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Iran has assured Kuwait it will not try to close the Strait of Hormuz, according to Kuwait’s Emir Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmed Al Jaber Al Sabah.

Like Saudi Arabia, the UAE has acted to counter purported Iranian influence in Yemen’s Houthi uprising.

As GSN has long reported, the UAE has an unparalleled record in the region as a force contributor to international military missions (GSN 906/1, 811/5). The UAE undertook ambitious peacekeeping operations relatively soon after the federation was formed.

The Syrian crisis is providing another arena for increasingly aggressive covert operations campaigns in the region, which have drawn both on subsidised proxies and on the Gulf’s fast-developing special forces capabilities. GSN analyses the GCC’s revived taste for covert activity

Saudi Arabia’s covert operations have been mostly focused in Yemen, a country that some US observers term ‘Saudi Arabia’s Mexico’. In the 1960s, Saudi Arabia bankrolled the north Yemen civil war, a long-running royalist guerrilla war against the new Egyptian-backed Yemeni Arab Republic that inflicted just under 100,000 Egyptian fatalities in eight years.

The situation in Iraq has deteriorated considerably following the 18 December withdrawal of the last US combat forces. Major attacks have killed hundreds of people and raised fears of a return to the sectarian strife that ripped through the country in 2006 and 2007.

The Royal Saudi Air Force (RSAF) has formally put into service the first new-generation Airbus Military A330 multi-role tanker transport (MRTT). Deputy defence minister Prince Khalid Bin Sultan Bin Abdelaziz led a dedication ceremony at Riyadh airbase on 25 February, and said the plane would be deployed to refuel RSAF F-15s, Tornados and Typhoons, and serve as a passenger and light payload carrier.

As Riyadh takes a tough line on Syria, GSN reviews Saudi foreign policy as a whole in the wake of the Arab Spring. Despite widespread suggestions of a pattern of counter-revolutionism, many analysts agree that decisions continue to be more reactionary than strategic, and largely driven by the battle with Iran for regional supremacy

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) announced on 19 February, that Tariq Al Dhahab – the man who briefly took control of the town of Radaa in January – had died. According to newspaper reports, Dhahab was killed by his half-brother, Hizam Al Dhahab, who was subsequently killed himself, apparently when another brother, Qaid, blew up their father’s former home, in which Hizam was hiding.

A tougher US stance on Hormuz may usher in a period of greater risk – especially if mounting economic pressures make Iran feel it has little to lose by picking a fight at sea. The USS Abraham Lincoln, one of the US Navy’s flagship aircraft carriers, left the Gulf on 14 February following a 20-day “freedom of navigation” exercise.

Ever-prominent in regional diplomacy, Qatar has also encouraged dialogue with Tehran. State minister for foreign affairs Khalid Bin Mohammed Al Attiyah told the Munich Security Conference on 5 February that tightening sanctions would aggravate the situation.

UK talks to Saudi Arabia and Oman; France looks to UAE

Sultan Qaboos Bin Said Al Said gave a rare interview to the western media in late January, choosing Fox News to put forward his message that Iran is far from seeking war with Washington. Qaboos has given occasional interviews to Kuwaiti media in the past decade but, according to Fox News, his four-hour discussion with journalist Judith Miller was the first in-depth interview with a US reporter since 1997.

Bahrain was rocked by protests in February and March last year, an uprising largely crushed by security forces and troops. Following the unrest, a report by the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI) concluded human rights abuses had taken place, including the torture of many of those detained for taking part in protests.

Amid all the talk of war on Iran, it is worth noting that Israeli deputy foreign minister Daniel Ayalon took the time last week to distance his country from any notion of imminent conflict.