The war in the Gulf just got a lot bigger than the world was told. Two of the most powerful Gulf monarchies, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, secretly launched offensive military strikes on Iranian soil, and neither country said a word about it publicly. Now that the truth is out, the stakes for the entire region have changed.
The Secret Strikes Nobody Wanted to Talk About
The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that the UAE carried out a series of covert military strikes against Iran, including a direct hit on an oil refinery on Lavan Island in the Persian Gulf in early April. The strike sparked a massive fire and knocked much of the facility’s capacity offline for months. Iran, at the time, called it an “enemy attack” and responded with a barrage of missiles and drones aimed at the UAE and Kuwait. Nobody claimed responsibility. Until now. Reuters then confirmed Tuesday, citing two Western officials and two Iranian officials, that Saudi Arabia’s Air Force also launched numerous, unpublicized strikes on Iranian territory in late March 2026. One Western official described them simply as “tit-for-tat strikes in retaliation for when Saudi Arabia was hit.” Before late March 2026, no Saudi government had ever been confirmed to have conducted direct military strikes on Iranian soil. That history has now changed forever. Neither the UAE nor Saudi Arabia’s government publicly confirmed the operations. Iran’s foreign ministry did not respond to Reuters. In the world of diplomacy, that kind of silence carries its own weight.
How the Two Gulf Powers Played It Very Differently
While both countries acted covertly, their strategies could not have been more different.
- UAE approach: Hawkish, direct, and coordinated. Bloomberg reported the UAE struck before and after the April 8 ceasefire, including one strike coordinated with Israel targeting Iran’s South Pars petrochemical complex. The US quietly welcomed the UAE’s participation.
- Saudi approach: Calibrated, deniable, and paired with immediate diplomacy. Riyadh made Iran aware of the strikes, pushed for de-escalation, and blocked the US from using Saudi airspace for a broader military plan called Project Freedom.
The UAE has taken a more confrontational stance throughout the war, rarely engaging in public diplomacy with Tehran and pushing the US to demand tougher concessions from Iran. Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, has stayed in regular contact with Iran through Tehran’s ambassador in Riyadh, even as its jets were hitting Iranian targets. **That is the defining paradox of this moment: Saudi Arabia struck Iran and then helped prevent a wider war at the same time.** Analysts at the International Crisis Group noted the Saudi-Iranian back-channel showed “not trust, but a shared interest in imposing limits on confrontation before it spiraled into a wider regional conflict.” That informal de-escalation took effect just before Washington and Tehran agreed to a broader ceasefire on April 7. The numbers tell the story clearly. Iranian drone and missile attacks on Saudi Arabia fell from more than 105 in the single week of March 25 to 31, down to just over 25 between April 1 and 6. That dramatic drop followed the Saudi strikes and the diplomatic engagement that came after.
Why Gulf States Finally Hit Back
The Gulf was never supposed to be part of this war. The conflict began on February 28, 2026, when the US and Israel launched coordinated airstrikes on Iran, targeting its military infrastructure and killing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Iran retaliated by firing missiles and drones at all six Gulf Cooperation Council states. Iran launched more than 2,800 missiles and drones at UAE territory alone, more than it fired at any other country outside of Israel. Schools across the UAE shut down. Fires broke out near Dubai International Airport. The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company’s Ruwais refinery went offline after a drone strike. Iran also struck the Emirates Global Aluminium plant, causing an operational shutdown expected to last up to a year. By March 29, analysts estimated the Gulf states had burned through the majority of their interceptor missiles. The UAE and Kuwait had each spent roughly 75 percent of their Patriot missile stockpile. Bahrain had launched up to 87 percent of its supply. The UAE had tried for years to maintain a quiet understanding with Iran, keeping channels open and allowing Iranian financial interests to operate freely in Dubai. That arrangement collapsed the moment Iran’s missiles began raining on Abu Dhabi. As one UAE-based political analyst put it bluntly: “You can’t win a game based on defense alone. And dealing with Iran you need to be defensive and have the ability to go on the offensive.”
What This Reveals About the New Gulf Security Reality
The revelations carry a significance that goes far beyond the strikes themselves. For the UAE, this marks the full “operationalization” of its alignment with the US and Israel, as Bilal Saab, a Pentagon senior adviser in the first Trump administration, told Newsweek. The UAE is a US Major Defense Partner. It operates French Mirage aircraft and advanced F-16 fighters backed by aerial refueling systems, surveillance drones, and command-and-control platforms. It has roughly 63,000 active-duty military personnel. Israel even sent its Iron Dome battery and soldiers to operate it on UAE soil, something done nowhere else in the Arab world. For Saudi Arabia, the significance is historic. **The kingdom’s covert strikes represent the first time in modern history that Riyadh is known to have bombed Iranian territory directly.** Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman reportedly viewed the US campaign as a “historic opportunity” to reshape the region, according to the New York Times. Yet publicly, Saudi Arabia kept preaching restraint. Privately, it was fighting.
Eurasia Group senior Iran analyst Gregory Brew captured the oddness of it all, writing on social media: “Not sure which is more interesting, that Saudi repeatedly struck Iran in response to Iran’s attacks, or that they did so without attribution, reciprocated by Iran.” The ceasefire brokered by Pakistan between Iran and the US took effect April 8. But as of this week, President Trump has warned that it is “on life support.” The US has also dispatched the nuclear submarine USS Alaska to Gibraltar. Iranian forces continue to fire at Gulf states. Kuwait on May 12 accused Iran of attempting to infiltrate Bubiyan Island with armed IRGC members on May 1. The war, at least in its hidden dimensions, was always wider than what was publicly acknowledged. The Gulf states were less passive than they appeared. And any lasting peace deal will now have to account for a shadow conflict that is only beginning to surface. What happens next in a Gulf where deterrence has shifted from defense to offense, where ceasefire lines are blurry and strike logs are classified, will define regional security for a generation. The glittering skylines of Dubai and Riyadh may look the same from the outside. But inside, everything has already changed. Share your thoughts below. What do you think these secret strikes signal for the future of the Gulf and global oil security? Drop your opinion in the comments.
