ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Abu Dhabi’s defenses on Friday engaged missile and drone threats, the country’s defense ministry reported, days after the United Arab Emirates (UAE) was targeted with around two dozen projectiles launched by Iran and amid increasingly sharp rhetoric exchanged between the two sides.
“UAE Air Defences systems are actively engaging with missiles and UAV threats,” the ministry said in a brief statement, informing residents that “the sounds heard across the country are the result of ongoing engaging operations.”
The development comes days after Abu Dhabi earlier this week said it reserves “its full and legitimate right to respond” to Iran’s renewed “treacherous aggression,” following multiple Iranian drone and missile attacks that “struck civilian infrastructure,” injuring at least three foreign nationals and causing material damage.
The attacks constitute a “dangerous escalation and unacceptable aggression” and “a direct threat” to the security and stability of the United Arab Emirates, the statement said, stressing the need “to ensure full commitment to ending all hostile acts.”
Meanwhile, the state-run Emirates News Agency (WAM) reported on Monday that a twin-drone “Iranian terrorist attack” targeted a vessel affiliated with the state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Company while transiting the Strait of Hormuz, with no injuries reported.
Interestingly,Iran’s foreign ministry on Wednesday rejected the UAE’s “allegations” that Tehran had launched drone and missile attacks against its territories as “incorrect,” stressing that “the defensive actions of Iran’s armed forces have been solely aimed at repelling the aggression of the Americans.”
The statement further accused “officials in Abu Dhabi” of “engaging in evident cooperation with the aggressive American side and threats against Iran’s national security and interests,” particularly through support for US maritime operations targeting Iranian ports near the Strait of Hormuz.
However, the Emirati foreign ministry was quick to condemned “in the strongest terms” the statement issued by its Iranian counterpart, asserting that “the UAE’s international relations and defence partnerships are an exclusively sovereign matter, and no party has the right to use them as a pretext for threats, interference, or incitement.”
Abu Dhabi further reiterated that it “reserves its full sovereign, legal, diplomatic, and military rights to address any threat, allegation, or hostile act,” adding that “attempts at coercion, leveling accusations, or promoting malicious claims will not undermine the UAE’s principled positions, nor deter the country from safeguarding its supreme national interests and upholding its sovereignty and independent decision-making.”