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Lockheed Martin has been awarded a $3.4bn contract to supply an unspecified number of PAC-3 missiles for the Patriot air-defence systems in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. The contract was announced by the United States Department of Defence on 21 December and will run through to December 2024. It includes associated ground support equipment and spare parts. It is not clear what proportion of the contract relates to each country.

A new chairman was appointed to the Hedeyah Countering Violent Extremism Centre in Abu Dhabi in late February, Abu Dhabi Educational Council (Adec) director general and executive council member for Abu Dhabi Dr Ali Rashid Al-Noaimi. Hedeyah was created out of the Global Counterterrorism Forum (GCTF) and inaugurated in December 2012. Among Hedeyah’s recent initiatives was a 27-28 January meeting organised with the International Institute for Justice and Rule of Law (IIJ) in Valetta, Malta, on the Rehabilitation of Returning Foreign Terrorist Fighters (RFTF) Program. Coping with returnees from jihad is a focus issue for Hedeyah.

US Secretary of State John Kerry and foreign minister Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled Al-Sabah co-chaired the first US-Kuwait Strategic Dialogue on 21 October in Washington. The two sides discussed initiatives to enhance co-operation across a wide range of areas, including defence, security, economic, educational, scientific and consular issues. A series of working groups have been set up ahead of the next strategic dialogue, which is due to take place in Kuwait next year.

King Abdullah: Reaching out in the United States, CP Sultan: Meets Orange prince, Bahraini King, Princes: Marriages, travel, Princes Adila: Healthcare

Prince Mohammed, who during the reign of his father King Saud was a favourite to succeed him, died in early July. Born in the 1930s, he had a long career in government, serving as royal chamberlain and diwan head in the 1950s and defence minister in the early 1960s. He was Baha Province governor for some two decades before stepping down in August 2010 (GSN 884/8, 849/5).

Four companies have submitted bids for Saudi Arabia’s first wind power project, a 400MW scheme in Al-Jouf province. They include the local Acwa Power – which won the kingdom’s first solar power project in February, also in Al-Jouf – as well as France’s EDF and Engie and Italy’s Enel. It remains unclear at this stage when the bids will be opened and a winner announced.

The largest energy investor in Iraqi Kurdistan, Sharjah-based Dana Gas, has begun arbitration proceedings against the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) at the London Court of International Arbitration. Dana and its partners in Iraq say they want to “clarify certain contractual rights”, and recoup more than $1bn in unpaid receivables. The KRG says there are no outstanding receivables and that, in fact, Dana and its affiliates owe Erbil money. Dana’s KRG interests are held via a 40% share of Pearl Petroleum, which is co-owned by Dana’s main shareholder, Crescent Petroleum (40%), OMV Upstream International (10%) and MOL Hungarian Oil and Gas (10%).


Qatar cemented its growing relationship with Beijing with a two-day visit to China by Emir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani on 3-4 November, during which numerous agreements were signed (see Royals). While there, Sheikh Tamim met at least four of the seven members of the Communist Party’s Politburo standing committee, the centre of power in China, including the president, Xi Jinping, and the prime minister, Li Keqiang, suggesting China places considerable value on its relationship with Qatar.The main economic outcome of the visit was a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between Qatar Central Bank (QNB) and its counterpart, the People’s Bank of China, on establishing clearing and settlement in Qatar for Chinese renminbi.

The authorities have been trying to shore up confidence in the local stock market, with a $100m fund recently launched to provide stability to the Bahrain Bourse. The seed investors in the fund include local banks BBK and National Bank of Bahrain, Bahrain Mumtalakat Holding Company and Osool, the investment arm of the Social Insurance Organisation and Military Pension Fund.

The United States’ sanctions against Iran appear to be hardening views inside the Islamic Republic, according to a new survey of public opinion by IranPoll. Some 76% of those polled (by telephone among a representative sample of 1,017 Iranians from 4-12 December) now think it is “very important” for Iran to develop missiles, up from 74% in January 2018. A further 20% think it is “somewhat important” to do so. Sanctions are doing nothing to change minds about the country’s nuclear power programme.

With the 31 August deadline looming for the withdrawal of US combat forces in Iraq, GSN has visited locations across the country to conduct a wide-ranging assessment of the security situation and the likely impact of withdrawal. We asked what the drawdown would mean on the ground and whether the Iraqi Security Forces will cope.

Following on from UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s fence-mending visit to the UAE last November, Queen Elizabeth II has invited UAE President Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan to pay a state visit to the UK from 30 April to 1 May. Sheikh Khalifa will stay at Windsor Castle. Queen Elizabeth and her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, last paid a state visit to the UAE in 2010, at Sheikh Khalifa’s invitation. The late Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al-Nahyan made a state visit to Britain in 1989.

Ten people have been killed in clashes between northern Houthi rebels and government-allied tribesmen

Output slipped for Norway’s DNO International in Yemen during October, as three wells were temporarily shut after the failure of electric submersible pumps on Block 53.