ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates – Walking through a trade show all aboutmilitary drones, Emirati officials made a point on Sunday to stop first ata stand run by Chinese officials with a mock armed drone hanging above them.
Defense analysts believe that drone, the Wing Loong II, is now being usedby the Emirati military while the UAE remains barred from purchasingweaponized drones from the United States.
That purchase, as well as Abu Dhabi hosting the Unmanned Systems Exhibition& Conference this week in the Emirati capital, shows the power theseweapons now hold across the Middle East.Top UAE officials, including Abu Dhabi’s powerful crown prince, Mohammedbin Zayed Al Nahyan, were on hand for the drone conference, which opened onSunday.
The UAE, home to skyscraper-studded Dubai, already has embraced drones.Dubai’s ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, has given the $1million Drones for Good Award in recent years.
Meanwhile, civil defense officials fighting fires and lifeguards trying tosave those at risk of drowning use drones in their work.
But the UAE remains highly interested in military drones.Al-Dhafra Air Base near Abu Dhabi, which hosts some of the 5,000 Americantroops in the UAE, is also home to some of the US military’s unmannedaircraft that flew missions over Iraq and Syria targeting Daesh.
Chief among those aircraft is the Predator, built by San Diego-baseddefense contractor General Atomics. The UAE previously purchased some $200million worth of surveillance-only Predator drones from General Atomics.
The Obama administration opposed selling the UAE armed versions of thePredator over Missile Technology Control Regime, a 30-year-old agreementthat aims to limit the spread of missile technology.
But that apparently didn’t stop the UAE from purchasing weaponized drones.Satellite photographs taken of a mysterious Emirati air base in thecountry’s deep south — a desert area known as the in the Empty Quarter —appear to show three Wing Loong IIs there, according to a January articleby IHS Jane’s Defense Weekly.
China has never acknowledged selling the drones to the UAE, though thestate-run Xinhua News Agency has reported a major sale of the drones to aforeign buyer.
Asked if China sold the UAE the Wing Loong II, sales manager Zhao Chuang ofthe China National Aero-Technology Import & Export Corp. only smiled andsaid: “No idea.”
“We are trying to find the world market,” he told The Associated Pressafter his colleagues greeted high-ranking Emirati officials.
General Atomics, which displayed a massive Predator surveillance dronenearby, declined to speak to the AP. However, US lawmakers last year sent aletter to President Donald Trump asking him to allow armed Predator dronesales to both the UAE and Jordan. – Agencies