The United Arab Emirates is "aggressively" lobbying the Trump administration to designate Yemen's Islah party as a terror organisation, a move that is likely to inflame tensions with Saudi Arabia which serves as a principal backer of the group.
US, Saudi and Yemeni sources told Middle East Eye that Abu Dhabi had spent the last four months pressuring Washington to label Islah as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) group, after telling the Trump administration that the January designations of three Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated groups did not go far enough.
Earlier this year, Washington designated the Muslim Brotherhood's Egyptian, Jordanian and Lebanese branches as terror organisations, a move that elicited a laconic statement from Abu Dhabi.
The UAE described the decision as a step that "supports regional and international efforts to combat terrorism and extremism".
Privately, however, Emirati officials were left fuming as the decision fell short of their long-standing aim to have the Muslim Brotherhood designated wholesale, a campaign Abu Dhabi has waged for more than a decade across Washington and European capitals.
