Saudi-backed Hadi regime threatens to ‘confront’ UAE-aligned separatists in S Yemen

The government of former Saudi-backed Yemeni president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi has threatened to “confront every armed rebellion” by once-allied UAE-aligned separatists, urging them to abandon a recent “self-rule” declaration in the war-torn country’s southern regions.

In a series of Tweets on Tuesday, the Hadi regime’s embassy in the US complained that the so-called Southern Transitional Council (STC) had refused calls by the self-proclaimed Yemeni government as well as a Riyadh-led military coalition and the United Nations Security Council to reverse its “self-rule” in Yemen’s south.

It also said the STC was destabilizing Yemen’s Socotra Island and conducting “provocative military mobilization” in the city of Abyan.

In late April, the STC declared a state of emergency and announced “self-administration rule” in Yemen’s southern areas, including the port city of Aden — which has served as the seat of Hadi’s regime.

UAE-backed separatists break with Saudi-sponsored militants, declare self-rule in southern Yemen

UAE-backed separatists break with their once-allied Saudi-sponsored militants in Yemen, saying they will establish a self-ruled administration in the war-torn country’s southern regions.

Saudi Arabia said the declaration violated the Riyadh-brokered agreement the Hadi government and the STC had signed last November to end their power struggle in southern Yemen.

The STC’s “self-rule” announcement has deeply divided the Saudi-led coalition of aggressors which has been waging a bloody war on Yemeni people since March 2015.

In its tweets, the embassy said the STC has “undermined” what it called government institutions and “disrupted” the work of the Health Ministry’s team to tackle the coronavirus outbreak.

On the contrary, it added, the Hadi regime has sought to implement the Riyadh agreement, but its “efforts were met with intransigence” by the STC.

Pro-Hadi forces “will do everything necessary to preserve the state, its institutions, and the safety of its citizens against @STCSouthArabia,” according to the embassy.

The responsibility of the Saudi-backed forces, it added, “is to defend the homeland, protect its security, territorial integrity, and confront every armed rebellion undermining govt institutions and their legitimate authority.”

It further described the Riyadh pact “as a safe road map,” calling on the STC to implement the deal and “refrain from declared ‘self-rule’ or bear responsibility for the consequences.”

STC: Saudi-sponsored militants attack separatists

On Monday, STC leader Aidarus al-Zoubaidi accused the Hadi regime of not honoring the peace agreement and attacking southern separatists, following clashes the two sides in Zinjibar, Abyan’s provincial capital.

“Today, we have witnessed an escalation of a military campaign which brings us back to the past wars of conquest against the south in 1994 and 2015 by the armed groups of the Houthis and the Muslim Brotherhood who have deployed their forces to the south,” Zubaidi said in a statement.

He also issued a call to protect southern Yemen from an invasion, claiming that the STC was “defending the people’s wishes in the south as well as their choice of independence, restoring and building a modern, federative, and completely independent country.”

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