Saudi Arabia and the UAE have reportedly conducted retaliatory attacks on Iran, with Abu Dhabi’s sorties in May allegedly conducted in coordination with Israel. The two Gulf states did not confirm the news — in The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and Reuters — but neither did they explicitly deny them. Iran has attacked all of its Arab neighbors since the war began in February, with almost 3,000 drones and missiles lobbed at the UAE alone. Citizens across the Gulf have voiced support for their governments retaliating. Following the WSJ report, prominent Emirati political scientist Abdulkhaleq Abdulla posted that the news filled him with “pride and a sense of honor.”
Rumors of Gulf involvement in direct attacks on Iran have swirled for months and were all but confirmed by US President Donald Trump on March 24, when he said of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman: “He’s fighting with us, by the way. Saudi Arabia has been excellent, and UAE, excellent. And I will tell you, Qatar, incredible.”
The retaliatory actions by Saudi Arabia and the UAE appear to have had different aims, and Tehran has interpreted them as such. Saudi strikes were a measured response to Iranian attacks and intended to reassert deterrence, according to Reuters. However, the UAE’s attacks, carried out in coordination with Israel, did not calm tensions with Iran. Tehran has repeatedly accused Abu Dhabi of cooperating with its enemies and said the UAE had violated the “principles of good neighborliness.”
