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Minister of state for artificial intelligence (since October 2017) Omar Bin Sultan Al-Olama has enlisted in the UAE Armed Forces’ 13th cohort of conscripts for his 16 months’ military service. The freshly shaven-headed minister told his Twitter followers on 12 January he was honoured to enlist and serve the nation, describing it as “the greatest pride of my life.” It is not clear what impact the 29 year-old’s absence from his regular job will make to the federal government’s plans to adopt artificial intelligence.

The past eight months have been unusually busy for counter-terrorism in Saudi Arabia, which has been on a raised level of alert since the increase in terrorist attacks in Yemen in Q1 08.

Wisconsin-based Oshkosh Defense has won a $378m US Department of Defence contract to provide 1,543 medium tactical vehicles for Iraq, Somalia and Cameroon. It has also won a $17.1m contract to sell 54 trailers for carrying tanks and armoured personnel carriers (APCs), along with spare parts and manuals, to Oman, Iraq and Jordan. Each 635NL trailer can carry one M1 Abrams or M60 Patton tank or two M113 armoured APCs.

The UAE’s first batch of conscripts arrived for boot camp on 30 August, with training due to begin the next day. The federation issued a law enforcing national military service on 7 June, following the example of Qatar whose first recruits completed their service later that month. In a statement, chairman of the National and Reserve Service Authority Staff Major General Pilot Sheikh Ahmed Bin Tahnoun Al-Nahyan noted the goal was not just to increase military numbers, but also to inculcate a sense of national pride and responsibility into the citizenry.

Germany has become the second European country in a month to block arms exports to countries involved in the Yemen conflict. The decision was made as part of talks to form a governing coalition between Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) party and the smaller, centre-left Social Democrats (SPD). On 3 January, Norway announced it had suspended arms sales to the UAE following an assessment of the UAE’s involvement in the Yemen conflict; Oslo had already barred sales to Saudi Arabia.

The Saudi armed forces have been carrying out a range of exercises with a wide range of allies near and far over the past few weeks, in the region and as far afield as Europe and Asia. Saudi Royal Special Forces carried out a joint exercise with their counterparts from France on 11 October. The Santol exercise, which took place near the small Pyrenean town of Pamiers, was designed to mimic real-life conditions as closely as possible. Saudi special forces have also been involved in exercises with similar People’s Liberation Army units near the Chinese city of Chengdu.

The security vacuum in Yemen has continued to expand as political factions battle for control of the security forces. Insecurity is plaguing central provinces such as Dhamar, where, on 24 November, deputy governor Abdullah Mayseri was kidnapped, and Taizz, where Mohammed Moneer, a nephew of governor Shawqi Ahmed Hayel, remains in the hands of kidnappers. There have also been a number of violent attacks in Sanaa, including the killing of a Belarussian defence contractor by gunmen on a motorbike on 26 November.

With Islamic State (IS or Daesh) continuing to lose ground in Mosul, the time will soon come when Iraqis can look beyond the destruction wrought by that invidious group and dare to focus instead on the future. They can do so buoyed by some promising signs that things could at last start to move in the right direction. A recent survey of 1,338 Iraqis found they were more optimistic about the country’s direction, not least because of improvements in security and reductions in sectarianism.

The prospect that the Royal Saudi Land Forces might buy hundreds of battle tanks is exciting European manufacturers, despite controversy in Germany over such sales (GSN 911/16, 909/15, 908/9, 904/9).

Security is deteriorating in the southern province of Lahij, which stretches from Bab Al-Mandab almost to the port of Aden. Southern Movement (Al-Hirak) activists in Aden tell GSN that Lahij is rapidly falling into lawlessness as conflict increases between residents and government security forces. Towns such as the provincial capital Al-Houta, formerly known as Lahij, are also suffering spillover from the neighbouring province of Abyan, as elements of Ansar Al-Sharia (AAS), an affiliate of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), move west into Lahij.

Police in Bahrain arrested 29 people in Manama on Friday 21 September, after what the government described as “rioting and vandalism” in the commercial centre of the city.

There have been mass protests in Eastern Province after security forces killed two men in a raid on a house in Awamiyah on 26 September.

Abu Dhabi Police is looking to collaborate with the UK’s West Yorkshire Police on forensics. In a statement on 5 March, the UAE’s interior ministry said Colonel Abdul Rahman Al-Hammadi, head of the Forensic Evidence Department at Abu Dhabi Police, had met West Yorkshire Police chief constable Mark Gilmore in Abu Dhabi, giving him a tour of the department. Gilmore is in charge of the Forensic Labs Co-ordination Committee in the UK.

The test firing of a medium-range ballistic missile by Iran on 1 December drew a predictable round of criticism from the United States and some of its allies. In Washington, secretary of state Mike Pompeo said the test violated United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231 of 2015, which calls on Iran to refrain for eight years from developing ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons.

Emir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani attended the graduation ceremony of 90 officer cadets from the Ahmed Bin Mohamed Military College (ABMMC) on 26 January. Prime minister and interior minister Sheikh Abdullah Bin Nasser Bin Khalifa Al-Thani and several Qatar Armed Forces (QAF) officers attended, as did officers from other military colleges in the region. The cadets came from the QAF, Ministry of Interior, Lekhwiya (internal security), Emiri Guard and state security. They have received training in Qatar, Mongolia, the UK and France; the college worked with Britain’s Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and Kuwait’s Ali Al-Sabah Military Academy.