ABU DHABI — The
UAE and its
allies warned Sunday of the rising threat of drone attacks, as Middle East
militants rapidly acquire a taste for the cheap and easily accessible unmanned
systems.
اضافة اعلان
But while the countries called for a
collective effort to protect airspaces against the small and often hard to
detect targets, one question remained: how to easily stop a drone attack?
"We have to unite to prevent the use of
drones from threatening civilian safety and destroying economic institutions,"
Mohammed bin Ahmed Al-Bowardi, UAE’s Minister of State for Defense Affairs,
said at a defense conference in Abu Dhabi.
The
Unmanned Systems Exhibition (UMEX),
running until Wednesday, began in the UAE capital with regional and Western
military and industry representatives, including from the US, Britain, and
France.
Speakers addressed the importance of
developing such systems for civil and military uses but also acknowledged their
dangers when used by groups deemed a threat to the region.
While the event will showcase the latest in
high-tech drone technology, the host country warned that such weapons are
becoming cheaper and more widespread.
They are now part of the arsenals of
"terrorist groups that use the systems to terrorize civilians or to impact
the global system in a negative way," said the UAE's Minister of State for
Artificial Intelligence, Omar Bin Sultan Al-Olama.
"That is a challenge that requires us
to... work together to ensure that we can create a shield against the use of
these systems."
The UAE is part of a Saudi-led military
coalition that has been fighting in Yemen since 2015 to support the government
against Iran-backed Huthi rebels.
While the Emirates announced it withdrew its
troops from the country in 2019, it remains an influential player, backing
fighters there.
The UAE has been on heightened alert since a
Huthi drone and missile attack killed three oil workers in
Abu Dhabi on January
17. Authorities have since thwarted three similar attacks, including one
claimed by a little-known militant group believed to have ties with pro-Iran
armed factions in Iraq.
The UAE's staunch ally the
US has deployed a
warship and fighter planes to help protect the Middle East financial and
leisure hub, usually a safe haven in the volatile region.
France also said it would bolster its
defense cooperation with the UAE, mostly in securing its air space.
In December, the Saudi-led coalition said
the
Huthis had fired more than 850 attack drones and 400 ballistic missiles at
Saudi Arabia in the past seven years, killing a total of 59 civilians.
That figure compares with the 401 coalition
air raids carried out in January alone over Yemen, according to the Yemen Data
Project, an independent tracker which reported around 9,000 civilian fatalities
from the strikes in that country since 2015.
Last year the US and Israel said an Iranian
drone attacked a ship managed by an Israeli billionaire as it sailed off
Oman.
Two crew members were killed.
More recently, Israel's military said its
air defenses fired at a drone that had crossed into its airspace from Lebanon
on Friday, the second such intrusion in as many days.
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