The explosion echoed across Dubai Marina, making the windows of nearby towers and luxury hotels shudder with a startling tremor.
“That sounded close – do you think a missile hit something?” a young man asked his companion while they sipped coffee. Moments earlier, every mobile in the area had blared a shrill alarm, now a routine warning for Gulf residents of missile and drone threats. Patrons barely glanced upward.
A second alert followed shortly. The United Arab Emirates’ air‑defence network and fighter jets reported intercepting “ballistic missiles … drones and loitering munitions,” and for the moment Dubai was declared safe. Video from the previous night showed the systems in action, a drone engulfed in flame above the city’s convention centre, its wreckage falling like fireworks.
For the past twenty days, since the United States and Israel began striking Iran, the Gulf states have endured a relentless stream of thousands of Iranian drones and missiles aimed at airports, hotels, ports, military bases, financial districts, data centres and residential blocks. The campaign has constituted a massive assault on their sovereignty, security and economies – in Dubai, it shattered a vital perception of safety and opulence. To date the Gulf nations have responded only defensively, allocating billions to interceptor programmes that have downed roughly ninety percent of the Iranian projectiles.
The chief aim of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) – the political bloc of the Gulf countries – has been to keep the region out of a conflict that is not theirs, a goal they have pursued with great urgency.
Nevertheless, recent days have seen rising anxiety that the Middle‑East war is moving into a more perilous phase, one that threatens the very existence of the Gulf states and is prompting calls for retaliation. After Israel struck Iran’s South Pars gas field – the first direct hit on its fossil‑fuel output since the war began – Tehran pledged to exercise “zero restraint” in striking energy infrastructure in the Gulf, its nearest and most accessible target.
Iran has kept that promise. In Qatar, nearly one‑fifth of its liquefied natural gas export capacity was disabled by a strike on the Ras Laffan complex. Authorities in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, were forced to halt operations at the Habshan gas plant and Bab field, labeling the attacks a “dangerous escalation.” Kuwait’s state oil company, KPC, reported that its Mina al‑Ahmadi refinery suffered multiple drone assaults early on Friday, while Saudi Arabia said two of its refineries were hit.
At the same time, Iran has persisted in blocking the Strait of Hormuz, the main conduit for the Gulf’s oil and gas exports to the world.
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