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Despite the hype, project Gulf Union made little progress at the 14 May summit of the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) in Riyadh (GSN 923/7). Formal greetings, a meeting, lunch – then the bloc’s leaders flew back to their respective capitals

Details have emerged of some more contracts linked to the $60bn US-Saudi arms package agreed in late 2011 and analysed in detail by GSN in September 2011 (GSN 908/7):

The US Army has renewed a contract with DynCorp International to provide support to the Kuwait Air Force’s AH-64D Apache helicopter maintenance programme for 16 AH-64D Apache Block II aircraft. The fixed-price contract has one base year with four, one-year options and a total contract value of $25.4m if all options are exercised, DynCorp said in a statement. The new contract will take over in July from an old one, signed in 2008 and worth $18.3m, a spokeswoman for the company said (GSN 841/7).

After more than two weeks of wrangling and the temporary closure of Sanaa airport, the head of Yemen’s air force, Mohammed Saleh Al Ahmar – a half-brother of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh – stepped down on 24 April, a resignation seen as a major victory for President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi in his attempt to restructure the military

Simpler tactics, softer targets and waves of recruits emerging from US detention have led to a resurgence of Al Qaeda in Iraq, demonstrated by the group’s ability to stage major co-ordinated attacks on an increasingly regular basis

On 16 February, US director of national intelligence James Clapper told the Senate Armed Services Committee there were signs Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) fighters may already be fighting in Syria. There is growing evidence to support this view, and growing concern that the conflict in Syria could merge with violence in Iraq to form a single, transnational conflict zone reaching from the Iranian border to the eastern Mediterranean.

Sweden’s defence minister quit last week after outcry at government plans to help Saudi Arabia build a weapons plant. Swedish outrage at the idea of signing military agreements with undemocratic countries is admirable; British and US newspapers have also recently decried massive arms deals to the Gulf. But arguably, the provenance of weapons – while important to the domestic politics of source countries – is only a sideshow.

There appears to have been a rise in Al-Qaeda activity in Yemen since Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi became president in February (GSN 918/1). Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and the related Ansar Al-Sharia group have claimed responsibility for a number of major attacks, and seem to have expanded their operating arena.

Saudi Arabia has taken a strong line on Syria, publicly expressing support for arming opponents of President Bashar Al-Assad. While there is no indication Riyadh is arming the Free Syrian Army (FSA), sources in the private security industry say charter flights carrying Saudi-funded communications equipment have already headed to Turkey, where the FSA is said to be training.

Summary The US has been talking up Iranian involvement in Yemen, suggesting Tehran is involved not only in the northern conflict between Houthis and Salafis, but also in the southern separatist movement – a view many analysts approach with caution, saying support is most likely to be in the form of money or influence, rather than military.

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.

The US Department of Defence has announced the details of Boeing’s $11.4 contract to provide new F-15 advanced aircraft to Saudi Arabia, part of the US-Saudi $60bn arms package agreed in late 2011 and analysed in detail by GSN in September (GSN 908/8).

Reporters Without Borders has labelled Iran, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia ‘Internet Enemies’ due to their increasingly sophisticated methods of muting online dissent; crackdowns in the UAE have also made it a country to watch

For many western observers, the role of UAE and Qatari special forces in Libya was an eye-opener. Both countries acted on their deep-seated grudges against the Qadhafi regime and used their fledgling military capabilities to great effect.