How Do Emirati Companies Help Strengthen Abu Dhabi’s Influence Abroad?

Through its crooked ways, the UAE seeks to appear as a strong player abroad. It has recently resorted to extending its influence in the ports and airports sector.

Abu Dhabi is working to strengthen the investments of the Terminals Holding airline, the aviation solutions and security provider, to enhance its security diplomacy in a number of countries.

The giant and sensitive projects managed by the Emirati company, established in 2022 and sponsored by the National Security Adviser Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, carry strategies for Abu Dhabi to make its influence reach even the financial level.

 

Corporate Creep

The Intelligence Online revealed in a report published on January 10, 2023, Abu Dhabi’s efforts to develop the Terminals Holding aviation company managing many airports abroad.

The magazine stated that the acting defense minister of Afghanistan, Muhammad Yaqoub, met the Emirati President, Muhammad bin Zayed on December 5, 2022. Their discussion focused on the restoration of airports in Afghanistan.

Between September 2021 and September 2022, GAAC Holding Company in Afghanistan won three concession contracts of 10 years to manage the airports of Kabul, Kandahar, Mazar-i-Sharif, and Herat.

Terminals Holding is based in Abu Dhabi and states on its website that GAAC is a joint venture between newcomer Airport Infrastructure Services and UAE-owned artificial intelligence company Group 42.

GAAC seeks to make Afghanistan’s airports conform to international security standards but is exploited by the parent company, Terminals Holding, to strengthen its control over the strategic assets of its allies, according to Intelligence Online.

Afghanistan is the country in which the UAE has been searching for a position of influence since the Taliban movement took power in mid-August 2021, and since that time it has been looking for windows that bring it closer to the outside world so that it can gain recognition of its legitimacy and then improve the national economy situation.

Terminals Holding found an opportunity to achieve some of Abu Dhabi’s goals in extending influence there, based on the Taliban’s attempt to renew the airport infrastructure in Afghanistan in order to convince international airlines to come back as soon as possible.

GAAC tightened security measures related to baggage and personnel at Kabul airport after leaving the Turkish-Qatari bloc, which was hastily established after the arrival of the Taliban to power.

Intelligence Online speculates that GAAC may use Thales airborne radars that were received by the previous Afghan government in July 2021, one month before the previous regime falling, after a contract signed by the French defense group and the Kabul authorities in 2019.

Street Press magazine revealed, at the time, that the contract’s value reached 110 million euros for the delivery of 12 radars of the RSM970S and STAR NG models to secure the airspace of Afghanistan.

To this end, Abu Dhabi presented its plans for the project in September 2021, divided into several stages, from security and aviation fuel supplies to building new infrastructure - to be implemented by the GAAC Holding Afghanistan company, which was created specifically for this task.

 

Well-Studied Investment

GAAC enables the UAE company to monitor strategic events in Afghanistan, according to Intelligence Online, and previously described itself as a subsidiary of the Emirati company, Afroport Abu Dhabi, which has been operating Nouakchott airport in Mauritania since 2018.

The Mauritanian state owns 5% of the Afroport Abu Dhabi shares, as the Mauritanian Minister of Economy and Finance, Mokhtar Ould Ajay, confirmed on December 5, 2018, that Nouakchott would receive the same percentage of the profits of Afroport Abu Dhabi. The Mauritanian newspaper, Al-Akhbar, stated at the time that the contract is for 25 years.

At that time, Ould Ajay hinted that the investing company would develop airport services, build two hotels, one 5-star and the other 4-star, and an aircraft maintenance and repair complex. The airport will include international markets and an expansion of businessmen’s lounges.

Afroport is also a subsidiary of Terminals Holding; its CEO, Dritan Gjonbalaj, was a political advisor to the Kosovo Minister of Defense between 2019-2020.

Investment in the aviation sector gives the Abu Dhabi government a “unique opportunity” to enhance soft power on the global stage, especially as it has succeeded in promoting the UAE in the entire region and beyond.

This applies to the Terminals Holding company, in which the shareholding structure is still secret, but the influence of the G42 group managed by Tahnoun bin Zayed is so clear there.

British Chancellor Mattje Rencken also heads up the aviation branch of G42 Smart Nations, a program tested to secure Expo 2020 Dubai using artificial intelligence.

Rencken is an expert in setting up AI technology in the security field and has also worked at AI integrator Next50—a joint venture between G42 and ADQ Holding, also run by Tahnoun bin Zayed. Rencken also participated in the creation of GAAC and is still on its board of directors.

 

Tahnoun  Hands

The ADQ and G42 companies are the two tools Tahnoun bin Zayed uses to acquire the aviation sector in Abu Dhabi while consolidating his control over the Emirate’s financial strategy, according to Intelligence Online.

The G42 group was founded in 2018 in Abu Dhabi and invests in artificial intelligence, focusing on security. Most of its applications aim to enable the UAE government to process a large amount of data and enhance its technological capabilities and control in the areas of big data and artificial intelligence.

G42 is showing increasing interest in cooperation with Israeli companies in this field, by opening an office in Tel Aviv, and signing a cooperation agreement with the Israeli company, Elta Systems, specializing in electronic warfare.

This entanglement of companies and groups behind which the 53-year-old Tahnoon, “Prince of Shadow,” stands, explains the extent of the overlapping security and strategic interests between the UAE and these countries.

Terminals Holding also owns a subsidiary in the Horn of Africa, Transport Infrastructure Services Ltd, which has been involved in the renovation and operation of the Bosaso and Berbera airports in Somalia between 2020-2021.

The two cities are considered strategic for Abu Dhabi, as the DP World company, owned by one of the sovereign wealth funds in Dubai, is responsible for operating the ports of Bosaso and Berbera.

With around $442 million, the UAE signed an agreement with Somaliland in February 2017 to build and develop the port of Berbera, for a period of 30 years, to become an Emirati military base.

The agreement at that time led to political anger among the opposition parties in Somaliland as well as among the federal government in Mogadishu, as the UAE was accused of violating Somalia’s sovereignty through an illegal agreement.

 

Towards the Horn of Africa

The Horn of Africa is located along one of the world’s most important maritime trade routes, linking Europe and the Mediterranean Sea to the Indian Ocean and Asia.

Reports indicate that an estimated 10-20% of world trade, including more than 6 million barrels of oil per day, passes through the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

According to Hassan Sheikh, Professor of International Relations at the University of Mogadishu, “The UAE’s investment plans in the ports of the Horn of Africa do not correspond to the approach of foreign investments, but rather aim to dry up the sources of other economies in order to serve its ports, which attract millions of containers every day at the expense of the countries bordering the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea.”

Hassan Sheikh added to Anadolu Agency on September 25, 2019, that the UAE is taking advantage of poor countries’ needs by luring them with money in order to control the ports and sources of the economy of these countries, but most of those have realized the secrets of UAE investments, and canceled some contracts, Like Djibouti.

In February 2018, the Djibouti government canceled its contract with DP World for the Doraleh Container Terminal (DCT) concession, as it included unfair clauses threatening its sovereignty, which prompted the company to resort to international arbitration.

While in this small Arab country Eritrea, the UAE Air Force is present at Asmara airport, which provides the UAE with useful channels of influence in the region.

Observers of the strengthening of Abu Dhabi linked its presence in Eritrea, which includes primitive outlets on the Red Sea, 150 km north, with the aim of compensating the loss after severing its relationship with Djibouti, which provided UAE with great privileges to carry out its tasks in the region.

The UAE obtained a 30-year lease for the military use of the strategic Assab International Port, enabling large transport planes to land, including the huge C-17 Globemaster planes. The UAE used its military base in Assab in the war in Yemen.

However, an Associated Press report published in February 2021 stated that the UAE had dismantled its military base in Assab, Eritrea, which it had established in 2015.

 

Strong Player

In light of these facts, it is clear that the UAE has been seeking for years to appear as a strong player in the Horn of Africa, which has great importance thanks to its strategic location off the Arabian Peninsula and in the Gulf of Aden, at the crossroads of the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean.

In this context, Ben Hunter, East Africa analyst at the British consultancy Verisk Maplecroft, believes that the company’s experience in security issues in the Gulf shows that UAE will focus on the Red Sea.

Hunter told AFP, on June 22, 2022, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have become a major security and economic players in the Horn of Africa.

The UAE, wishing to draw closer to the countries of the Horn of Africa and the East African region bordering the Red Sea, played the role of mediator, accompanied by Saudi Arabia, under the pretext of reaching a peace agreement in mid-2018 between Ethiopia and Eritrea.

In June 2018, Ethiopia announced the UAE’s commitment to pumping $3 billion into the local economy, mainly through investments.

As for the former Soviet republics in Central Asia, having no access to the sea, they are also witnessing an Emirati advance.

In November 2022, Terminals Holding had a contract to manage the cargo terminal at Navoi Airport in Uzbekistan, just as it entrusted DP World with the logistical operations of the Navoi Free Zone there.

Meanwhile, Emirati officials are following in the footsteps of Tahnoun bin Zayed as they increasingly travel to Central Asia to further their diplomatic and financial interests there.

The UAE Minister of Energy and Infrastructure, Suhail al-Mazroui, revealed on August 17, 2022, that his country is seeking to open new trade routes with the aim of enhancing the capacity and interdependence of the logistical sectors within Central Asia.

During his presidency of the Abu Dhabi delegation which participated in the Ministerial Conference on Transport for Landlocked Developing Countries in the Avaza region of Turkmenbashi, Turkmenistan, al-Mazroui stressed that Emirati companies working in the transport sector have great experience in developing the infrastructure of landlocked developing countries.