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Israel is said to have deployed intelligence agents throughout the Gulf region. A senior Gulf Cooperation Council official asserted that Israel's Mossad has established an espionage network in Gulf Arab states. The official said the Israeli agents operate under the cover of European executives. "If we arrest any one of them, though, it could be a major breakthrough," Lt. Gen. Dahi Khalfan, a senior security official in the United Arab Emirates, said. Khalfan, police chief of the UAE city of Dubai, confirmed an Israeli newspaper report that the Mossad has long been working in the Gulf region. The report said...

Several times I pointed out how the airbase of Mount Pleasant on the British Falklands Islands is so important to the defense of the small South Atlantic Dependency. As such it is an amazingly economical aircraft carrier substitute, with a mere 4 air defense fighters and the potential for many more in a crisis. Andrew Oh-Wilekke, the Washington Park Prophet, would like to see the US build a similar type airbase somewhere in the Gulf, but on a grander scale, to take the place of its shrinking numbers of enormously expensive Big Decks: There is a very good chance that...

Iran has offered its Gulf Arab neighbors cooperation in ballistic missile development and control. Iran has briefed the six Gulf Cooperation Council states on the prospect of military cooperation with Teheran. Officials said Teheran was ready to replace the United States as the guarantor of regional stability. "We welcome our neighbors," Iranian professor Abu Mohammed Asgharani said. "On ballistic missiles and nuclear energy, we would be happy to see you establish a regional laboratory to work on both conventional and peaceful energy." In an address to a nuclear technology conference in Manama, Asgharani said Teheran was willing to brief GCC...

The U.S. intelligence community has determined that Saudi Arabia and its allies in the Gulf Cooperation Council are quietly accepting the prospect that Iran would acquire nuclear weapons. Officials said the Persian Gulf states and other Arab League members would learn to accommodate Teheran's domination of the region. "This assessment has been shared with Israel, which today is the only country in the Middle East that wants to stop the Iranian nuclear program," an official said. Officials said the assessment has formed a major element in the strategy toward Iran by the administration of President Barack Obama. They said Israel...

The United States test-fired a submarine-launched ballistic missile capable of carrying nuclear warheads during a joint military exercise Wednesday with Saudi Arabia, a Western military official said. The Trident missile launch was carried out in the kingdom, the official said, but he would not give a precise location. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. The U.S. has been strengthening missile defenses in allied Arab nations in the Gulf to help counter any potential missile strike from Iran. Like its nuclear work, Iran's missile program is of top concern to Washington and Arab nations...

Russia arms industry is pushing hard for a major breakthrough into the lucrative Gulf market at the Doha International Maritime Defense Exhibition in Qatar, the only navy-oriented defense showcase in the Middle East. Qatar's Peninsula newspaper reported that defense analysts are "saying that market demand for maritime defense in the region is expected to reach more than $30 billion in the next 20 years." Saudi Arabia is looking for new frigates but it has been buying them from France for decades and is likely to do so again. Like the United Arab Emirates, it has been building up its naval...

Defense Secretary Robert Gates asked Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah for support lobbying for U.N. sanctions against Iran on Wednesday and discussed ways to boost the kingdom's air and missile defenses.The United States is leading a push for the U.N. Security Council to impose a fourth round of sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programme, and aides to Gates made no secret of their hopes that Saudi Arabia could press regional allies for help. "We are certainly hopeful that the Saudis will use whatever influence they have, which is considerable, in this region and throughout the world to try to help...

In the days after the foiled Christmas Day attack on a Detroit-bound airliner, some were quick to call for a new front in the war on terror, this time in Yemen, where the Nigerian-born "Undie-Bomber" was in contact with al-Qaida. While the emphasis on Yemen from a counterterrorism perspective has waxed and waned over the years, it has long been on our terror radar, going back to at least the late 1990s. It is unfortunate that we have had to become intimately reacquainted with Yemen, a little-known but strategically located country with an ancient history, including being the home of...

Qatar and Saudi Arabia have been examining the advanced F-15 fighter-jet. Boeing has targeted Qatar and Saudi Arabia as key clients for the F-15. Executives said a contract between Boeing and a Gulf Cooperation Council state could be signed by 2011. "We're hoping for something to happen in the 2010-11 timeframe," Boeing Defense vice president Mark Kronenberg said. In a Feb. 3 briefing at the Singapore Air Show, Boeing outlined efforts to sell the F-15 and the F/A-18 fighter-jets to GCC states. Executives said Qatar and Saudi Arabia marked the biggest opportunities for their company over the next year. Kronenberg...

Yemen's government said Sunday it will accept a truce offer only if the rebels operating in the country's north comply with six previously laid-out conditions. The Shiite Muslim rebels, known as the Houthis, had indicated Saturday that they were open to a cease-fire and to accepting the government conditions. But they demanded an end to military operations first. The intractable stance on both sides means the conflict, which had lasted more than five years, is likely to continue. In August, Yemen laid out cease-fire terms that included removing checkpoints, ending banditry, handing over all military equipment and weapons, and releasing...

Kuwait has been investigating reports of an Iranian-backed Shi'ite insurgency plot. Officials said Kuwait has launched an investigation into allegations that Shi'ites funded and directed by Iran planned to attack key facilities in the Gulf Cooperation Council sheikdom. The investigation was said to center on Shi'ite soldiers in neighboring Bahrain trained in sabotage. Officials have warned of a growing Shi'ite threat in Kuwait, a Sunni-ruled country with nearly 50 percent of the population being Shi'ite. They said Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has increased surveillance and other intelligence operations in Kuwait, which hosts more than 15,000 U.S. military soldiers. "There...

The United States policy establishment and the plethora of think-tanks that abound in Washington seem to be totally oblivious that a strategic triangular relationship comprising China-Pakistan-Saudi Arabia is confronting the United States in South West Asia. China-Pakistan-Saudi Arabia strategic triangle is not a newly emergent military configuration. It commenced with the China-Pakistan strategic nexus in the 1960s and expanded to the China-Pakistan-Saudi Arabia strategic triangle by the 1980s. The China-Pakistan-Saudi Arabia strategic triangle today manifests itself not only in military inter-linkages, but also in nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles linkages and inter-dependencies. The China-Pakistan-Saudi Arabia Triangle may not have acquired...

As the United Arab Emirates spends billions to defend itself against a perceived Iranian threat, it also enjoys a robust trading relationship with its potential foe. The UAE sees Iran as both a threat and a valued trading partner, events during the last two years have shown. International efforts to impose economic sanctions against the Iranian regime for its alleged plans to develop nuclear weapons might be a tough sell in the UAE, which has strong economic ties with Iran. The UAE is one of Iran’s largest trading partners. Boats from across the Gulf arrive in Abu Dhabi’s port loaded...

Iran has acquired surface-to-air missiles modified with chemical weapons. Western intelligence sources said Iran has acquired modified SA-2 air defense systems from North Korea. They said Pyongyang has converted the SA-2 from a surface-to-air to a surface-to-surface missile. "The North Koreans took an old clunky SAM system and turned it into a tactical non-conventional missile with excellent accuracy," an intelligence source said. The sources said Iran was believed to have acquired the converted SA-2 in 2008. The system has been deployed along the Iranian coast near Qatar in what has become escalated regional tension. The heritage SA-2, a 1950s-era Soviet...

Impoverished Yemen is reeling under the threat of Al Qaeda, northern Shiite rebels and southern secessionists, but a lack of water is putting its ancient capital at even greater risk, experts say. Within a decade - or even less - Sanaa could become the first waterless capital in the world, they warn, adding the outlook is also bleak for the rest of this parched country where wells in some regions are already dry. A conference in London on Wednesday will discuss Yemen's anti-terrorism drive, but it is unclear whether the water woes that experts say are likely to fuel more...

The Kuwait Air Defense Forces successfully test fired Raytheon Company's Patriot Air and Missile Defense System against tactical ballistic missiles. The test firings were held last month at the Udairi Range in Kuwait in conjunction with other Kuwait Air Defense and Land Forces elements during a joint exercise. The test firings used a Kuwait Patriot Configuration-2 Plus fire unit with Guidance Enhanced Missiles as the interceptors, which are operated and maintained by Kuwait Air Defense brigade troops. The Patriot system successfully engaged and destroyed two Patriot-as-a-Target missiles, as well as three foreign Multiple Launch Rocket System-type targets, both configurations emulating...

The Kuwait Air Defense Forces successfully test fired Raytheon Company's Patriot Air and Missile Defense System against tactical ballistic missiles. The test firings were held last month at the Udairi Range in Kuwait in conjunction with other Kuwait Air Defense and Land Forces elements during a joint exercise. The test firings used a Kuwait Patriot Configuration-2 Plus fire unit with Guidance Enhanced Missiles as the interceptors, which are operated and maintained by Kuwait Air Defense brigade troops. The Patriot system successfully engaged and destroyed two Patriot-as-a-Target missiles, as well as three foreign Multiple Launch Rocket System-type targets, both configurations emulating...

Yemen's president said he is ready to talk to al-Qaida members who renounce violence, suggesting he could show them the same kind of leniency he has granted militants in the past despite U.S. pressure to crack down on the terror group. Yemen is moving cautiously in the fight against al-Qaida, worried over a potential backlash in a country where anger at the U.S. and extremism are widespread. Thousands of Yemenis are battle-hardened veterans of past "holy wars" in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Chechnya and Iraq, and though most are not engaged in violence now they preserve a die-hard al-Qaida ideology. "Any movement...

Yemen has posed a concern as a potential terrorist safe haven for some time, and the United States will continue to work with its government to prevent that from happening, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said at the Naval War College here today. Navy Adm. Mike Mullen said the U.S. military has no plan to conduct combat operations in Yemen, nor does the Yemeni government want U.S. combat forces in the country. Rather, he said, the U.S. military will help the Yemeni military with equipment and training. U.S. military officials have been concerned about the country long...

As Yemen's beleaguered government launches a new offensive against al-Qaida, the other conflict in the troubled Arabian peninsula state takes a shocking twist: The regime and tribal rebels in the north are both using child soldiers, according to aid officials. Child soldiers have been a feature of warfare throughout history, although these days there are international laws that prohibit the use of children under 18 in conflicts. But they are difficult to enforce and are widely ignored, even though persistent failure to prevent children taking part in combat is considered a war crime by the International Criminal Court. In Yemen,...