{"id":814,"date":"2020-12-02T22:09:09","date_gmt":"2020-12-02T22:09:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=131049"},"modified":"2020-12-02T22:09:09","modified_gmt":"2020-12-02T22:09:09","slug":"arms-sale-to-uae-goes-forward-even-as-u-s-probes-tie-between-uae-and-russian-mercenaries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2020\/12\/02\/arms-sale-to-uae-goes-forward-even-as-u-s-probes-tie-between-uae-and-russian-mercenaries\/","title":{"rendered":"Arms Sale to UAE Goes Forward Even as U.S. Probes Tie Between UAE and Russian Mercenaries"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Early this summer,<\/u> U.S. intelligence agencies received reports indicating that one of the U.S.\u2019s closest Middle Eastern partners had signed a collaborative agreement with a sanctioned Russian mercenary group operating in Libya, according to a current U.S. intelligence official and two former officials with knowledge of the matter.<\/p>\n

U.S. intelligence agencies have been looking into whether the United Arab Emirates is helping to finance the Libya operations of the Russian Wagner Group. Both the UAE and Wagner have intervened to support Libyan strongman Khalifa Haftar, who has tried to overrun the United Nations-backed government in Tripoli.<\/p>\n

But the intelligence reporting, according to current and former officials, has done nothing to slow U.S. arms sales down to the Gulf country. The Trump administration is seeking congressional approval of an unprecedented $23 billion<\/a> sale of weapons to the UAE, including of some of the U.S.\u2019s most advanced military technology, like the F-35 fighter and MQ-9 Reaper drones. If it goes forward, the sale will shift the long-term balance of power in the region.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The intelligence community\u2019s effort was hinted at in a report<\/a> to Congress last week by the Pentagon\u2019s inspector general. The report said that although the Defense Intelligence Agency\u2019s reporting on the Wagner Group\u2019s financing in Libya is \u201cambiguous,\u201d the DIA has nonetheless \u201cassessed that the United Arab Emirates may provide some financing for the group\u2019s operations.\u201d This detail in the inspector general\u2019s report, which was first surfaced by Foreign Policy<\/a>, does not mention when or how U.S. military intelligence reached that assessment.<\/p>\n

Although outside analysts have long suspected coordination between the UAE and Russia in Libya, interviews with current and former officials, as well as the inspector general\u2019s report, demonstrate that the U.S. intelligence community is probing ties between one of the U.S.\u2019s largest weapons clients and a mercenary company the U.S. State Department has called<\/a> a \u201cproxy force\u201d for the Russian Ministry of Defense. The officials all spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence matters.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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A former senior U.S. official said that the intelligence about the agreement between the UAE and Wagner included financial assistance.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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One current official told The Intercept that U.S. intelligence reporting early this summer indicated that the UAE had signed an agreement similar to a \u201cmemorandum of understanding\u201d with Wagner, which many suspected of including direct financial support.<\/p>\n

A former senior U.S. official told The Intercept that the intelligence about the agreement between the UAE and Wagner included financial assistance.<\/p>\n

After the report was circulated to U.S. intelligence agencies, the CIA informed at least one European ally that it believed the UAE was bankrolling at least some of Wagner\u2019s forces in Libya, according to a third source, a former senior US intelligence official.<\/p>\n

The UAE is one of the U.S. military\u2019s closest partners in the Middle East and is seen, despite its relatively small size, as a rising military power in the region. But the country\u2019s support for military dictatorships, like the regime in Egypt, as well as its increasing ties to Russia and China, have caused some in Washington to view it is a problematic ally. The country nonetheless remains one of America\u2019s largest arms customers, having bought billions of dollars\u2019<\/a> worth of weapons from U.S. manufacturers in the past decade.<\/p>\n

Neither the DIA nor U.S. Africa Command provided comment before publication. Spokespersons for the UAE Embassy did not respond to multiple requests for comment. A spokesperson for the CIA declined to comment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The massive arms sale the Trump administration is pursuing appears to have come in response to the UAE\u2019s normalization of diplomatic relations with Israel. Many congressional Democrats will try to block the sale.<\/p>\n

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., a frequent critic of arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the UAE, tweeted<\/a> on Monday that a classified briefing on the sale raised a \u201cmind blowing number of unsettled issues and questions the Administration couldn\u2019t answer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Libya has been<\/u> engulfed in civil war for much of the past decade, since a U.S.-led NATO intervention helped topple longtime dictator Muammar Gaddafi. But what emerged was a fragile balance of power among increasingly armed groups, and another civil war broke out in 2014.<\/p>\n

The so-called Wagner Group \u2014 which entered the conflict in 2019 \u2014 is a collection of private mercenary companies that are equipped and closely linked with Russian military intelligence, and several of its entities have been sanctioned for work on behalf of Russia. It has allowed Russia to cultivate a military foothold in Libya with a degree of deniability.<\/p>\n

A U.N. panel of experts has documented the repeated violations of the U.N. arms embargo on Libya, citing countries supporting both sides of the conflict. Both Wagner and the UAE, as well as Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, have thrown their support in Libya behind the self-described \u201cLibyan National Army,\u201d backing Haftar in the east, as Turkey and Qatar have supported the Tripoli government. Analysts have long observed what appears to be close operational coordination between the Russians on the ground and Emiratis supporting Haftar.<\/p>\n

Wolfram Lacher, a Libya researcher at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, told The Intercept that last year, Russian mercenaries at times appeared to be acting as ground forces while the UAE, which does not have a large army, operated drones and fighters.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Last year, Russian mercenaries at times appeared to be acting as ground forces while the UAE, which does not have a large army, operated drones and fighters.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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\u201cThere was clearly also a coordinating role between [Russian mercenaries] and the Emirati drones,\u201d Lacher said. \u201cFor the entire autumn until early 2020, the Emiratis were the only ones flying drones and fighter jets around Tripoli. And meanwhile on the ground, the Wagner guys were really pushing forward. They were the ones leading the push forward towards the center of Tripoli. \u2026 They made that progress aided by Emirati drones. So clearly there was coordination.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the U.S. military has remained mostly on the sidelines of the Libyan conflict but recently issued a number of sharp condemnations of Wagner for its activities in Libya. AFRICOM, which estimates some 2,000 Russian mercenaries are among the foreign fighters in the country, released aerial imagery<\/a> purportedly showing them moving military hardware into Libya.<\/p>\n

And, as Wagner and the Libyan National Army withdrew from Tripoli this summer, AFRICOM accused<\/a> the Russian mercenaries of rigging mines and other explosive devices in Tripoli neighborhoods. Wagner, a Navy admiral said, was responsible for the \u201creckless use of landmines and booby traps,\u201d which were \u201charming innocent civilians.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lacher said that the international presence in the country \u2014 particularly from the Russians and from Turkey, who is supporting the Tripoli government \u2014 would be difficult to reverse.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe covert Russian intervention was a consequence of Emirati adventurism in Libya, the Turkish intervention was a reaction to it,\u201d Lacher wrote in an email. \u201cBut now that they\u2019re there, Russia and Turkey appear to be establishing themselves for the long term in Libya. And it\u2019s not clear to what extent the Russian presence now still serves Emirati aims, and to what extent it now primarily serves Russian interests.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

This post was originally published on Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Early this summer, U.S. intelligence agencies received reports indicating that one of the U.S.\u2019s closest Middle Eastern partners had signed a collaborative agreement with a sanctioned Russian mercenary\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[383,4,340],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=814"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":815,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814\/revisions\/815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}