ABU DHABU, UAE – From Baghdad to Mogadishu, the United Arab Emirates has become a global hub for mercenary warfare, bankrolling a shadow empire of outsourced violence built by Blackwater founder Erik Prince to project its power across West Asia, Africa, and beyond.
Fleeing international legal scrutiny after a series of war crimes in Iraq, the world’s most infamous private military company found safe harbour and a wealthy patron in Abu Dhabi. After the 2007 Nisour Square massacre in Baghdad, Blackwater rebranded as Xe Services and later Academi, but its core business model – orchestrating illicit operations from the shadows – remained unchanged.
What began as a notorious US private military company accused of war crimes in Iraq has, under Emirati patronage, expanded into a global network of mercenaries shaping conflicts from the Horn of Africa to the Middle East.
Blackwater, infamous for the 2007 Nisour Square massacre in Baghdad, changed its name to Xe Services in 2009. A year later, its founder, Erik Prince, relocated to the UAE, where he launched Reflex Responses (R2) and retained majority ownership. Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed became one of his principal backers.
By 2011, the UAE had discreetly built a mercenary force of hundreds of Latin Americans, recruited mainly from Colombia, Panama, and Chile. Under Prince’s oversight, fighters were smuggled into the Emirates disguised as labourers and trained in Zayed Military City. Their mission: to protect the monarchy at home, suppress dissent, and project power abroad.
By 2022, the Washington Post reported that more than 500 retired US military personnel had been hired by Gulf states, including the UAE, as contractors with salaries reaching up to $300,000 per year – underscoring the scale of the operation.
Somalia: Training ground and transit hub
Somalia quickly became central to this network. In 2011, Prince personally oversaw the training of 2,000 Somali fighters in a US-backed, UAE-funded anti-piracy programme. The initiative, framed as a security measure against hijackings off the Horn of Africa, also provided Abu Dhabi with a foothold in Somali affairs.
Mercenary deployments through Somali territory did not stop there. Reports in subsequent years indicated that Somali soil was being used as a transit route for contract fighters bound for battlefronts in Yemen, Libya, and later Sudan.
By the mid-2010s, UAE-aligned companies such as Lancaster 6 and Opus Capital were supporting military operations in East Africa. The UAE pursued control of a string of ports across the Red Sea, including a base in Eritrea and plans for a facility in Somaliland, the breakaway Somali region.
Somalis also joined the UAE’s war effort in Yemen. Alongside fighters from Sudan, Uganda, and Latin America, Somali recruits bolstered UAE-backed units. These mercenaries were deployed to some of Yemen’s toughest frontlines, particularly in the border areas of Saada and Najran.
The UAE’s military-corporate network also played a role in protecting ports and commercial hubs across the Horn of Africa. Control of these strategic sites gave Abu Dhabi leverage in regional politics and maritime trade, while deepening its reliance on foreign fighters, including Somalis.
Among the groups active in Yemen was the Spear Operations Group, notorious for its assassination programme that targeted political opponents. Analysts say this showed the UAE’s mercenary network was not only fighting wars, but conducting covert killings on behalf of its patrons.
Sudan conflict exposes Somali link
When Sudan’s conflict escalated in 2023, new evidence pointed to mercenary flows passing through Somalia. Colombian media reported that fighters recruited via UAE-linked firms were transported to Darfur using smuggling routes through Somalia and Chad.
These mercenaries were promised salaries of up to $3,000 per month with $10,000 bonuses, and were equipped with drones and rocket launchers. They fought alongside Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a militia accused of atrocities.
The UN Security Council later confirmed that Emirati networks were embedded in RSF supply lines. Injured fighters were flown to Emirati hospitals, while Somalia remained a critical transit point in the logistics chain.
In August 2025, the crash of an Emirati aircraft in Darfur exposed the scale of involvement: 40 Colombian mercenaries died, revealing an entire UAE-backed battalion operating with the RSF. The deaths prompted Colombian President Gustavo Petro to issue an official condemnation, declaring: “No more merchants of death.”
For Somalia, the implications are far-reaching. The country’s fragile institutions face the dual challenge of internal insurgency and entanglement in proxy wars financed by Gulf powers. Analysts warn that the UAE’s use of Somali fighters and territory undermines Mogadishu’s sovereignty, while entrenching foreign control over strategic assets such as ports.
Efforts by the Somali government to regulate foreign military activity have been complicated by its dependence on external funding and aid. Meanwhile, reports of Somali recruits being drawn into conflicts abroad fuel concerns of exploitation in a country already battered by decades of instability.
Wider shadow empire
Blackwater, later renamed Academi, claimed tens of thousands of fighters across the region under Emirati patronage. Its operations stretched from Yemen to Sudan, from ports in the Horn of Africa to planned bases in Somaliland.
The model, analysts say, follows a consistent pattern: hiring foreign troops under private contracts, deploying them in conflict zones with little oversight, and providing deniability for state patrons. While marketed as security partnerships, the reality is a system of outsourced warfare that blurs the line between national defence and private enterprise.
The UAE’s reach extended further still. In 2024, reports surfaced that Abu Dhabi was financing the recruitment of African mercenaries to fight for Israel in Gaza and Lebanon. Eyewitnesses described tanks bearing both Israeli and Emirati flags. At the same time, detainees in Gaza reported interrogations by soldiers speaking in Emirati-accented Arabic.
According to Western diplomats, these efforts formed part of “day after” arrangements for a Gaza stripped of its population. Photos later circulated of UAE-plated vehicles in Rafah and pro-Israel militias receiving Emirati funding and equipment.
Prince’s latest venture, Vectus Global, has already won contracts in Haiti, echoing the exact blueprint tested in the Horn of Africa. Helicopters, drones, and mercenary units now enforce security in Port-au-Prince, much as they once did in Mogadishu and Bosaso.
What began as palace protection in Abu Dhabi has metastasised into a global business model. Somalia, both as a recruitment base and transit hub, remains a critical piece of this puzzle.
From anti-piracy training camps to covert logistics for Sudan’s war, the country illustrates how fragile states are turned into nodes of a sprawling mercenary network. The UAE bankrolls it, Prince directs it, and Somalia, willingly or not, is caught in its orbit.
Today, the UAE has cemented itself as a global hub for mercenary warfare, weaponising wealth to crush dissent, destabilise rivals, and assist Israel.