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The UAE plans to introduce compulsory military service for all males aged 18-30. The cabinet endorsed a draft federal law to that effect on 19 January and has submitted it to the National Federal Council (FNC); the length of service is to be set at two years for those who have not completed high school, and nine months for those who have. National service will be optional for women. The news came as a surprise, though it has been several years in the making. One source noted that, a couple of years ago, an official delegation went to visit army recruitment centres in Switzerland to look at how the Swiss ran their programme

Widening their scope of operations, Somali pirates are posing an ever greater challenge to regional governments. While energy producers are rethinking their export strategies, governments are concerned that the Horn of Africa’s instability will encroach on the Gulf region’s southern flank. Yemen is especially vulnerable as the collapse of export revenues piles further pressure on President Saleh. GSN analyses developments in the Gulf of Aden, Somalia and Yemen, and talks exclusively to the Southern Movement’s new figurehead Ali Salem Al-Baydh.

Gulf Co-operation Council countries began the Gulf Security 1 exercise on 26 October in Prince Naif Security City, Bahrain. The drill is a collaboration by GCC interior ministries and is intended to improve preparedness for security events and to develop co-operation and co-ordination between the GCC member states’ forces.

Michigan-based General Dynamics Land System has been awarded a $187.5m contract to upgrade 44 M1A1 Abrams tanks and 40 M1A2-model Abrams tanks for Saudi Arabia, according to the Pentagon. The company said the new contract would continue work started in 2008 to update the tanks to the M1A2S configuration, which will increase their efficiency and capability. The work will be carried out in Lima, Ohio, with an estimated completion date of March 2015.

Heavy fighting was reported as Emirati and forces loyal to President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi tried to reclaim control of the Bab Al-Mandeb strait and restrict arms transfers and other flows to Houthi forces in northern Yemen. Substantial Houthi deaths were reported, but analysts also suggested that UAE and other deaths might also emerge. GSN understands the offensive was supported by western strategic planners. The offensive forms part of the Golden Spear operation launched by the Saudi-led coalition and Hadi’s government to drive Houthi/General People’s Party (GPC) forces from the western coast, starting from the Bab Al-Mandab and extending to Red Sea ports Mokha and Hudaida.

The UAE said it had taken part in a series of airstrikes against Islamic State targets on 10 February, signalling its return to the campaign. Abu Dhabi is understood to have suspended its participation in the US-led air campaign in December, after Jordanian pilot Muath Al-Kasasbeh was captured by extremists when his F-16 crashed over north-eastern Syria, wanting Washington to guarantee better search-and-rescue efforts. News that Al-Kasasbeh had been burned alive by the extremists emerged in early February.

The blame game began within hours of Sunni extremists taking Mosul (see page 1). Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki blamed members of the army for deserting, saying the seizure of the city was a “conspiracy”. Saudi Arabia blamed Iranian-backed Maliki, with information minister Abdelaziz Bin Mohieddin Khoja saying: “This would not have arisen were it not for the sectarian and exclusionary policies practised in Iraq over the past years”. Former British prime minister Tony Blair blamed the civil war in Syria (and definitely not the 2003 invasion of Iraq of which he was a primary architect). Writing in The Wall Street Journal on 15 June, L Paul Bremer, the former US governor of Iraq, tried to pin it on US President Barack Obama, who, he said, pulled US forces out of Iraq too soon.

UAE links to the eastern-based Libyan National Army (LNA) led by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar have again been on display, with the commissioning of a new flagship for the LNA’s navy. The LNA General Command released a video showing the Al-Karama (Dignity) vessel arriving in Benghazi port on 17 May, where it was received by chief of staff of the LNA’s naval forces Major General Faraj Mahdawi, director of its Armed Forces Procurement Department Major General Abdullah Aoun and others.

Singapore Technologies (ST) Marine has handed over the fourth Al-Ofouq class patrol vessel designed and built for the Royal Navy of Oman. The RNOV Khassab is the final part of an order awarded by the Ministry of Defence in April 2012, the largest defence export contract in the Singapore firm’s history. The boats replace the Sultanate’s four Seeb class patrol vessels, which were commissioned in the early 1980s. The Al-Ofouq is 75m in length, can accommodate 60 crew and is equipped with a flight deck for a medium lift-helicopter.

BAE Systems, in partnership with the US’ Anniston Army Depot (ANAD), has won a contract worth more than $31m to refurbish 440 M113A2 armoured personnel carriers for Iraq.

In an effort to counter Yemen’s reputation as the world’s most heavily armed country on a per capita basis, the Ministry of Interior on 15 April said the authorities had confiscated more than 600,000 weapons since August 2008

Doha is to upgrade its air defences at an estimated cost of $197m. The United States Defense Security Co-operation Agency notified Congress of the deal on 7 March. It includes equipment and software to improve air defence planning at the Qatar Emiri Air Force air operation centre and will provide US-Qatari systems interoperability. The main supplier is Raytheon. The US State Department said the equipment will strengthen Qatar’s capability to counter current and future threats in the region and reduce its dependence on US forces.

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has denied reports that it was the group holding British oil worker Douglas Robert Semple, who authorities in Abu Dhabi and London on 23 August said had been rescued by UAE forces in a military operation in Yemen. UAE state news agency WAM said 64-year-old Semple was rescued after being kidnapped 18 months earlier while working in Hadhramaut province, south-eastern Yemen.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE have threatened to ban certain encrypted features of Canadian company Research In Motion (RIM)’s BlackBerry mobile phones because they hinder efforts to counter terrorism and crime, the two countries argue.

In early May King Abdullah issued a decree officially appointing Dakheel Allah Bin Ahmed Bin Mohammed Al-Waqdani as commander of Naval Forces.