Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei says the United States and the Israeli regime have a history of manufacturing false-flag incidents only to clean up their messes around the world.
In a Wednesday post on his X account, the Iranian official said such scenarios would not save them from the quagmire of the aggression against Iran.
Baghaei said telling lies about Iran and accusing it of having a role in security incidents would fail to justify the US-Israeli aggression against the Islamic Republic.
“In a world where the American and international public is weary of an unlawful war of aggression against Iran, and where the aggressors have no honest way to justify a war of choice, even a raft made of lies can look like salvation to those who are drowning,” he said in the post.
The post also included a video elucidating previous US and Israeli false-flag operations, including massive US media campaigns denoting the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, which led to the invasion of the country in 2003, and Israel’s involvement in a case in Egypt in 1954, known as the Lavon Affair.
“False flags are an old craft: manufacture the incident, assign the blame, and harvest the consequences,” said Baghaei.
The post came after officials in the US and allied countries suggested that Iran may have had a role in recent security incidents, including on a Flydubai flight from the United Arab Emirates to the Israeli-occupied territories and in a suspected plot against an American base in Britain.
Iran has roundly rejected the accusations, calling them a pretext for launching renewed aggression against the country, months after the US and the Israeli regime were forced to end a previous offensive under a ceasefire reached in mid-April.
Gulf oil exporters topped pre-war levels for about half of September, shipping data showed on Monday, though attacks on tankers and logistical constraints cloud the outlook for sustained higher flows.
The Flydubai plane incident appears to have been part of a scenario concocted by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
Its aim, observer say, is to divert attention from the growing scandal over Netanyahu’s handling of the October 7 Hamas operation, shore up his position ahead of Israel’s October 27 election and create a pretext for a new confrontation with Iran.
The scenario unfolded days after Netanyahu’s reported secret visit to Abu Dhabi, where he met bin Zayed amid mounting political pressure over allegations that the UAE leader had warned him in advance of an impending Hamas operation.
According to the account, the purpose of the arrangement was to manufacture a dramatic security incident involving an Israeli-heavy Flydubai flight, portray it as a terrorist attack, introduce an Iranian connection into the narrative and use the resulting alarm to reinforce Netanyahu’s security credentials and build support for renewed military action against Tehran.
The Flydubai Boeing 737, carrying 174 passengers, most of them Israeli settlers, made an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday following what was described as a violent confrontation between the pilot and co-pilot in the cockpit.
Netanyahu and his war minister, Israel Katz, immediately characterized the incident as a “terrorist” attack. Netanyahu subsequently compared it to the September 11 attacks, claimed the Omani co-pilot had undergone “radical indoctrination” and suggested that Iran could have been involved.
Yet no public evidence has established an ideologically-motivated attack or an Iranian connection.
Indeed, early Israeli media reports offered entirely different explanations, including a personal dispute or an attempted suicide by the co-pilot. Israel’s Channel 12 reported on Thursday that the Saudi investigation had found no indication of terrorism at that stage.
The timing, however, gave the episode a clear political value for Netanyahu.
Israeli media have reported that Netanyahu is under pressure ahead of the October 27 election, while the controversy surrounding the October 7 Hamas operation continues to raise questions about his regime’s warnings and preparedness.
Haaretz reported on September 9 that bin Zayed had spoken to Netanyahu roughly 10 days before the October 7 operation and warned him of a threat from then-Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who was reportedly preparing a “huge surprise.”
Bin Zayed had also previously alerted Israel’s Shin Bet intelligence agency, according to the report.
Netanyahu’s reported secret visit to Abu Dhabi therefore assumed particular significance. Israeli media reports said the purpose of the visit was to ask bin Zayed to deny reports that he had warned Netanyahu about the looming Hamas threat.
Against this backdrop, the alleged Flydubai scenario provided Netanyahu with an opportunity to shift the political narrative from questions over the October 7 failures to a new story about “terrorism”, Iranian threats and the need for renewed confrontation.
Netanyahu repeatedly raised the possibility of an Iranian connection despite acknowledging that Israel had received no specific intelligence warning about the flight and that investigators had found no evidence linking Tehran to the incident.
He told CNN that he had spoken with US President Donald Trump about the incident and its wider implications for global aviation. Trump separately confirmed that the two had discussed the matter at length.
The objective, according to the account, was not simply to generate domestic political headlines. By bringing Iran into the story, Netanyahu could potentially create a new security crisis capable of drawing Washington into another confrontation with Tehran.
Analysts have nevertheless warned against making such a connection.
Dani Citrinowicz, an Iran affairs researcher at Israel’s so-called Institute for Security Studies, warned against linking the incident to Iran.
According to Maariv, he said there was a difference between preparing for possible scenarios and creating the impression that another war was imminent.
He warned that if Tehran concluded Israel was preparing an attack, it could take pre-emptive action, which Israel might then interpret as confirmation of its original assessment, producing a cycle of escalation.
Citrinowicz described the situation as “playing with fire” and warned that statements by Israeli officials could become a “self-fulfilling prophecy.”
Other analysts have reportedly described the attempt to connect the incident to Iran as sounding like “a Hollywood screenplay.”
Flydubai itself has urged against premature speculation until the investigation is completed and suspended flights between Dubai and Tel Aviv while the investigation continued.
The Netanyahu-bin Zayed arrangement therefore presents the incident not as an isolated aviation crisis, but as a politically constructed scenario with three interconnected objectives: diverting attention from the October 7 scandal, strengthening Netanyahu’s position ahead of the election and creating a new pretext for confrontation with Iran.
Netanyahu has said Israel will determine within days whether the co-pilot had links to Iran, adding, “We will get to the bottom of it.”
The central question surrounding the episode, therefore, is not what happened inside the cockpit, but the deliberate construction of a security narrative around the flight designed in advance to transform an unexplained aviation incident into a potential pretext for a new war with Iran.
Persian Gulf oil producers are shifting critical cargo transfer operations even farther out of the war-hit region as waters just outside the Strait of Hormuz become congested with tankers.
Crude oil flows from the Middle East are returning toward pre-war levels despite continued risks to shipping, according to separate estimates from JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
The persistence of current geopolitical alignments, the attention of Eastern actors to the region, the strengthening of Sanaa’s position in the Red Sea, and the expansion of regional opposition to the UAE’s role will diminish Abu Dhabi’s role in the region.
For the past ten years, the Southern Red Sea has been a pivotal factor in the UAE’s foreign policy. Over the past decade, the UAE has built a layered maritime, air, and commercial infrastructure network, including military bases, in the Red Sea or near Yemen, Somaliland, Somalia and Sudan, starting from 2015.
According to some estimates, the value of UAE investments along Africa’s coastal regions and the Arabian Peninsula amounts to $60 billion.
In September 2015, the UAE established its first military base in Africa, in Eritrea. These bases possessed strategic advantages: the ‘protection of interests’ and control over the security and economic architecture of international maritime routes.
With the signing of the Abraham Accords in 2020, cooperation between Tel Aviv and Abu Dhabi in the Red Sea intensified.
The UAE’s approach—channeled through companies such as DP World and Abu Dhabi Ports—is centered on controlling ports, strategic waterways, military bases, and key trade and energy routes in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, in coordination with the United States and its allies. Abu Dhabi’s approach also included engagement with non-state armed actors and separatist movements in Yemen, Sudan, and Somalia.
Factors Behind the UAE’s Diminishing Role
Over the past decade, the UAE emerged as a party to the conflicts in the southern Red Sea. However, geopolitical developments over the past year signal a gradual decline in the UAE’s role in the southern Red Sea.
Several factors are also significant, stemming from US and Israeli military strikes against Iran, the war between Sanaa and Saudi Arabia, Saudi-Emirati rivalry in the region, and disputes among African states.
Sudan’s value lies in its geopolitics. With 853 kilometres of coastline and several key ports, Sudan constitutes a vital link in the Red Sea.
The Sudan war since April 2023 has created conditions for the expansion of the UAE’s role. The UAE faces accusations of providing training and logistical support to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Human rights and political demands against the UAE has increased.
The UAE also maintains bases inside Sudanese territory. However, the ongoing war in Sudan and the support of allies for the Sudanese government have led to increased pressure on the UAE.
Riyadh regards the Red Sea as part of its strategic interests and its exclusive backyard. Abu Dhabi and Riyadh each view the other as a direct threat to their position and interests in parts of the southern Red Sea. Thus, the reduction of the UAE’s footprint in the southern Red Sea constitutes a strategic gain for Riyadh. Riyadh has effectively sought to weaken Abu Dhabi’s role.
In late 2025, Saudi Arabia’s support for Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council (PLC) resulted in pressure being brought to bear on UAE-backed forces.
In July 2026, Saudi Arabia hosted talks among 14 countries—including Egypt, Djibouti, Sudan, and Somalia—which established a multinational maritime defence alliance. The UAE and Ethiopia were excluded from the list.
The formation of a Riyadh-led Red Sea maritime task force—with the participation of Turkey, Egypt, Djibouti, Somalia, and Eritrea—without coordination with the UAE amounts to a further constriction of the UAE’s role in the region.
Despite ongoing Egyptian–Emirati consultations on guaranteeing maritime navigation security in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab, Egypt’s foreign policy is not aligned with the UAE’s interests in Sudan and the Red Sea. Additionally, the alignment and coordination among Israel, India, the UAE, and Ethiopia are not particularly consonant with Egypt’s interests in Ethiopia and the Red Sea.
Until last September, the UAE played a significant role in the southern Yemeni islands of the Red Sea and in southwestern Yemen. However, Sanaa’s advance in the eastern Red Sea—the port of Mokha, Mayun Island, and other archipelagos north of the Bab al-Mandab Strait—in September 2026 inflicted negative and fundamental consequences on the UAE’s regional role.
Sanaa’s advance amounts to the nullification of the presence of Emirati actors in Yemen’s future political sphere. Sanaa is seeking to consolidate itself as a strategic “node” within the Iran-led Axis of Resistance.
Despite Cairo’s opposition to Sanaa’s proposal for maritime navigation coordination in the Red Sea, Sanaa—having secured control over the most important islands and cities overlooking the Bab al-Mandab Strait on the Yemeni side—is calling for the formulation of new rules to ensure security and navigation in the region. Ansar Allah’s control over Bab al-Mandab could put the UAE under pressure. Any expansion of Sanaa’s role in Sudan could likewise prove detrimental to the UAE.
Amid tensions between the United States and Iran, Abu Dhabi finds itself facing a more constrained strategic space.
The UAE’s alignment with the United States is, in a sense, also an intensification of Abu Dhabi’s tensions with Iran in areas such as the Red Sea. Unlike the UAE, Iran is seeking better relations with the Sudanese government. Many in Iran believe that Israel and the UAE are devising an economic and geopolitical plan to control the vital routes of the Red Sea and Yemen’s ports.
With Israel’s formal recognition of Somaliland in December 2025, many in the countries of the southern Red Sea have linked it to the UAE.
After years, Eritrea revoked the UAE’s access to its military infrastructure. Eritrean officials have recently made sharp statements about the UAE and Israel—particularly regarding Tel Aviv’s recognition of Somaliland.
Eritrea is providing frontline support to the Sudanese Armed Forces. Any deeper alliance between Eritrea and Sudan, Iran, Russia, China, and Sanaa could diminish the UAE’s regional role in the Red Sea. Additionally, some countries and actors near the Red Sea also hold a negative view of the UAE’s regional role.
The Somali government’s decision in January 2026 to sever relations with the UAE is, in a sense, a counter to the UAE’s role in the Somaliland and Puntland regions. Somalia has revoked all agreements with the UAE, including cooperation as well as security and defence arrangements. This move has negative implications for the UAE’s role in the southern Red Sea.
Moreover, the southern Red Sea plays a pivotal role in the regional strategy of Russia and Beijing. For example, apart from China’s role in Djibouti, Beijing is Eritrea’s principal creditor and has expanded its influence in Sudan.
The developments of the past year have also contributed to a decline in the standing of the UAE’s allies in the region.
Outlook
The US presence in the Red Sea’s African states is rooted in counter-terrorism and anti-piracy operations.
The European Union’s presence in the region, via Operation ASPIDES, is limited to commercial shipping in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.
Despite the UAE’s formal withdrawal from some bases, its economic and security influence, as well as its soft-power instruments, remain strong.
A decrease in UAE military deployments in the region could negatively impact its support for allies in Yemen, Libya, and Sudan.
The UAE continues to have significant economic potential, secure partnerships, and influence in the southern Red Sea. In a way, this is considered a threat and a risk to certain African nations in the Red Sea region.
Certainly, a more extensive Sanaa presence over Bab al-Mandab, strategic coasts, and islands could confront Abu Dhabi’s maneuver and role in the southern Red Sea with a structural challenge.
The UAE’s approach in ports, logistics, energy, and other strategic infrastructure—along with deeper defense and security coordination with the West in the southern Red Sea—is likely to continue. However, the expansion of the UAE’s role also requires an extensive US presence in the Red Sea.
Moreover, the persistence of current geopolitical alignments, the attention of Eastern actors to the region, the strengthening of Sanaa’s position in the Red Sea, and the expansion of regional opposition to the UAE’s role will diminish Abu Dhabi’s role in the region.
Samyar Rostami is а political observer and senior researcher in international relations.
The persistence of current geopolitical alignments, the attention of Eastern actors to the region, the strengthening of Sanaa’s position in the Red Sea, and the expansion of regional opposition to the UAE’s role will diminish Abu Dhabi’s role in the region. UAE approach For the past ten years, the Southern Red Sea has been a […]
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On September 10, 2026, Algeria announced the severance of diplomatic relations with the United Arab Emirates. The Rupture That Was 50 Years in the Making The UAE ambassador was given 48 hours to leave the country, and as of September 11, Algerian airspace was closed to all Emirati aircraft. The official reason was “provocative and […]
Announcing the severing of diplomatic ties with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Thursday, September 10, Algeria summoned the Emirati envoy and gave him 48 hours to leave the country.
“Algeria has exercised a great deal of restraint and a high sense of responsibility,” despite the increasingly “provocative or hostile actions emanating from” the Gulf power, the North African country’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
“Despite these numerous warnings, the United Arab Emirates continued to persist in these actions, which have reached limits where they can no longer be considered acceptable or tolerable within the framework of relations between two sovereign states, nor remain without a response.”
Later that day, its defense ministry announced that the UAE’s military and civilian aircraft are banned from using Algerian airspace from Friday. The only exemption is for commercial civilian planes, which can continue to fly over Algeria until the existing contract expires at the end of the year.
Algeria had already initiated the termination of the air services agreement with the UAE in February, when President Abdelmadjid Tebboune alleged attempted Emirati interference in its elections.
Multiple Algerian media outlets aligned with the state have reported that the UAE has been supporting the Movement for the Self-Determination of Kabylia (MAK), a separatist group Algeria designated as a terrorist organization in 2021.
Algeria and the UAE also find themselves on opposing sides on several fronts of international relations.
Algeria aids Western Sahara’s liberation struggle; UAE backs Moroccan occupation
The support for the national liberation struggle of Western Sahara, occupied by Morocco immediately after it won independence from Spanish colonialism, has been a central plank of Algeria’s foreign policy.
In 2021, Algeria severed diplomatic relations with Morocco, accusing it of supporting the MAK in retaliation for Algerian support to the Polisario Front (PF), which is fighting for Western Sahara’s national liberation. But there is no equivalence between the PF and the MAK.
The MAK, which has long had close links to Israel, largely operates from Europe and is based in France, Algeria’s former colonizer. The PF, on the other hand, is fighting for Western Sahara’s liberation, with its military operating in its liberated territory adjoining Algeria. The UN recognizes the PF as the sole representative of the people of Western Sahara, a country it lists among the last few pending decolonization.
Despite funding and arming the Moroccan occupation, the US had not officially recognized Morocco’s claim to sovereignty over Western Sahara until December 2020, when Morocco signed the Abraham Accords to normalize diplomatic relations with Israel.
The first Trump administration, in turn, proclaimed that the US “recognizes Moroccan sovereignty over the entire Western Sahara territory” and went on to open a consulate in Dakhla, a major city in the occupied region.
The UAE was a step ahead, setting a precedent before the American move by opening its consulate on the occupied land in November 2020, a month before Morocco normalized relations with Israel. The UAE had already normalized relations with Israel that September.
In contrast, Algeria refuses to normalize relations with Israel until the Palestinians have secured their statehood. Algerian media often refers to the UAE as an “Israeli vassal”.
“Wherever they set foot, blood flows”
Algeria’s diplomatic break was foreseeable since at least July, when President Tebboune said in a thinly veiled reference to the UAE in a televised interview, “Wherever they set foot, blood flows… We want them to stay away, so that blood does not flow in our country.” He gave the example of Mali, Libya and Sudan.
A month later, in August, the UN confirmed that the USD 50 million transferred to the Al Qaeda-affiliated JNIM in the form of ransom helped fuel its attack across Mali. A Reuters investigation identified the UAE as the source of this payment to JNIM. The group has also attacked its neighbors, Burkina Faso and Niger, both of which have followed in Mali’s footsteps by expelling French troops.
The UAE’s supply of arms and mercenaries to the Libyan warlord General Khalifa Haftar, who has been fighting Libya’s UN-recognized government, is also well-documented in multiple UN reports since 2017.
Tebboune’s reference to “blood” flowing from Emirati interference is best demonstrated in war-torn Sudan, where the UAE is funding and arming the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), whose depopulation campaign in El Fasher had all the “hallmarks of genocide”, according to the UN.
He added in the July interview that a “diplomatic break” with the UAE “would have happened long ago.” Algeria, he explained, had refrained only to avoid adding to the already existing divisions in the Arabic-speaking world.
When the break finally came on Thursday, the UAE’s foreign ministry said it hoped that it “will be temporary, in a manner that preserves the fraternal ties between the two brotherly peoples.”
In an apparent reference to the absence of explicitly stated reasons in Algeria’s statement, Anwar Gargash, the diplomatic advisor to the UAE’s president, Mohamed bin Zayed, said, “Diplomatic relations are managed through reason, communication, and clarity of interests, not through puzzles and signals that require decoding.”
He went on to preach that “successful diplomacy is built on clarity of positions, sound management of interests and differences.”
Gargash’s statement “is revealing above all for what it carefully conceals. Not a word about the actions of this arsonist, predatory state, which thrives on chaos wherever it sticks its nose in Yemen, Sudan, the DRC, Somaliland, and elsewhere,” retorted former Algerian diplomat, Amar Belani.
Describing the UAE as a “state that has made other nations’ instability its economic model,” Belani concluded his response, saying: “As for the lesson on ‘reason and clarity of interests’, Abu Dhabi would do better to reserve it for its partners in the Abraham Accords, with whom it shares complicity in the face of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and acts of genocide committed against the Palestinian people.”
This sentiment against the UAE is not limited to the government or the ruling National Liberation Front (FLN), which led Algeria’s liberation struggle against French colonialism and has ruled since, except for a few years in the 1990s.
Mass protests erupted in 2019 against corruption and increasing economic capture by the military elite, strangling an economy already suffering under neoliberal austerity. This movement, known as the Hirak, forced the then president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, a veteran of the FLN, to resign.
But even in these protests against the government and the ruling FLN, “Down with the UAE” and “No to the UAE in the country of martyrs”, were among the popular placards and slogans.
A major new investment commitment announced during President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan’s (pictured) state visit to Berlin signals a deeper economic relationship between two countries looking for reliable partners in an increasingly uncertain world.
The United Arab Emirates has announcedplans to invest an additional €40 billion in Germany, one of the most substantial signals yet that the economic relationship between Europe’s largest industrial economy and the Gulf state is entering a new phase.
The commitment, announced during President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan’s state visit to Germany, will target sectors including industry, advanced technology, artificial intelligence, digital infrastructure and energy. Of the total, €10 billion is set to be invested in the German state of Bavaria.
The headline figure is striking. But its significance goes well beyond the amount involved.
The UAE has already invested around €34 billion in Germany. The new commitment therefore represents not simply another large capital allocation, but an attempt to deepen a relationship increasingly built around the industries and technologies that both countries see as central to their future competitiveness.
As Dr Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, UAE Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology and Envoy of the Minister of Foreign Affairs to Germany,put it:“The UAE invests for the long term and builds partnerships that endure.”
For Germany, the fresh injection of long-term capital arrives at an important moment.
The country has formidable strengths in engineering, manufacturing, chemicals, industrial technology and applied research. Yet maintaining that industrial position is becoming ever-more expensive. Artificial intelligence, digital infrastructure, advanced manufacturing, energy systems and industrial decarbonisation all require substantial investment at a time when German companies are also confronting higher costs, geopolitical uncertainty and growing international competition.
The UAE brings a different set of strengths: investment capacity, energy expertise, digital infrastructure and commercial connections across the Gulf, Asia and Africa. The logic of the partnership is therefore not simply that one country has money while the other needs investment. It is that their economic capabilities are increasingly complementary.
This synergy is reflected in the sectors identified for the new commitment. Rather than focusing narrowly on established assets, the investment is intended to support areas expected to shape industrial competitiveness over the coming decades.
Al Jaber said the intention was to support “the industries, technologies and skilled jobs that will drive future growth and competitiveness”, while strengthening energy security and supply chains and helping German companies continue to grow internationally.
That last point matters because the relationship works in both directions.
Germany gives Emirati investors access to one of the world’s deepest industrial and technological ecosystems. German companies, meanwhile, increasingly see the UAE not simply as a domestic market but as a platform from which to reach faster-growing economies across the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
The two countries’ economic relationship has already strengthened significantly in recent years, with a number of notable examples of cooperation. Emirati investment has reached sectors including chemicals and offshore wind, while leading German companies have become increasingly embedded in the UAE economy, with bilateral trade worth more than €13 billion last year, an increase of 15% compared to the previous year.
The new €40 billion investment marks a significant new phase of this deepening relationship, and the timing of the announcement also gives it a wider geopolitical significance.
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeiercapturedthe mood during the state visit when he observed that “the world has become a more turbulent place; old certainties are crumbling.” Against that backdrop, he argued that reliable and rational partners mattered more than ever, telling Sheikh Mohamed: “Germany is that kind of partner for you; you are that kind of partner for us.”
Those comments go to the heart of why Germany and the UAE’s economic relationship now matters far beyond the balance sheet.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine exposed the risks created by concentrated energy dependencies for Germany and countless other countries in Europe and around the world. Conflict in the Middle East has again demonstrated the vulnerability of trade routes, energy markets and supply chains. Global competition over AI and other critical technologies has made industrial capacity a highly strategic question as well as an economic one.
Both Germany and the UAE have reasons to diversify their partnerships in response.
Germany needs capital, energy relationships, technology partnerships and access to growing markets. The UAE is seeking to diversify an economy historically built around hydrocarbons while deepening its position in advanced technology, industry and global investment.
The €40 billion investment is a powerful statement of intent and a reaffirmation of a long-standing partnership between the two countries that could transform their industrial and technological strategies for years to come.
Greece is considering to deploy two Apache attack helicopters to the United Arab Emirates with the aim to hunt drones. The two AH-64D Apache attack helicopters will provide support for the protection of military bases and critical infrastructure against drone attacks. Under the mission, Greek pilots and technical personnel are planned to serve at a base […]
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