Yemeni Forces Urge Foreign Investors to Leave

Ansarullah: UAE No Longer a Safe Country

Date: 24 January 2022 - 21:54

News ID: ۹۹۲۷۰

SANAA (Dispatches) -- A senior member of Yemen’s Ansarullah resistance movement on Monday called upon foreign investors to leave the UAE after Yemeni forces carried out a large-scale drone and missile operation against sensitive targets deep inside the country and Saudi Arabia.
“Emirati officials disregarded our advice to pull out of the war on Yemen. We advise investors in the UAE to leave because it is no longer a safe country,” Muhammad al-Bukhaiti, a member of Ansarullah’s political bureau, told Lebanon’s Al Mayadeen television.
The second retaliatory operation in less than a week came after an airstrike on a temporary detention center in the Yemeni city of Sa’da killed more than 100 people. Saudi Arabia has denied being behind the airstrike, raising suspicions as to whether the UAE had carried out the horrible attack.
“The UAE did not adhere to a policy of armed neutrality in the region when it decided to be involved in the Saudi-led aggression on Yemen. We have been fairly more patient with the UAE than with Saudi Arabia in order to give it the opportunity to withdraw,” Bukhaiti said.
He warned that the UAE will be the scene of direct confrontation between the axis of resistance on one side and the United States and its proxies on the other.
The Ansarullah official described the ongoing bloody onslaught against Yemen as a U.S.-Israeli project, saying Riyadh and Abu Dhabi regimes are simply advancing the latter’s agendas.
“The UAE will be the biggest loser and will turn into a battlefield in the near future. The country did not heed previous warnings and acted against its interests,” he said.
Yemen’s armed forces spokesman Yahya Saree said Yemeni forces hit Al-Dhafra Airbase 32 km south of Abu Dhabi and other targets on the outskirts of the Emirati capital with a barrage of Zulfiqar ballistic missiles during Operation Yemen Hurricane II.
The country’s drones also attacked important targets in Dubai.
More drone attacks were carried out on a number of military camps in the Sharurah town of Saudi Arabia’s Najran region, while a number of vital targets and strategic sites in the kingdom were hit with ballistic missiles, Saree said.
Most stock markets in the Persian Gulf region fell in early trade on Monday, with the Dubai index falling the most after the retaliatory strikes.
Dubai’s main share index dropped as much as 1.4%, with most of the stocks in negative territory, including blue-chip developer Emaar Properties, which was down 1.7%.
The Abu Dhabi index fell 0.7%, with the country’s largest lender First Abu Dhabi Bank losing more than 1%.
On Friday, Saree had advised foreign companies to leave the United Arab Emirates after the Saudi-led coalition attack in Sa’ada a second attack in Hudaydah which shut off the country’s internet.
“After the massacres committed by U.S.-Saudi-UAE aggression today against Yemeni people, we advise foreign companies in the UAE to leave, as they are investing in an unsafe state as long as the rulers of this state continue to attack our country,” he tweeted.
Dubai alone is home to 45 Middle East and Africa headquarters of multinational companies, and more than 21,000 African companies.
Last Monday, Yemeni forces carried out their first retaliatory drone and missile strikes against strategic facilities deep inside the UAE.
The UAE was part of the Saudi-led coalition that intervened in Yemen in 2015 to reinstate a former regime.
The Persian Gulf country has announced that it has reduced its military involvement in Yemen since 2019, but analysts have pointed out it retains significant influence through backing mercenaries and takfiri groups.
Following the retaliatory attacks, a Yemeni leader in Sanaa told the Middle East Eye news outlet that Yemeni forces targeted the UAE “because it returned to the front line of the Yemen conflict again to fight us while we were about to take over Ma’rib”.