The United Arab Emirates has created a new border security organization to improve coordination between its seven emirates and their array of capabilities, which the country hopes to bolster with locally made systems.
A law passed brought about the Dubai Council for Border Crossing Points Security, tasked with creating border security plans and policies, advising the government on these issues and ensuring the regulations match the law. The various government entities involved in border control include the General Authority of Ports, Borders and Free Zones Security as well as local, federal, regional and international groups, plus the seven emirates — Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Umm al-Qaiwain, Fujairah, Ajman and Ra’s al-Khaimah. Saudi Arabia borders the UAE to the west and south, and Oman to the east and northeast. The UAE has built fences along these borders to try to prevent illegal activity.
The United Arab Emirates also shares sea borders with Qatar, Kuwait, Iran, Iraq and Bahrain. The CIA warns the UAE is a popular drug transshipment point for traffickers given its proximity to Southwest Asian drug-producing countries.
“The UAE has seven emirates with seven overlapping border security structures, and the problem is that each of them has individual … forces and individual border controls over foreigners. The emirates that really have the most efficient systems are Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Fujairah,” said Anthony Cordesman, the emeritus chair in strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“For instance, the new border security body that is established in Dubai has its own conglomeration or separate structures for Dubai. … I think people say the system works fairly well, but nobody does a perfect job,” he said. “Abu Dhabi is stricter about extremists or hard-liners — even just people who are politically aligned with Islamic parties — than Dubai is.”
