UAE Funding Former Dictator’s Son for Coup in Yemen

The UAE is supporting and financing the son of former Yemeni dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh to help him gather support from his country’s army men for staging a coup plot through heightened tensions in the Arab nation.
“Ahmad Ali, the son of Ali Abdullah Saleh, is leading a militant group in Yemen which carries out violent acts in the country,” informed Yemeni sources who called for anonymity told FNA on Wednesday.

According to the sources, Saleh’s son, who ran the country’s security body and part of the army during the rule of his father and even a few months after Saleh’s fall, is now trying to infiltrate in Yemen’s army by bribing a number of commanders and high-ranking officers.

A Yemeni security official close to the government confirmed the revelations, and said Mohammad Dahlan, an advisor to Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, provides the funds needed for bribing the Yemeni army officers.

The official also said that the militant group headed by Ahmad Ali has even staged an attempted assassination on the life of Yemeni President Abd Rabuh Mansur Hadi to topple the government and re-empower Ali Abdullah Saleh.

“Nearly, a year ago, an armed group was identified which had rented a house near the current Yemeni president’s residence to assassinate him and then it was revealed that Ahmad Ali was the leader of the group,” the security official who called for anonymity told FNA.

Following Qatar and Saudi Arabia, the UAE is the third Persian Gulf Arab state running clandestine operations abroad to change the political trend in those countries which have experienced a revolution in the last two years.

Earlier reports had disclosed that the UAE has offered to pay $250,000 to every Tunisian official who resigns from his or her post in the Islamist government of the Ennahda Party, a move in the chain of the measures taken by Saudi Arabia and and the UAE to push back the tides of Arab Spring by toppling the newly established popular governments in the region.

“Through its communication channels in Tunisia, the UAE has promised the members of Tunisia’s National Constituent Assembly to pay them 400,000 dinars (equal to USD250,000) in case they resign from their posts and membership in the Assembly,” a Tunisian lawmaker, who asked to remain unnamed due to security reasons, told FNA in November.

The legislator said the UAE seeks to repeat the same scenario that was staged against the Ikhwan al-Muslimun (Muslim Brotherhood) government in Egypt to topple the Tunisian government led by the Ennahda Party.

Nasser al-Barahemi, a resigned member of Tunisia’s National Constituent Assembly, also confirmed the above, and said, “The UAE has not sufficed to this and has promised to reinstate those people (who accept to resign their posts in the Constitution Assembly and government) to political posts in future in addition to above-mentioned funds.”

Another Tunisian official had told FNA at the time that the UAE is spending billions of dollars to stage protest rallies against Tunisia’s ruling Ennahda Party and to topple the Arab country’s President, Moncef Marzouki.

The official, who also asked to remain anonymous, told FNA that the United Arab Emirates is making billions of dollars of investment in the form of financial and logistical aids to the Tunisian opposition to help topple the Arab country’s moderate Islamist government which ascended to power through the country’s first democratic elections in decades after popular protests resulted in the fall of long-time dictator Bin Ali.

“The UAE is trying to repeat the scenario of Egypt which resulted in the downfall of the Muslim Brotherhood and President Mohamed Mursi,” the official said on October 26.

He cautioned that the UAE has already supplied the Tunisian opposition forces with huge financial supports.

In late July, the Tunisian security forces arrested two UAE nationals who had secretly met with leaders of Tunisia’s “Tamarod (Rebellion)” movement. The security forces seized large sums of money, documents and booklets from them where they had explained about the techniques for holding protest rallies and staging sit-ins.

The UAE, along with Saudi Arabia, have been regarded as West’s main allies in the Middle-East and they have made efforts and invested large sums to topple the popular governments which have ascended to power through the revolutions which jolted large parts of the Middle-East around three years ago.