As the world found out, the arm of terrorism can reach anywhere in the world at anytime.
There are travel warnings and expat resident warnings active for all of the Middle East countries issued by most western embassies, the most recent from Oz specific to UAE. Sometimes they are a kneejerk to a particular event, but often they are based on information provided by the relevent government INTEL gathering mechanisms or by government sponsored global security groups.
It always pays to be a little careful and keep a low profile regardless of where you are in the Middle East at the moment.
