Saudi warplanes kill seven UAE-backed Yemeni separatists | Yemen
Saudi warplanes targeted separatist fighters in Yemen, killing seven people, in a counter-offensive against a broad advance by the United Arab Emirates-backed Southern Transitional Council.
Friday’s deaths were the first by coalition fire since the separatist STC seized parts of Hadramout and al-Mahra provinces last month.
Following the attacks, the STC’s military spokesman said it was in a “decisive and existential” war with Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces, describing the conflict as a fight against radical Islamism, with which the UAE has long been preoccupied.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE have supported rival factions in government-controlled territory of Yemen for years, but the STC’s offensive has angered Riyadh and put oil-rich Gulf powers at odds.
Mohammed Abdulmalik, head of the STC in Wadi Hadramaot and Hadramaot Desert, said seven airstrikes hit Al-Khasah camp, killing seven people and wounding more than 20.
Subsequent attacks targeted other areas in the same region, the official added.
The airstrikes came shortly after pro-Saudi forces launched a campaign to “peacefully” take control of military facilities in Hadramout.
“This operation is not a declaration of war or an attempt to escalate tensions,” said Hadramout governor Salem al-Khanbashi, who is also the leader of the province’s Saudi-backed local forces, according to the Saba Net news agency.
“This operation does not target any political or social group,” he said, adding that it “aims to peacefully and systematically hand over military sites.”
Saudi sources confirmed that the attacks were carried out by the Saudi-led coalition, which nominally includes the UAE and was formed in 2015 to fight Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen’s north.
“The Southern Transitional Council will not stop until it withdraws from the two governorates,” a source close to the Saudi military said.
The STC captured much of Hadramout and neighboring Al Mahra, on the border with Saudi Arabia, last month.
Wealthy Gulf powers formed the backbone of a military coalition aimed at dislodging the Houthis, who pushed the government away from the capital Sanaa in 2014 and seized Yemen’s most populous areas.
But after a brutal decade-long civil war, the Houthis hold their ground and the Saudis and Emiratis support separate factions in government-controlled areas.
Amr al-Bidh, the STC’s foreign affairs representative, accused Riyadh of “knowingly misleading the international community by declaring a ‘peaceful operation’ that they had no intention of maintaining peace.”
“The fact that they launched an air strike 7 minutes later proves this,” he said in X.
Saudi Arabia has repeatedly called on the STC to withdraw from recently conquered territories.
The UAE defense ministry said it would withdraw its remaining troops from Yemen after the Saudi-led coalition bombed an alleged Emirati arms shipment on Tuesday.
Yemen’s government consists of a coalition of fractious groups, including the STC, united by its opposition to the Houthis.
The STC’s advance raised the possibility that South Yemen, which was a separate state from 1967 to 1990, would declare independence, dealing a hammer blow to slow-moving peace negotiations with the Houthis.
Also Friday, Saudi Arabia’s Ambassador to Yemen Mohammed al-Jaber said the STC prevented a Saudi delegation from landing at Aden airport and accused the group of “intransigence.”
On Thursday, Yemen’s STC-controlled transport ministry condemned a Saudi demand that all planes to and from the UAE stop in Saudi Arabia for security checks.
according to flight radar24 According to the monitoring website, no aircraft took off or landed at Aden airport for more than 24 hours, although the ministry did not officially announce its closure.
