In the heart of the Abu Dhabi desert, workers toil inside warehouses assembling drones and missiles for the UAE's Edge group, riding high on a wave of new demand for its weapons battle-tested by the Middle East war.
Throughout six months of US-Iran conflict, nearly 3,000 missiles and drones targeted the UAE, denting its image as a safe haven but providing a windfall for Abu Dhabi-owned EDGE, which is embarking on a major European expansion, executives told AFP.
"Before the war, we only had a handful of products that we could say were battle proven. After the war, we can say a lot of products are now battle proven," Khaled Al Zaabi, a top EDGE executive told AFP from their Abu Dhabi headquarters.
In just a few years, the group providing weaponry for the UAE armed forces has become the foremost Arab defence firm, and now mostly relies on exports for revenue.
That battle-proven stamp was "the absolute selling point", Zaabi said, noting "magnitudes more" demand after the war, though he declined to give specific figures.
