met Cirro, Biixi (HY) and Buuba, why do you think he met them sxb? and why are you so upset I am pointing this out? at least I respect Xplayer infidel because to him he hates anything that mixes with 'wanlaweyn', will you distance yourself from this? if not, stop complaining, you an enemy to the Somali people, with your sour grapes siding with our enemy on Koonfur, how dare you complain.

[Xildiiid]

Not a single word that you wrote makes sense.

A Somali "news outlet" owned by Walaweyns wrote that Wadani met with the fat Xalweyste in Nairobi without providing evidence. Logically it doesn't make sense, what can Xalweyste provide for Wadani? The answer is nothing..

When it comes to the elections that's just some bogus shit. How can politicians in Somaliland who are not registered in Somalia vote for anyone?

Are you telling me that Cirro controls certain sections of Dhirta Waqooyi? If that's what you're implying then it's absolutely rubbish because they sell their votes to the highest bidder.

Or are you telling me that Cirro can persuade them to abandon a nice paycheck for a future alliance between him and Cumar Cabirashiid on behalf of the UAE?

It's ludicrous.

The Arabs have their agenda and so does the US but Hawiye should stop this blame game.

Hawiye sidelined and alienated the vast majority of non Darood clans in Somalia by subduing them by force and occupying their homes/regions, instead of providing protection and security that would guarantee political partnership and everlasting friendship in the future.

Hawiye failed to secure their city Mogadishu and their regions. Hawiye also failed to participate in the federal process because of disunity.

Don't blame others for your own mistakes. Garxajis and the rest of Isaaq couldn't care less about Somalia. We have our own seperate issues to deal with such as the current drought.

[Sahibzada]

Smooth continue exposing these Gx folks and their political maneuvers in walaweynistan