By Rajiv Menon 
Abu Dhabi, March 10: There is a particular kind of exhaustion that settles into a city when the sirens have been going off for eleven days straight.
Not panic anymore. Not the first-day shock of realising missiles are actually inbound, just a heavy, grinding tiredness. People are still flinching at loud noises. Parents are still sleeping with shoes on. And yet somehow, life is trying to continue anyway.
That is Abu Dhabi right now.
Tuesday Was Bad. Not the Worst Day. But Bad.
The UAE Ministry of Defence put out its daily count on Tuesday. Eight ballistic missiles. 26 drones. Most were intercepted. The air defence batteries, the THAAD systems, the Patriots, and the other equipment whose names most residents never expected to learn kept working.
But nine drones got through. And one missile just dropped into the sea on its own before anyone could target it.
Nine drones are landing inside your country. In one day. After eleven days of this.
Two people were hurt by falling debris in Abu Dhabi itself. A Jordanian man. An Egyptian man. They were not soldiers. They were not near any military installation. They were just there, in the city, when pieces of intercepted missiles came down around them. That is what debris from a mid-air intercept looks like on the ground. It is not clean. It is not contained. It lands where it lands.
Since February 28, when the first strike came in, six people have been killed in the UAE. A hundred and twenty-two have been hurt.
Six deaths in eleven days might sound manageable in the cold language of conflict statistics. Tell that to those six families.
Ruwais Is Shut Down, and That Is a Very Big Deal
Here is something that will not make the front pages as it should.
One of those drones that got through on Tuesday hit a facility inside the Ruwais Industrial Complex in Abu Dhabi. A fire broke out. And ADNOC, the Abu Dhabi national oil company, shut down the Ruwais refinery as a precaution.
Most people reading this have never heard of Ruwais. That is understandable. It is not exactly a household name.
But try this: Ruwais processes more than 800,000 barrels of crude oil every single day. It is one of the ten largest refineries in the world. The fuel that comes out of Ruwais ends up in planes, in cars, in ships, across multiple continents.
When Ruwais stops running, the effects do not stay inside the UAE. They move. Quietly, through supply chains, through shipping routes, through fuel pricing. People sitting in Mumbai, Nairobi, or Rotterdam might feel this in a few weeks without ever knowing why.
ADNOC has not said how bad the damage is. No timeline on when it restarts. Right now it is just: shut, precautionary, under assessment. Which is the corporate way of saying we do not yet fully know.
The Alert System Changed Last Night
The government made a practical decision about the warning system. The loud siren, the high-pitched National Early Warning alert that blares when a threat is detected, will now only go off between 9 in the morning and 10:30 at night.
After 10:30, it switches to a softer notification tone for the rest of the night.
The logic is not hard to understand. A sudden screaming siren at 2 AM causes its own kind of chaos. People running in the dark. Falls. Car accidents. Heart patients getting jolted awake. The government is trying to reduce that secondary harm.
But nine drones got through on Tuesday. During the day. During the hours when the full loud siren is still active.
Nobody is saying the softer overnight tone is wrong, exactly just that it sits a little uneasily against a day when the defences were still being beaten, at least partially.
Flights Are Limping Back. Do Not Just Show Up.
Zayed International Airport started allowing some commercial flights again on Tuesday. Etihad and Air India both put on extra services to move the backlog of stranded passengers.
And the authorities were very clear about one thing: do not come to the airport unless you have a confirmed booking in your hand. Not a hope. Not a rumour that flights are running again. An actual confirmed seat.
The situation is still too fluid for casual airport visits. Schedules are patchy. Security protocols around the terminal are tighter than normal. And nobody needs a crowded departures hall right now.
For Indian readers, Air India’s extra flights are worth noting. It means the airline, and by extension the people running it, are treating this as a situation requiring active response. That matters.
3.5 Million Indians Are in the Middle of This
The Indian Embassy in Abu Dhabi issued another advisory on Tuesday. Stay home if possible. Avoid unnecessary movement. Follow official updates. Stay vigilant.
There are 3.5 million Indian nationals in the UAE. Think about that number for a second. That is more people than the entire population of Himachal Pradesh. Doctors. Drivers. Engineers. Accountants. Housemaids. People who came to Dubai, Abu Dhabi, or Sharjah because the money was better and they wanted to give their families more.
Every year, roughly 20 billion dollars flows from the UAE back to India in remittances. That money does not go into any government account. It goes directly into households. School fees in Thrissur. A new room was added to a house in Guntur. Medicine for an elderly parent in Lucknow, real money, for real lives.
Those people are now waking up to sirens and or trying to sleep through softer overnight tones. And waiting to see if their flight home has been restored yet.
New Delhi has not made any formal high-level statement beyond embassy advisories. At some point, if this continues, that will become difficult to defend.
The American Embassy Is Still Closed
The United States Embassy in Abu Dhabi did not reopen on Tuesday. Staff remain under shelter-in-place orders.
When America tells its diplomats to stay indoors and not come to work, it signals the threat level is genuinely serious. Not performative caution. The risk assessment states that the outside environment is not safe enough for routine operations.
Also on Tuesday, a UAE Consulate General in the Iraqi Kurdistan region was struck by a drone. The UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned it as a flagrant violation of international law.
That is the correct legal characterisation. But it is also alarming in a different way. Whoever is firing these things is not just targeting the UAE at home. They are also going after UAE diplomatic posts in other countries. That is a wider reach than the opening days of this conflict suggested.
Why Is the UAE Being Targeted
It helps to go back about ten years.
In 2015, a coalition of Arab countries led by Saudi Arabia launched a military intervention in Yemen. The goal was to stop the Houthis, known formally as Ansar Allah, from consolidating control over the country after they swept into the capital Sana’a.
The UAE was a core member of that coalition. Emirati special forces fought on the ground, and Emirati money funded proxy militias. Even after the UAE formally stepped back from direct combat in 2019 and 2020, it never fully let go of its influence over Yemeni factions in the south.
The Houthis have a long memory. And over the years, with substantial technical assistance reportedly coming from Iran, they have built up an arsenal of ballistic missiles and drones that can now reach Abu Dhabi. A capability that would have seemed far-fetched even five years ago.
So here is where things stand. A rebel group, operating out of one of the poorest and most war-damaged countries on earth, has managed to shut down a global-scale oil refinery, disrupt a top-ten international airport, and keep the American Embassy closed for days. The military sophistication on display is, depending on your perspective, either deeply impressive or deeply alarming.
Probably both.
The Part That Should Worry Everyone
The UAE has among the best air defence coverage of any country of its size, with multiple overlapping systems. Experienced operators. Years of investment.
Nine drones still got through on Tuesday.
That is not a failure in any catastrophic sense. The volume of fire is the real story. When you fire 26 drones at a target, even a strong defence is going to let some through. It is a saturation tactic, and it works to some degree almost every time it is used.
The UAE government has clearly stated that it is acting in self-defence and does not want escalation. That is the right thing to say. It is also the only realistic option right now, given that the alternative is a broader regional war that would be catastrophic for everyone.
But there is a quiet conversation among Riyadh, Washington, and others about what a more lasting solution would look like. Because absorbing daily strikes, however effectively, is not a sustainable condition for any country trying to run a global business hub.
For India, the pressure to say something, do something, and be more than just an issuer of advisories will continue to build.
And for the 3.5 million Indians in the UAE, Tuesday night was just another night of keeping one ear open, shoes somewhere nearby, and hoping Wednesday is quieter.
It probably will not be.
Stay ahead with Hindustan Herald — bringing you trusted news, sharp analysis, and stories that matter across Politics, Business, Technology, Sports, Entertainment, Lifestyle, and more.
Connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), LinkedIn, YouTube, and join our Telegram community @hindustanherald for real-time updates.
Specializes in South Asian geopolitics and global diplomacy, bringing in-depth analysis on international relations.
- Rajiv Menon
- Rajiv Menon
- Rajiv Menon
- Rajiv Menon
