‘I love UAE’ message appears near mysterious runway on Red Sea island
A mysterious runway on a tiny island guarding the entrance to the Red Sea has appeared with “I love UAE” next to it in giant letters seen from space.
No country has publicly claimed the construction taking place on Abd al-Kuri island, a Yemeni stretch of land rising out of the Indian Ocean near the mouth of the Gulf of Aden.
However, satellite images show workers have spelt out “I love UAE” with piles of dirt next to the runway, using an abbreviation for the United Arab Emirates.
It comes as Yemen’s Houthi rebels continue to target ships in a Mideast waterway, which has become a key chokepoint. Both the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea to which it leads have become an international battleground.
A runway could potentially allow a nation to project its power into the area.
The construction comes as the presence of troops from the Emirates in the Socotra island chain to which Abd al-Kuri belongs has sparked clashes in the past.
The United Arab Emirates said on Thursday that “any presence of the UAE on Socotra island is based on humanitarian grounds that is carried out in cooperation with the Yemeni government and local authorities”.
“The UAE remains steadfast in its commitment to all international endeavors aimed at facilitating the resumption of the Yemeni political process, thereby advancing the security, stability, and prosperity sought by the Yemeni populace,” it added, without elaborating.
The Yemeni embassy in Washington and Saudi Arabia, which leads a coalition fighting the Houthis, did not respond to questions.
Abd al-Kuri is about 21 miles (35km) in length and about 3 miles (5km) at its widest point. It sits closer to the Horn of Africa than it does to Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest nation, which has been at war for years.
Along that widest point sits the airstrip construction. Satellite photos from Planet Labs PBC analysed by the Associated Press (AP) showed trucks and other vehicles grading the runway on March 11. Images of the site from Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday showed vehicles in different positions and active work being done there, possibly including paving the site.
The runway, running north to south, measures 1.8 miles (3km). A runway of that length could accommodate attack, surveillance and transport aircraft, even some of the heaviest bombers.
Construction initially could be seen in the area in January 2022, with a diagonal, shorter runway being carved out of the sand, according to Planet Labs imagery. The first signs of construction of the longer north-south runway were in July 2022, but work was halted.
This month, there’s been increased activity on the island, including construction at the northern edge of the runway, close to the water, and the movement of heavy vehicles.
That work corresponds with a report last week by Abu Dhabi’s state-linked broadcaster Sky News Arabia, which claimed to quote an anonymous US defence official as saying America had “strengthened our missile defenses on Socotra Island” in anticipation of the rebels attacking US bases. Socotra is the main island of the Socotra chain, about 130km from Abd al-Kuri.
The US military told the AP it was not involved in the construction on Abd al-Kuri, nor was there any American “military presence” elsewhere in Yemen. US special forces have launched raids in the past in Yemen, while a two-decade American drone strike campaign has targeted the country’s al-Qaeda affiliate.
There also weren’t any air defence batteries immediately discernible around the Abd al-Kuri island site in satellite imagery. However, what appear to be piles of dirt at the site had been arranged to spell “I love UAE” just east of the runway.
Long been a strategic port
The island of Socotra, a UNESCO World Heritage site home to the rare Dragon Blood tree, has long been a strategic port given its location on a key East-West trade route from Asia and the Middle East to Europe. The Soviet Union once used Socotra as an anchorage for both its surface fleet and submarines when South Yemen, a Communist nation based in Aden, ruled the island from 1967 until 1990.
The island since has felt far removed from the chaos that has gripped Yemen in the decades since. A Saudi-led coalition that includes the UAE entered the Yemen war in 2015 on behalf of the country’s exiled government and has been caught in a grinding, nearly decade-long conflict since.
In 2018, the UAE deployed troops to Socotra island, sparking a dispute with Yemen’s exiled government. Two years later, clashes broke out between Yemeni separatists backed by the UAE and other forces there.
Meanwhile, Iranian-linked media and the Houthis have alleged, without providing evidence, that the Emiratis allowed Israel to operate from Socotra. Israel has not acknowledged any presence there, and the Israeli prime minister’s office declined to comment.
