Early Friday (May 8), the United Arab Emirates thwarted another Iranian missile and drone attack despite the current ceasefire between the United States and Iran.

The United Arab Emirates' Ministry of Defense advised residents not to approach, photograph or touch "any debris or fragments that have fallen as a result of successful air interceptions."

Earlier this week, Mohamed Abushahab, the United Arab Emirates' UN ambassador in Washington, accused Tehran of targeting the Emirati Fujairah oil industry zone with 12 ballistic missiles, three cruise missiles and four drones. Iran's military denied the allegations.

Even if disputed, the allegations reflect the broader perception in Abu Dhabi that the UAE has increasingly been a target of Iranian attacks with more than 2,800 drone and missile strikes since the United States and Israel began the war in Iran in late February.

UAE ties with the US and Israel

In 2020, the US brokered diplomatic ties between the UAE and Israel, dubbed the Abraham Accords.

"The UAE's relationship to Israel is one of Iran's key reasons to keep striking the UAE as kind of punishment," Michael Stephens, senior Middle East security advisor at the London-based Royal United Services Institute, RUSI, told DW.

"In Iran's view, it is like we've been hit hard by Israel, so we're going to hit Israel's friends," he said.

However, in response to the Iranian attacks, the UAE intensified military, security and intelligence cooperation with Israel. According to a reportby the US news platform Axios, Israel sent its Iron Dome air defense system as well as operating personnel to the UAE for the first time.

"The closer the UAE and Israel get, the more reason Iran sees to target the UAE," Stephens said, adding that decades of dispute over the Abu Musa and Tunb islands — which Iran controls but the UAE also claims — have deepened tensions between the two neighboring countries.

Following Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz which blocks oil exports of Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar and curbs those of Oman, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, it was also Abu Dhabi that called not only for the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, but for stronger international action.

Emirati officials have also been criticizing Tehran more harshly than most of the other targeted Gulf countries, like Saudi Arabia, Oman or Qatar. "Also, this positioned them closer to the US and Israel," Stephens observed.

Cinzia Bianco, a Gulf analyst at the European Council on Foreign Relations who is currently in the UAE, argues that Tehran wants to inflict enough pain on the UAE to pressure it into urging US President Donald Trump to halt the military campaign on its behalf.

"Only, the Iranian hostilities pushed them in the opposite direction, so it was incredibly misguided," she told DW.

Meanwhile, the Iranian attacks have taken on an existential dimension for the UAE, Bianco notes.

"UAE officials tell me that Iran is seeking to undermine the country's core model, which is built on the idea that the Gulf can remain safe and highly prosperous despite regional instability," she said.

UAE's diverging course

Over the past years, the UAE has increasingly aligned its foreign policy with plans to diversify from oil and turn into a regional hub for digital infrastructure, tourism, business and investment, dubbed UAE 2031.

It has also pursued policies  that differ from those of its much larger neighbor, Saudi Arabia. While the UAE and Bahrain normalized ties with Israel, Saudi Arabia suspended normalization talks following the Hamas terror attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023, and the ensuing two-year war in Gaza.

On May 1, the UAE also left the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and the wider OPEC+ alliance, which remains dominated by Saudi Arabia, the group's largest oil exporter.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE are also backing opposing sides across multiple conflicts in Africa.

"The United Arab Emirates has become one of the most aggressive external actors in African conflicts," says Wolfram Lacher, senior associate Africa and Middle East at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.

In recent years, it has been involved in Libya and Ethiopia, and currently most prominently in Sudan, Somalia and Yemen, he told DW.

"This is essential for the UAE because these corridors ensure long-term access to strategic resources and trade routes," a recent analysis, which was co-authored by Lacher on the think tank's website, states. "Military interventions can therefore be seen as a tool for safeguarding these economic interests," it concludes.

However, there are rarely any Emirati boots on the ground.

"A defining feature of Emirati engagement is its limited deployment of its own military forces but projecting influence through local partners, often non-state armed actors such as Khalifa Haftar in Libya and the leader of Sudan's Rapid Support Forces, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti," Lacher said.

He added that the UAE also funds and provides military equipment to foreign fighters and mercenaries, including Sudanese combatants in Libya and, more recently, Colombian mercenaries in Sudan.

Emirati officials consistently deny involvement in these activities. "But the available evidence is substantial," Lacher said.

Edited by: Rob Mudge