As fighter jets screamed overhead and tanks churned up the sand, it looked and sounded like the violent protests sweeping the Middle East had spread to the wealthy emirate of Abu Dhabi.

But this was Idex 2011, the Middle East's biggest arms fair. The show of arms was choreographed for the benefit of thousands of arms dealers in dark suits and sunglasses, who marvelled at how it was all synchronised to a booming hip-hop soundtrack.

Inside the exhibition hall, brimming with weapons – from Predator drones to the latest digital camouflaged assault rifle, few could ignore the real violence happening in Libya and Bahrain.

In the British pavilion, the UK delegation angling for arms contracts, led by Gerald Howarth, the defence minister, came under growing pressure to explain the UK's role in arming dictatorial and repressive regimes in the region after the government revoked 44 licences to sell arms to Bahrain and eight licences for Libya.

British companies offer a range of products useful for controlling hostile crowds – two stands were selling teargas grenades, stun grenades and rubber bullets.

A British officer on the government's UK Trade and Industry stand could be heard pitching the benefits of a camera-guided 6kg fragmentation bomb to a major-general from the Algerian military, while out in the midday heat, the arms giant BAE Systems showed off a formidable armoured personnel carrier that it has sold to Dubai's police force.

The government had already faced calls to withdraw from the event.

"Nothing to say today," Howarth told the Guardian as he waited, fruitlessly as it turned out, to greet Abu Dhabi's Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, whose attention had been drawn to a handgun on a rival stand.

"I am absolutely wall-to-wall with meetings. I am here as the minister for national security strategy, supporting this important exhibition."

Labour MP Denis MacShane has called for an immediate stop on all arms exports to Bahrain. Amnesty wants a ban extended across the region.

Defence contractors said they felt "battered and bruised" by the condemnation that they had received, following the violence throughout the Middle East and north Africa.

Analysis by the Guardian of export licence records held by the Department for Business shows that the UK government issued 20 licences between July and September last year for export to Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman of riot control weapons including teargas, smoke and stun grenades.

It also granted or amended licences worth up to £182m to sell products to Libya, including "crowd control ammunition", "teargas/irritant ammunition" and training in teargas/irritant ammunition.

A licence has been issued to supply shotguns to Bahrain, and sniper rifles to Oman and Qatar.

"The Middle East was a growing market until a few weeks ago," said one arms trader who, like most, asked not to be named.

"It's a question now of who do we want to sell to. Do we want to sell hi-tech equipment to [Egypt's] Muslim Brotherhood? I don't think so."

Louise Robson, representing BAE, agreed the turmoil had thrown the market up in the air.

"It is too early to say where it will end up," she said. "Given what is going on at the moment, nobody is likely to be talking about how to spend their defence procurement budget."

Meanwhile, British firms in the spotlight for offering crowd control weaponry defended their right to do so.

Rupert Pittman, a spokesman for Hampshire-based Chemring, which is selling CS gas shotgun cartridges and stun grenades at Idex, said the government licensing system determined what countries they sell to.

"Beyond that, we have an ethical policy in place and look closely at the countries we are considering exporting to and see if they fit that," he said.

Simon Martyr, director of Primetake, a Lincolnshire firm selling rubber ball shot, teargas cartridges for shot guns and rubber baton rounds, said his firm's "bedrock" was bird-scaring cartridges.

"We are a very respectable organisation and we take very careful advice from the Ministry of Defence and the business department," he said, adding that it was difficult to export CS gas because of the strict licensing controls.

A senior defence industry source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said calls for the UK government to withdraw from the show were plain wrong and threatened a long-term relationship with the United Arab Emirates's military.

He said UK export controls were the strongest in the world and stressed that the UK defence industry is worth £35bn a year, employing 300,000 people.

"You can't legislate for how the buyers will use the product," he said.

"You have to rely on the police doctrine and operational discipline in how they use it."

ADS, the body that represents UK arms companies, estimates that UK defence exports are worth £7.2bn a year, half of which are sold to the Middle East.

"The UK contingent at Idex 2011, of nearly 90 organisations clearly demonstrates how seriously the UK defence and security sectors take the region," said Rees Ward, chief executive of ADS.

British firms at the fair ranged from the huge BAE, showing off its Eurofighter Typhoon jet plane, to BCB International, offering a stainless steel billy can for £4 and Toye, Kenning and Spencer, formal military outfitters for more than 300 years.

The arms fair also provided a snapshot of a world perpetually preparing for war.

The Guardian watched the Azerbaijani defence minister peruse a South Korean riot van, Ethiopia's chief of defence staff take a tour of a Ukrainian tank and Arabs in dishdashas take aim with American M-16 rifles on a computer simulated rifle range.

The defence world's jargon was also well in evidence. Sometimes it was blunt: "Drash – the warfighter's choice". At other times it was euphemistic, describing "battlefield management" and "security solutions".

The show's 1,000 stands, which are expected to be visited by 50,000 people this week, were often a queasy mix of violence and car showroom bonhomie.

Models in full riot body armour and chemical survival suits waved cheerily for photographs, while one stall holder demonstrated a black breathing mask for use in a nuclear attack next to a tray of boiled sweets and a pot of free pens.