Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan gives a speech during the
government summit in Dubai (AFP)
Details about a covert security relationship between
Israel and the United Arab Emirates have emerged, revealing
a high-level partnership that has seen an Israeli-owned
company become responsible for protecting the critical
infrastructure of Abu Dhabi.
Emirati authorities, according to well-placed MEE sources
who work closely with the companies involved, have
contracted an Israeli-owned security firm to secure oil and
gas installations in the UAE as well as to set up a globally
unique civil surveillance network in Abu Dhabi that means
“every person is monitored from the moment they leave their
doorstep to the moment they return to it,” according to the
source.
The UAE does not recognise Israel as a state and the two
countries do not officially have any diplomatic or economic
relations, a policy borne out of stated Arab solidarity with
the plight of Palestinians living under Israeli occupation. Revelations
of a security relationship, which analysts have said would require
the prior permission of both countries’ leaderships, will
likely irk citizens of the oil-rich monarchy who are viewed
as overwhelmingly opposed to Israel and its occupation of
the Palestinian territories.
In December, MEE revealed details
of a secret jet being flown between Tel Aviv and Abu Dhabi
by analysing publicly available flight data. At the time it
was not known who was commissioning Swiss airline PrivatAir
to operate the route, although Israeli daily Haaretz hinted that
it may be entrepreneur Mati Kochavi as his security company
Asia Global Technology (AGT)
International was known to be doing business in the UAE.
An MEE business source in Abu Dhabi, who is familiar with
the workings of AGT, said Kochavi is at the heart of Israeli
security trade in the UAE and is the one commissioning the
private jet. The source, who asked to remain anonymous, said
Kochavi has become an “almost constant visitor of Abu
Dhabi”.
Covert business ties between Kochavi and UAE
companies
Kochavi, according to Haaretz,
lives in the United States and made a “fortune” in the
property market before becoming involved in homeland
security after the 11 September 2001 attacks in New York. He
is said to have “forged contacts” within Israel’s military
establishment and in 2013 it was reported that
his AGT digital-based security company was operating on five
continents managing contracts worth $8bn.
After setting up the Swiss-based AGT in 2007 Kochavi won
his first contract with the Abu Dhabi government in 2008.
The AED3bn ($816m) agreement contracted his company to
“protect all the vital facilities within the emirate of Abu
Dhabi” according to a report in
the same year by al-Ittihad, the second largest Arabic
language newspaper published in the UAE.
It was the beginning of a lucrative relationship for AGT
but in order to comply with UAE law they needed local
partners, who have been identified as Advanced Integrated
Systems (AIS) and Advanced Technical Solutions (ATS). The
2008 deal saw the three companies provide “surveillance
cameras, electronic fences and sensors to monitor strategic
infrastructure and oil fields” including securing the UAE's
borders, for Abu Dhabi’s Critical National Infrastructure
Authority (CNIA).
AIS does not have a website, although it posted a profile to
a UAE-based job site that said “traditional defence
technologies cannot meet the overwhelming security needs of
the modern era” while outlining the company’s security
services:
"AIS takes a holistic approach to security, integrating
physical security technologies such as sensors with
information technologies such as databases, software, and
artificial intelligence, while incorporating its operational
expertise throughout.”
ATS describes itself
as “a highly qualified telecommunication solutions provider
with extensive experience and global capabilities,
specialising in turnkey telecom projects for the oil & gas
industry.”
The three-way business partnership has been shrouded in
secrecy – AGT makes no mention of working in the UAE on
their website and AIS have no online platform – but
local UAE press reports have hinted at their working
relationship.
The Dubai-based news site Emirates 24-7 reported in
2008 that AGT had been awarded a contract to protect
“critical assets” in partnership with AIS and a 2011 article from
UAE-based English language newspaper Khaleej Times
referenced a partnership between AIS and ATS.
The two UAE firms, AIS and ATS,
share office space on floor 23 of Sky Tower on al-Reem
Island in Abu Dhabi.
An MEE source in Abu Dhabi, who works in high-level
business and is close to the three companies involved, said
AGT bases its UAE operations out of the AIS offices in Sky
Tower.
Israeli and Emirati leaders have not commented on the
direct trade taking place between the two countries, but
last year, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, the ruler
of Dubai and UAE Prime Minister,saidthat
the Emirates would be willing to trade with Israel if they
made peace with the Palestinians.
“We will do everything with Israel – we will trade with
them and we will welcome them – but sign the peace process,”
he said.
The UAE and Israel have been increasingly viewed as
potential, if not already, regional allies due to both
countries’ opposition to Iran and Hamas.
In spite of the two countries not having official
relations, at least publicly, the AGT, AIS and ATS business
partnership has flourished and now dominates the UAE
homeland security market.
“In the UAE alone we hold 80 percent of the national
security market,” said AIS
chief executive officer Khalfan al-Shamsi after a homeland
security exhibition held in Paris during June 2012.
This market domination has coincided with the advent of
the Arab Spring and while the UAE has avoided the domestic
upheaval seen elsewhere, the uprisings have led to
authorities tightening legislationcovering
online activities and expanding surveillance to an
unprecedented level.
Falcon Eye: the mass surveillance of Abu Dhabi
A key project for the AIS-ATS-AGT tripartite business
partnership was announced with
three deals worth $600m in February 2011 to supply “local
law enforcement agencies with ‘complete holistic solutions
that includes different types of sensors integrated into one
command and control system’.”
Although AGT were not mentioned in the report announcing
the deals, their involvement in the project – known as
“Falcon Eye” – is confirmed by the LinkedIn profile of David
Weeks, a former vice-president of operations at Kochavi’s
company.
The Falcon Eye project is an emirate-wide surveillance
initiative approved by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed
al-Nahyan, who has, according to theNew
York Times, a secret private mercenary army that was
established by Erik Prince, the founder of private security
firm Blackwater.
Few details of the project are publicly available,
although it is mentioned in a brief – using the name “Safe
City” – posted online by
a security company given a reference by AIS and ATS:
“The Abu Dhabi Safe City project enables multiple
governmental agencies to utilise a unified, cost-effective
city platform for an abundance of crucial city functions
including crime prevention, traffic management, and
emergency preparedness. The project infrastructure consists
of high-definition sensors powered by advanced data
processors and analytics, an integrated intelligence and
investigation tools and multiple tailored to various
governmental agencies use.”
A programme manager at AIS, Hassan al-Taffaq, states on
his LinkedInprofilethat
he has worked on the "city-wide CCTB unique project in the
world [sic]" since 2010 and that it had a delivery date of
22 March 2013.
David Weeks, the former vice-president of
operations at AIS and AGT who was employed between August
2006 and July 2008, references the early stages of Falcon
Eye under a list of responsibilities during his time at the
company.
On his profile it says he was “UAE project director of
all contract efforts related to the Abu Dhabi City
Surveillance project” and responsible for the “integration
of over 500 electro-optic systems, cameras, license plate
recognition systems, and command centre.”
His involvement was clearly at the early stages of the
deal, as he left the company in 2008, but since then
Kochavi’s AGT has engaged in research that would appear
useful for Falcon Eye.
AGT lists the
German Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI)
among its partners, as has AIS
in Abu Dhabi, and the Zurich-based company said it has
worked with DFKI to “research around the use of advanced
technologies for high-resolution safety, security products
and Big Data Artificial Intelligence.”
“AGT takes research results from DFKI and other academic
partners and applies them to the business contexts of our
target customers,” it says on its website. “One of our joint
projects applies video analytics research results to the
problem of automatic vehicle tracking; our work has already
produced a usable prototype.”
It is not known if the prototype has been used in AGT’s
Abu Dhabi work – none of the three companies involved
responded to requests for comment – but Kochavi’s approach
to use big data analytics and the Internet of Things is key
to his security solutions approach, according to his
company's website.
“It sounds like Sci-Fi but it is happening today
in Abu Dhabi”
The Internet of Things applies unique identifiers to
objects, or in the case of Abu Dhabi, people to be followed,
and provides large amounts of data on all aspects of an
individual’s movements and activities based on the
surveillance equipment used. Tools for the collection of
data include all manner of devices, from cameras on the
street to smart devices connected to the internet in the
home and beyond.
“There are CCTV cameras on all of Abu Dhabi’s roads, as
well as cameras in every public and commercial facility, all
of which are connected to one central system that in turn is
interfaced with a ‘Big Data Analytics’ operation,” said an
MEE source, close to the Falcon Eye project, who asked to
remain anonymous due to the sensitivity of the issue.
The Internet of Things, according to AGT’s own research,
“generates a tremendous amount of mostly unstructured raw
data that lacks context”, which is where the big data
analytics comes in.
Big data analytics organises unstructured information in
such a way that it identifies patterns in behaviour, so as
to inform authorities about a perceived threat level.
AGT has published a
DIKW pyramid – Data, Information, Knowledge, Wisdom +
Decisions – explaining how “raw data at the bottom of the
pyramid” is filtered to “well-informed decisions at the
top”.
(AGTInternational.com)
MEE’s source close to Falcon Eye said the scale of
surveillance was huge.
“Every person is monitored from the moment they leave
their doorstep to the moment they return to it. Their work,
social and behavioural patterns are recorded, analysed and
archived. It sounds like sci-fi but it is happening today in
Abu Dhabi.”
UAE security has become “hostage to the
Israelis”
Although Kochavi’s AGT has been doing business as a
private company in Abu Dhabi, political analysts have
previously told MEE that trade must be approved by both
Israeli and Emirati leadership.
“The relationship is high-level and the business has to
be done with the blessing and participation of state actors
but, of course, nobody admits this,” said Yitzhak
Gal, professor of political economy at Tel Aviv University.
UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan
is known to have had, in the past, “good personal relations”
with former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, according
to a 2009 leaked diplomatic
cable from Wikileaks.
Israeli authorities have allowed the trade to pass freely
with the UAE, although their refusal to allow a shipment of
drones to be delivered to Abu Dhabi in 2011 has led to a
protracted financial dispute between AGT and Emirati
authorities.
Abu Dhabi had paid a $70m advance for the drones,
according to a 2012 Intelligence Online report,
but the sales and export department at Israel’s defence
ministry blocked the deal.
MEE’s Abu Dhabi-based business source said Israeli
authorities barred the deal from being delivered because it
would pose a threat to Israeli national security if the
“sensitive technical know-how were to be leaked to other
parties”.
The source said the financial dispute is ongoing and has
led to staff cuts at one of Kochavi’s other companies, which
has played a key role in providing the equipment for AGT’s
work in Abu Dhabi.
Logic Industries, which produces security software, was
established by Kochavi in 2006 and operates out of Kibbutz
Yakum in Israel. Amos
Malka, a retired Israeli army officer who served as head
of the country’s intelligence between 1998 and 2001, is
Logic’s chairperson and MEE sources said “a group of retired
senior Israeli army and intelligence officers” hold a
plethora of key positions at the company.
It was revealed by
Haaretz on 9 February that Logic will fire 250 of its 600
workforce “at the behest of a major client from the Gulf”.
Military censorship in Israel, which allows for the barring
of articles deemed damaging to national security, likely
prevented the newspaper from naming Abu Dhabi as the client.
The company told Haaretz the staff layoffs were down to
“a key project […] reaching its conclusion during the course
of the year and that the company was adjusting its staffing
accordingly”. The report said “the contract with the key
customer (believed to be Abu Dhabi) will be moved from Logic
to AGT” and that the Swiss-based company will hire new staff
to replace the sacked Israelis.
While the financial dispute has imperilled AGT’s business
in Abu Dhabi, MEE’s source said “the contract is too big and
too far down the line to be scrapped”.
“Getting out of the deal (for the UAE) will be difficult,
if not impossible. Security in the UAE has become hostage to
the Israelis.”
The UAE and Israeli embassies in London did not respond
to requests for comment at the time of publication.
The monarchy uses Israeli surveillance
technology to police its population.
Authorities in the United Arab Emirates Wednesday announced
the launch of new technology to deepen its surveillance of the
Gulf State's civilian population, the Middle East Eye reported.
The new Falcon Eye surveillance system—sold to the UAE by an
Israeli defense contractor—“links thousands of cameras spread
across the city, as well as thousands of other cameras installed
at facilities and buildings in the emirate,” the Abu Dhabi
Monitoring and Control Center said in an official statement. The
Falcon Eye will “help control roads by monitoring traffic
violations while also monitoring significant behaviors in (Abu
Dhabi) such as public hygiene and human assemblies in
non-dedicated areas.”
The new surveillance system also enables tracking, and can
collect huge caches of data on an individual’s movements and
activities.
While authorities revealed the system's launch, they did not
disclose that Falcon Eye is manufactured by the former Israeli
intelligence agent Mati Kochavi, which is indicative of the
strengthening, if discrete, ties between the two countries.
Officially, the two countries have no diplomatic
relationship, with the UAE offering its public support for the
Palestinian struggle for statehood. Israel announced in December
that it was going to open a branch of its International
Renewable Energy Agency in Abu Dhabi.
The monarchy already has an expansive security apparatus to
help crush dissent within its borders. The New York Times
reported last week that more than 1,000 people have been placed
under covert surveillance, many of them dissidents and
journalists.
“The reason why Emirati authorities would target me for
surveillance is because between March 2012 and April 2014 I
documented human rights abuses in the UAE while working for an
organisation I helped found—the Emirates Center for Human
Rights,” Rori Donaghy wrote in an op-ed in the Middle East Eye.
In his time in the UAE, Donaghy said he documented myriad
abuses including the mistreatment of migrant workers, and
arresting women for reporting sexual assault.
As Donaghy writes, “beneath what is superficial glamour and
piecemeal development ... you are left with an authoritarian
state whose pretenses at liberalism and democratization are a
fig leaf designed by highly-paid public relations firms who have
successfully built a global brand that has seen the Emirates
slogan emblazoned on everything from the football shirts of Real
Madrid to the cable cars of London.”
