the sheikhs of Abu Dhabi

We learn of Sheikh Ahmed bin Zayed's family from aangirfan. Among the points made:

• The bank known as BCCI was founded in 1972 with the support of Sheik Zayed bin Sultan al Nahyan, former ruler of Abu Dhabi and head of the United Arab Emirates.  BCCI was involved with money launderers and drug and arms traffickers. The CIA used BCCI to funnel money to Osama bin Laden's men. BCCI helped Saddam Hussein funnel money to Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL) which worked with Henry Kissinger. (From Bush to Osama bin Laden in one - Conspiracy Times)
• A 2008 UN report said the UAE (which includes Abu Dhabi) has become a 'major exporting and trans-shipping area' for heroin. (Also see: Drug dealers see UAE as a transit hub, 2/21/09)
• Sheikh Ahmed al-Nahyan was ranked 27th on the Forbes list of the most powerful people in the world.
• Sheikh Ahmed al-Nahyan was the brother of the leader of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Khalifa al-Nahyan.
• In January 2010, another brother, Sheikh Issa al-Nahyan, was cleared of torturing an Afghan merchant in 2004, despite video footage of the incident.
• Sheikh Ahmed headed Abu Dhabi's sovereign wealth fund, the largest of its kind in the world.
• Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed al-Nahyan is a half brother of Sheikh Khalifa. Sheikh Mohammed and his brothers are expected to try to gain control of Abu Dhabi's sovereign wealth fund.

Another half brother, Sheikh Mansour, controls the *second* largest UAE sovereign wealth fund, IPIC.

Is the family divided into factions? Was a faction trying to get Ahmed out of the way? It's possible. It's a big family. There are bound to be disagreements and power struggles.

Sheikh Ahmed with his father (source)

See fascinating hi-res pics of family members here.

See the list of brothers and their relation to each other here (scroll down). 

There are discrepancies about the crash that killed Sheikh Ahmed, whether it was an accident or something else.

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Who controls the vast wealth of the UAE?

April 2007, the ADIA and ADIC boards are set as follows, for a term of three years:

President His Highness Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, in his capacity as Ruler of Abu Dhabi, yesterday issued two decrees revamping the board of directors of Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (Adia) and Abu Dhabi Investment Council (Adic).

Membership of the new Adia's board of directors shall include 
Sheikh Sultan Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, 
Sheikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, 
Sheikh Ahmad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, 
Sheikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, 
Sheikh Mohammad Bin Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan,
 
Membership of the new Adic's board of directors shall include 
Sheikh Sultan Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, 
Sheikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, 
Sheikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, 
Sheikh Hamed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, 

In November 2007, ADIA purchased shares of Citibank. That turned out to be a disastrous investment and is now a lawsuit.

In April 2009,  ADIA hired a Rothschild consultant to work with a new team, InvestAD. Was this consultant hired *away* from Rothschild, or was he still working *for* Rothschild?

Expecting the global economic crisis to prompt a spate of mergers and acquisitions, the Abu Dhabi Investment Company (ADIC) has hired a senior investment banker from Rothschild to build a team to give advice on cross-border investment. The company, originally created in 1977 to invest on behalf of the Abu Dhabi government, is now expanding its range of financial services, including offering investors funds focused on the Middle East and Africa and acting as an advisor for international money managers.

To extend its reach, ADIC has hired Alex Carré de Malberg as head of investment banking to lead its advisory business for M&A and capital-raising. With financial turmoil lifting the cost of capital and stalling investment projects across the world, he believes investors in the Middle East will come into play as assets are reshuffled.

March 17, 2010, a report says Sheikh Ahmed's brother, the leader of the UAE Sheikh Khalifa al-Nahyan, restructured ADIA's board. However, everything looks exactly the same as April 2007.

President His Highness Shaikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan has issued Decree No 2 of 2010 restructuring the board of Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) under his presidency.

Issued in his capacity as Ruler of Abu Dhabi, the decree named the following as members of the board :

Shaikh Sultan bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the President’s Representative,

Gen. Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces,

Sheikh Ahmed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Zayed Foundation for Charity and Humanitarian Works, who also acts as the Managing Director,

Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Presidential Affairs,

Sheikh Mohammed bin Khalifa Al Nahyan, Chairman of Abu Dhabi Finance Department

March 27th the glider goes down, Ahmed is killed, and the Spanish pilot is rescued in "good condition." Or did he suffer from internal bleeding and require several operations? 

On April 8th, Khalifa Mohammed al-Kindi, previously chairman of InvestAD, is named as head of ADIA. The board has also been reshuffled to include Sheikh Hamed.

On April 14th, Sheikh Hamed bin Zayed al Nahyan is appointed managing director of ADIA.

April 14 (Bloomberg) -- The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds, appointed Sheikh Hamed bin Zayed al Nahyan as its managing director, succeeding the late Sheikh Ahmed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. Sheikh Hamed currently heads the Abu Dhabi Crown Prince’s Court and is chairman of the Higher Corporation of Specialized Economy Zones. He is the half brother of Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, president of the United Arab Emirates, and a younger brother of Sheikh Ahmed.

April 15th, Khalifa reshuffles the ADIA board again.

The board will be chaired by the UAE President. The members are

Sheikh Sultan bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President's Representative;

General Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces;

Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Presidential Affairs;

Sheikh Hamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Chief of Crown Prince's Court as Managing Director;

Sheikh Mohammed bin Khalifa Al Nahyan, Chairman of the Department of Finance

The only change, essentially, is Sheikh Hamed replaces Sheikh Ahmed. Sheikh Hamed is brought *into* the board and goes immediately to the Managing Director slot vacated by the deceased Sheikh Ahmed.

Also reported on April 15th, the Sovereign Wealth Fund decided to cancel the advisory group headed up by the Rothschild consultant hired last year. I guess that wasn't such a good idea after all.

April 15 (Bloomberg) -- Invest AD, an Abu Dhabi government- owned money manager, shut its investment banking advisory team and canceled plans to offer a property fund, citing market conditions. Invest AD’s investment banking unit was headed by Alex Carre de Malberg, who joined the company last year from Rothschild & Sons Ltd.

Just a case of bad timing then?

Invest AD is closing its investment banking advisory function, counting among the casualties Alexandre Carre de Malberg – the high profile hire it lured from Rothschild to head up the operation....The Abu-Dhabi investment company entered the investment banking fray about a year and a half ago – precisely when things took a turn for the worse. In 2009, total investment banking fees generated in the Middle East were $649m, or a 43% slide on 2008, according to Thomson Reuters figures. More recently, however, things have been looking up for Middle East investment banking deals. Data from mergermarket shows that the volume of M&A deals in the first quarter of 2010 is up 83% on the same time last year.

That's funny because, you know, Goldman Sachs made a crap-load of money "precisely when things took a turn for the worse."

"Well they are the most powerful firm on Wall Street but actually they are an outlet of the Rothschild's who have spread their power under different names into this century and the prior one." (source)

And now it looks like a criminal case against GS will be "difficult" because the case is "highly complex" and GS would be able to make "multiple arguments in its defense."

The best lawyers money can buy, no doubt.

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Would the Zayed family willingly cooperate with the Rothschilds?

Sheikh Ahmed's father, Sheikh Zayed

Here is some history of the family, in particular the father, Sheikh Zayed.

Ahmed was born in 1971, the son of Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan, the widely loved “father of the nation”, and, for four decades, ruler of Abu Dhabi and founding President of the UAE. Ahmed was born the year of the federation of the seven emirates, a long-held dream of his father to unite the Trucial States. Ahmed’s mother, Mouza bint Suhail bin Awada al-Khaili, was one of Sheikh Zayed’s nine wives.
Ahmed was one of the youngest of Sheikh Zayed’s 27 children — one of five sons and two daughters of his marriage to Sheika Mouza. Educated in Abu Dhabi, young Ahmed grew up as his father became one of the wealthiest men in the world. The UAE sits on what is estimated to be a tenth of the world’s oil reserves, and of this Abu Dhabi has 95 per cent. Yet Sheikh Zayed was admired for his modest lifestyle (his early years were heavily influenced by the Beduin tradition), as well as his piety, his tolerance and relatively liberal rule. On Sheikh Zayed’s death in November 2004, his eldest son, Khalifa, became Ruler of Abu Dhabi and President of the UAE.

Sheikh Zayed and his sons (source)

In 1976 the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority was established and has remained under the control of the ruling family. At Sheikh Ahmed’s death, six al-Nahyan brothers sat on ADIA’s board of directors along with three trusted family advisers. Sheikh Ahmed was appointed to head the authority in 1997 and was regarded as “hands on”. For six years before his appointment he worked as a European equities analyst alongside ADIA colleagues on an open floor and continued to eschew the customary honorific “Your Highness”. Despite a reported investment of $7.5 billion in the ailing Citibank by ADIA, the Financial Times recently estimated the authority’s total assets at between £260 billion and £294 billion. It also noted that, in its 34-year history, ADIA’s senior management had granted only four interviews.

Though I am certainly no expert, it does seem from a cursory review of the available information, that Sheikh Zayed was a fine man and deserved the many very nice things written about him. That doesn't happen too often.


This conclusion is supported by the story of the Zayed Center. Everything you need to know about the Zayed Center can be summarized by the ADL's breathless charges of anti-semitism against it. (http://www.adl.org/anti_semitism/zayed_center.asp)

The UAE decided to close the Zayed Center in 2003, after it caused severe Jewish hyperventilating.

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So what happens next?

At the beginning of April, it looked like brother Mansour would come out ahead for ADIA. He is one of the flashier brothers.

The loss of such a low-key, progressive government exec could not come at a more sensitive time for Abu Dhabi.  The city-state and its mysterious ruling family has been under an intense spotlight the past few months during its awkward, stilted showdown with debt-laden fellow emirate, Dubai. Though Abu Dhabi did fork over $10 billion and Dubai seems to have worked out a stop-gap deal with creditors, no outside party- that is to say, no one who is not an Al Maktoum or an Al Nahayan- knows what exactly went down. Are relations tense? Fine? Warm and fuzzy? The answer matters to many- Dubai’s creditors (including major banks), small-time investors, other GCC residents- pretty much anyone who would stand to lose if Dubai were to implode. So far, creditors have warmly welcomed Dubai’s proposed repayment plan based largely on their sense that it has Abu Dhabi’s (aka Uncle Money Bags) tacit approval. But no one knows for sure.

Sheikh Mansour became a household name in the UK since buying the Manchester City soccer team. It seems he's made one lucky deal after another. It seems that by purchasing this soccer team, he has even bumped Roman Abramovitch down a peg or two. Hmm.

A year ago, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahayan was virtually unknown outside the very small, very rich emirate of Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates and home to 95% of the country's oil wells. Today he is a household name in the U.K., as the potential savior of beleaguered soccer club Manchester City and a powerful, if controversial, investor in Barclays.

Remember that Rome is the "promised land for foreign mafias" and organized crime rings launder money through legitimate business interests such as sports teams.

Am I saying that is what happened here? No. I'm just saying it happens.


Mansour also heads the *second* largest sovereign wealth fund of the UAE, IPIC.

Sheikh Mansour is married to Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum's daughter (one of his two wives). Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum is the ruler of Dubai.

What makes Mansour somewhat unique among the numerous bright sons of the late Shaikh Zayed is that he maintains excellent links with both his full-brother Muhammad bin Zayed and his father-in-law Muhammad bin Rashed. At the same time, however, he follows the instructions of his full-brother, while he merely chooses what suits him from among the suggestions of his father-in-law. With Dubai badly in need of financial support from Abu Dhabi, Shaikh Muhammad bin Rashed is gradually learning to accept the fact that Shaikh Mansour usually ignores any advice from the Dubai ruler which is not acceptable to the Abu Dhabi crown prince.  (source)

But the two men share a close adviser: Amada Staveley. She has helped them both to purchase UK sports teams, among other investments.

She is hot stuff. She turned down a marriage proposal from Prince Andrew.

It is also worth noting here Dubai's problems and the role of various Rothschild advisers along the way.

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But as it turned out, Sheikh Hamed got the nod for ADIA.

Sheikh Hamad, back in JANUARY 2004, made the following remark:

"We can no longer rely on the traditional principles of the past, as they are not applicable any more. Globalisation has become an inevitable reality with which we must interact. No country, region or society can remain on the sidelines and pretend they will not be affected by this rapidly changing world order".

He then privatized the National Petroleum Construction Company (NPCC).

ADNOC's 70% share in the NPCC was transferred to the General Holding Corp. (GHC) chaired by Shaikh Hamed, who has reconstituted its board of directors to include representatives of the GHC and of the 30% shareholder, the Athens-based Consolidated Contractors Company (CCC).

CCC is a huge contracting company founded by Palestinians over fifty years ago, now based out of Athens.

A December 2004 story about the company reveals the following:

• The giant U.S. company Bechtel joined forces with CCC in Yemen and other Arab Gulf states to carry out a number of massive projects in the 1950s.
• CCC also acquired a company in the United Kingdom and the firm earned a strong reputation in only a few years.
• In 1988, CCC acquired the American firm Morganti Group with annual revenues of $300 million in the U.S. alone. 
• Recently, CCC signed huge contracts with Qatar and Khazakistan, which sit on large quantities of oil and gas.  
• Khoury, who regularly visits Beirut, is very fond of Lebanon and dreams of returning the company to its roots. Many Arab states are inviting CCC to move its headquarters to their capitals. 
• Khoury said that CCC is now pinning high hopes on Africa. "This continent holds the key to the future of CCC and other firms. There are projects more than we can handle," he said with confidence.

I can just imagine the people who would like to control CCC, and deprive the Palestinians and the Lebanese of this asset.

It seems that a lot now rests with Sheikh Hamad.

Sheikh Hamad bin Zayed