A blacklist that places a new player centre stage I was hooked for a few weeks on The Blacklist, the hit American television series in which James Spader plays Raymond Reddington (Red), ex-FBI agent turned villain, who offers his services to his former employer. Each episode was a gripping chase for one of the international criminals on Red's blacklist. He helps the FBI take down the bad guys, but along the way also eliminates a rival or demolishes an enemy. There's another blacklist that also caught my attention. It was issued on November 15 by the United Arab Emirates and it designates 83 different groups across the Middle East, Europe and the US as terrorist organisations. Like Red's blacklist, this one has more than one objective - the obvious and then the more surreptitious. On the surface, the broadness of the UAE blacklist is laudable. It tells us that this is a country that takes terrorism seriously, and is determined to act against it. It's an open secret that some of the funding for the likes of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or Isis, is sourced from private Gulf donors. Closing the financial pipeline would go some way to degrading terrorist capabilities. On closer look, though, the list is dubiously selective, and worryingly counter-productive. In addition to murderous groups such as Isis, it also includes almost a dozen charities, Islamic research or social organisations that no one else seems to think are threatening to world peace. Abdullah bin Zayed, the UAE foreign minister, does not conceal that his government stretches the definition of terrorism. For many countries the definition of terror is that you have to carry a weapon and terrorise people. For us it's far beyond that," he told Fox News. We cannot tolerate even the smallest and tiniest amount of terrorism. In both the US and UK, countries that can't be said to tolerate any amount of terrorism, there's been some dismay at the UAE blacklist. Among the charities, the reaction was shock. The Council on American-Islamic Relations blasted the decision as "bizarre"; the UK-based Cordoba Foundation said it was "unprecedented and irresponsible." What's behind the blacklist is what one western diplomat describes as a UAE "fixation" with the Muslim Brotherhood, the Egypt-based movement that won the first post-2011 revolution elections and was later ousted by a military coup. What's behind the blacklist is what one western diplomat describes as a UAE "fixation" with the Muslim Brotherhood Convinced that Islamists are an existential menace to the ruling elite in the Arab world, the UAE has been on a relentless campaign to suppress or discredit any group that shares the Brotherhood's ideology or has any ties with it, however loose or remote. Inconveniently for Abu Dhabi, its campaign hit a brick wall in Europe and the US where it ran up against the rule of law and the reasonable belief that labelling Islamists who reject violence as terrorists is a path towards radicalisation. To the UAE's frustration, its pleading for action against some of the supposedly nefarious groups has not produced the desired results. British visitors who meet Mohammad bin Zayed, the Abu Dhabi crown prince, hear of terrorist cells in east London and inevitable future bomb blasts, and complaints that the UK government is failing to pay sufficient attention to the domestic threat. True, partly because of Emirati pressure, the UK ordered an inquiry into the Muslim Brotherhood. But no one is expecting the findings that have yet to be published to lead to a ban on the organisation. The blacklist is therefore an attempt by the UAE to take matters into its own hands. Inclusion on the list achieves part of the UAE objective: it creates suspicion around these groups and puts them on the defensive. This unilateralism is unfortunate. But it's the latest example of the transformation of the UAE from a shy state that favours quiet diplomacy to a hawkish regional player. Abu Dhabi has bolstered the military coup in Egypt with financial support, carried out air strikes against Islamist militants in Libya and led the charge against Qatar to force it to abandon its support for the Brotherhood. There aren't enough plots yet to qualify Abu Dhabi for its own TV series. But the Gulf state is generating enough controversy to keep its allies in suspense about its next moves. Twitter: @khalafroula