In the weeks after the unprecedented aerial attacks on the United Arab Emirates (UAE) early this year claimed by Shiite groups in Iraq and Yemen, three men working for a prominent Emirati security organization are said to have arrived at Baghdad International Airport. The trio did not travel in an official capacity, nor were there any arrangements in place for their formal reception. Instead, informed sources alleged to Amwaj.media, they entered Iraq with regular passports issued under pseudonyms, holding religious pilgrimage visas. The Emiratis were received by a group affiliated with a Shiite armed faction, the sources claimed, and taken to the Iraqi capital’s high-end Jadriyah district in armored SUVs. 

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a source in the Iraqi intelligence services told Amwaj.media, “We had no knowledge of the visit,” charging that his colleagues were “irked by this situation.” According to the source, surveillance footage from the trio’s arrival at the airport was rewound by Iraqi intelligence officers, netting the identification of “one of them as an Emirati intelligence official.” 

Led by a man known as “Abu Saif,” a high-ranking Emirati intelligence officer, the trio is said to have met with the leadership of an armed group in Jadriyah, which is separated from Baghdad’s heavily-fortified Green Zone only by the Tigris River. The conversation was focused...