But some of its emirates have seen a rise in Islamist sentiment in recent years, and Dubai, a business and tourism hub cosmopolitan city that attracts many Westerners, could make an attractive target for Islamist militants, analysts say. The arrested group had acquired materials and equipment for use in what WAM called terrorist operations.
"The security authorities in the UAE, in co-ordination with the related security parties in Saudi Arabia, announced the arrest of an organised cell from the deviant group that was planning to carry out actions against national security of both countries and some brotherly states," WAM said without elaborating. The phrase "the deviant group" is often used by authorities in Saudi Arabia to describe al Qaeda members.
In August, Saudi authorities arrested a group of suspected al Qaeda-linked militants - mostly Yemeni nationals - in Riyadh. Saudi Arabia has arrested thousands of suspected militants since the 2003-2006 attacks on residential compounds for foreign workers and on Saudi government facilities in which were dozens of people were killed.
The United States has poured aid into Yemen to stem the threat of attacks from al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and to try to prevent any spillover of violence into Saudi Arabia, the world's top oil exporter. In 2010, AQAP, a merger of al Qaeda's Yemeni and Saudi branches, said it was behind a plot to send two parcel bombs to the United States. The bombs were intercepted in Britain and Dubai. The UAE has escaped the upheaval that has shaken the Arab world but moved swiftly to stem any sign of political dissent by detaining more than 60 local Islamists this year over alleged threats to state security and links to a foreign group.