Iran emerges as catalyst for closer ties on Turkey-UAE-Israel triangle
Attacks on Emirati and Turkish targets by forces hostile to normalization with Israel are unlikely to be just coincidence as the prospect of new regional partnerships irks Iran.
Amid the crisscrossing moves of rapprochement on the Turkey-United Arab Emirates-Israel triangle, Emirati and Turkish targets have faced a string of attacks, claimed by or believed to be the work of Iran-linked groups.
The Iranian-backed Houthis, fighting the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, fired rockets on the UAE three times last month, with the last attack taking place on Jan. 31 as Israeli President Isaac Herzog visited Abu Dhabi. Then a Turkish military base in Iraq came under attack on Feb. 3, a day after Alwiyat al-Waad al-Haq, a group linked to Iraq’s Kataib Hezbollah, claimed to have launched four drones targeting critical facilities in the Emirates.
As Israel looks to add a security dimension to its ties with the UAE and Bahrain after the Abraham Accords, Iranian reactions via proxies should not come as a surprise. Targeting Turkey should not be surprising either, amid its quest to normalize ties with Gulf heavyweights and Israel.
It was not the first time that the Turkish troops at the Bashiqa base near Mosul came under attack, but the timing of the Feb. 3 incident, in which 18 rockets were fired, was obviously telling. A hitherto unknown group calling itself Ahrar Sinjar said it attacked because the Iraqi government had failed to protect Sinjar, the Yazidi region where Turkey has pursued the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and its local affiliates. The PKK — designated as a terrorist group by Ankara over its nearly four-decade armed campaign in Turkey — has long had bases in the mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan along the Turkish border. Since 2014, it has extended its presence to Sinjar after helping the Yazidis against the Islamic State.
