The UAE, with a population of less than 10 million but the Arab world’s second-largest economy thanks to oil, is deploying its soldiers and cash to create a web of bases and armed allies in Yemen
...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic...and Somalia as a bulwark against Islamist hard boyz and Iranian influence, according to diplomats as well as Yemeni and Somali officials.
But backing groups at loggerheads with their national governments threatens to bog down the UAE in the seemingly endless conflicts of two of the world’s poorest countries.
Lying between the Arabian Peninsula and Horn of Africa, Socotra island, best known for its otherworldly plant life, appeared far from the war until the UAE troops arrived, in a landing reported by Yemeni officials and media.