Dubai Is Finished, We're Not Coming Back: Expats Say As They Flee
🇦🇪 Expats claim they will leave Dubai and never return as they fear for their lives and see their businesses destroyed while missiles continue to rain down over the United Arab Emirates.
Once a tax-free haven attracting influencers from across the globe and thousands of Brits seeking warm weather and crime free streets, Dubai's carefully crafted image has been shattered and residents believe it is 'finished'.
The emirate, home to around 240,000 British expats including Rio and Kate Ferdinand, Luisa Zissman and Petra Ecclestone, has been targeted by constant Iranian missile and drone attacks as the regime strikes US allies in the Middle East.
Dubai has been the target of two thirds of Iran's missiles and three massive explosions rocked the city on Wednesday morning, with the international airport sustaining damage.
Four people were injured as two drones hit the terminal, while a string of major airlines cancelled all flights to the region for weeks.
Even the world famous Fairmont hotel on Palm Jumeirah was struck by Iran, while employees at western banks including Standard Chartered and Citi evacuated their offices amid threats from the Islamic Republic that they were the next targets of their bombing onslaught.
Four people have been killed so far and tens of thousands of residents and tourists have now fled in the weeks since the conflict began.
And those who remain face prosecution if they post videos of missiles overhead, despite constant phone alerts warning them to stay away from windows and seek shelter.
Dubai does not have vast oil reserves and relies on its expat population, which makes up 90 per cent of the city.
It has launched a desperate public relations campaign, telling people the 'big booms' in the sky are 'the sound of us being safe' as the UAE air defence system takes action.
But it has done little to quell fears.
'The shine has definitely been taken off,' John Trudinger, a British Dubai resident of 16 years, told The Guardian.
The headteacher employs more than 100 teachers from the UK at his Emirati school and claims most are so 'deeply traumatised and really struggling to cope' with the war that they have fled and will never return.
Taxi driver Zain Anwar saw his car destroyed in a missile attack and said his family are begging him to return home to Pakistan.
He said: 'I don’t want to be in Dubai any more, there is no business, we are earning nothing since this war, and I don’t see the tourism coming back.
'A lot of taxi drivers like me, we are thinking to go to a different country now. Everybody knows that Dubai is finished.'
Iran has continued to pound the city, sending 1,700 projectiles in two weeks, although 90 per cent have been destroyed by air defence systems.
But on Saturday, a drone was caught on video sending up a huge pall of smoke near the airport.
Today is Quds Day in Iran, and despite the brutal attacks by the Zionist regime and the United States, millions of Iranians have taken to the streets in Tehran and other cities, demonstrating their strong will and determination.
🇮🇷 Mojtaba Khamenei has issued his first statement since taking over as Iran’s supreme leader after his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and several family members were assassinated in the United States and Israeli strikes at the outset of the war that has now embroiled much of the Middle East.
In the statement, which was read on Press TV on Thursday, Khamenei called for national unity and said the vital global artery of the Strait of Hormuz would continue to be closed to pressure Iran’s enemies.
He added that all US bases in the region should be immediately closed or will be attacked. And vowed: “We will not refrain from avenging the blood of the martyrs.”
While Iran believes in friendship with its neighbours, Khamenei said, attacks on US bases in the region would continue.
We will, in any case, obtain compensation from the enemy. If they refuse, we will take from their assets to the extent we deem appropriate; and if that is not possible, we will destroy an equivalent amount of their property.
Armed groups in Yemen “will also do the job”, the supreme leader said, adding that those in Iraq also “want to help” the Islamic revolution.
Khamenei thanked Iran’s military, which he said had stopped it from being dominated or divided as it came under attack.
“I would like to thank the brave fighters who are doing a great job at a time when our country is under pressure and under attack,” he said and pledged that Iran would continue fighting.
Iran supreme leader’s first purported message leaves a major question unanswered
Four days after his appointment as Iran’s new supreme leader, the world finally got a glimpse of Mojtaba Khamenei’s worldview.
But Khamenei – now elevated to the rank of Ayatollah and dubbed the “exalted leader” of the Islamic Revolution by his acolytes – didn’t appear on video or release an audio statement.
Instead, he purportedly issued a lengthy written message which was then read out on state television, outlining his views on the trajectory of the war, praising Iran’s armed forces and demanding reparations from those who have attacked his country.
The message was quickly disseminated through a new Telegram channel created by his office. It was laden with coded symbolism meant to appeal to his base and underlined with the release of an image of three handwriting samples — one from the first Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini, one from the slain Ali Khamenei, and one from the son himself.
The message was clear: a new era was beginning, and its leader was positioning himself as the rightful heir to those who came before him.
According to the statement, Khamenei learned of his appointment from state television, suggesting he too was caught by surprise. He also used flowery language to describe his late father, saying he was able to see his dead body after his death – his fist clenched in what he said was a final sign of resistance. The elder Khamenei was killed in US-Israeli airstrikes at the start of the war.
Khamenei’s message was filled with the usual bombastic rhetoric: lauding the “resistance front,” code for Iran’s badly depleted proxy network and calling on neighboring countries to shut down US bases while threatening to continue targeting US interests in the region.
India will not be allowed to develop to the point where it can compete with the U.S., Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau said in New Delhi. https://t.co/TfbnmoaXYZpic.twitter.com/3Y7zCCwV6g
Foreign Affairs › Dubai Is Finished, We're Not Coming Back: Expats Say As They Flee The Country by WriterNig(op): 8:28pm On Mar 14
