Yemen’s Houthi Rebels Trumpet Drone Strike on Abu Dhabi Oil Facility

Long-range attack comes after Iran-backed group loses ground in long-running civil war

Three people died and six others were wounded when three fuel tank trucks exploded in an industrial area near Abu Dhabi International Airport on Monday. Yemen’s Houthi rebel group said it was responsible for the attack and would reveal more details later.

The Saudi-led Arab Coalition to Support Legitimacy in Yemen military alliance, of which the United Arab Emirates is a member, confirmed that coalition forces detected “large-scale hostile activity using booby-trapped drones, and that they were launched from Sanaa Airport” in the Houthi-controlled capital of Yemen, more than 900 miles away.

Abu Dhabi Police said in a statement carried by the official Emirates News Agency (WAM) that the dead were foreign nationals – two Indians and a Pakistani, while the condition of the six persons injured ranged from good to medium. The police said it had “opened an intensive investigation into the cause of the fire and the circumstances surrounding it.”

On Monday evening the Arab coalition retaliated, announcing airstrikes on the Houthi-controlled capital of Sanaa, and said it was targeting “terrorist leaders” north of the Yemeni capital, according to reports. The coalition also announced that “F-15 attack planes destroyed two ballistic missile launchers that were used on Monday.”  It stated that “the perpetrators of hostile attacks on civilians in Saudi Arabia and the UAE will be held accountable.”

The attack on the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) storage facility in Abu Dhabi’s Mussafah area is believed to be the second targeting the UAE or its interests by the Ansar Allah al-Houthi group in less than a month, and the fifth attack against the UAE since the Arab coalition intervened in Yemen’s civil war in 2015.

The Houthi attack today is the beginning of the end, because the escalation is not in the interest of the Houthis at the international or even the local level

The Houthis have been holding an Emirati-flagged cargo ship, the Rwabee, in the port of Hodeida since January 3, after seizing it in the Red Sea. The rebels say it was transporting weapons to support anti-Houthi groups, such as the Southern Yemeni Transitional Council and the internationally recognized government forces, while the UAE says it was carrying medical supplies.

In May 2019, the Houthis’ Al Masirah television channel published a video it said showed a booby-trapped drone that exploded in a supply transport vehicle inside a facility at Abu Dhabi International Airport in July 2018.

Houthi targets on a daily basis the southern and central regions of Saudi Arabia, near the Yemeni border, with drones bearing explosives. And every day the Saudi-led Arab coalition announces the number of drone attacks and how many it intercepted.

The Abu Dhabi drone attack comes a week after the coalition said it had driven the Houthis out of the oil-rich Shabwa Governorate and much of the Marib Governorate after more than seven years.

This attack also comes after a major escalation by the Arab coalition, which killed at least 5,000 Houthis during the past month, and destroyed dozens of military vehicles and warehouses, according to the daily statistics released by the coalition.

The Gulf states and several additional Arab countries issued statements condemning the attack on the UAE, calling on the Houthi group to abide by United Nations Security Council resolutions and stop targeting civilians.

Ahmed al-Enezi, a Saudi military expert, told The Media Line, “The launch of drones reaching Abu Dhabi from Yemen must be investigated in depth.”

“If these drones penetrated Saudi airspace, this means that they passed the defenses of two countries, namely Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and then the distance is approximately 1,500 kilometers [930 miles] between Sanaa Airport and Abu Dhabi,” he said. “The Houthis cannot launch drones that travel for a distance of 3,000 kilometers if we assume that they crossed using the sea,” which is what would be required to hit Abu Dhabi if the drones bypassed Saudi Arabia and passed over the Arabian Sea.

“The Houthis use Samad-3 drones, which are Iranian-made − and there is compelling evidence that they are Iranian − and they do not fly long distances although they are advanced compared to previous versions,” Enezi explained.

Bahraini political expert Rashid Al-Khalidi told The Media Line: “The Houthi attack today is the beginning of the end, because the escalation is not in the interest of the Houthis at the international or even the local level.”

The Houthi movement “is now suffering from the escalation of attacks by the Arab coalition, and the targeting of many of its facilities, and therefore it is now seeking to obtain the largest gains and push the coalition countries such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE toward negotiations,” he said.

“The UAE supports the Giants Brigade [a Yemeni militia], which contributed to the liberation of the Yemeni city of Marib, and now it has launched an operation to liberate Shabwa Governorate and, in the event of Shabwa’s loss, only limited areas of Yemen will remain” under Houthi control, Khalidi added.

“Now, because of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the Yemeni position has become unified, and everyone is in agreement to end the presence of the Iran-backed Houthis, and therefore the Houthis are seeking revenge against Saudi Arabia and the UAE in particular,” he said.

Muhammad al-Bakhiti, a military spokesman for the Houthis, in an interview with Qatar’s Al Jazeera channel, which is the only media outlet that the Houthis deal with, said Monday’s attack is not the last.

“We are seeking to discipline the UAE. There are agreements that have been made with the southerners [the Southern Transitional Council] to make some progress on the ground, and we are now giving them a chance to get out,” he said.

The Southern Transitional Council seeks the separation of southern Yemen from the rest of the country, as was the case until 1990.

Bakhiti continued: “We will not announce more about this attack now. We will hold a press conference to announce more details later, and we will carry out more strikes inside Saudi Arabia and the UAE.”