Yemeni sources revealed the outbreak of the first armed confrontations between the forces of the Saudi regime and their allies in the UAE in Yemen recently, amid a media blackout that reflects the increasing cracking of an alliance in the war on Yemen.
The Yemeni writer Yassin Al-Tamimi said that the armed confrontations took place in the south of Shabwa Governorate on the coast of the Gulf of Aden, where the Balhaf facility is located to liquefy and export natural gas coming from Safer fields in the Ma’rib Governorate.
Al-Tamimi considered that the confrontations represent “a dangerous and unprecedented shift in the course of military intervention for what is known as the Arab alliance on the Yemeni scene.”
He stated that the UAE maintains dozens of soldiers in the confrontations area, in addition to being in the Al-Alam camp located to the southeast of the cities of Ataq in Shabwa Governorate.
And the account, reported by sources close to the clashes, indicates that the confrontation developed after a flare-up between a Saudi soldier and a fighter belonging to the UAE-backed Shabwana elite, against the backdrop of government forces creating four points in the vicinity of the vital facility.
As for why the UAE still maintains dozens of its soldiers in two articulated areas of the Shabwa governorate, the answer can be deduced from the insistence shown by Abu Dhabi not to lose influence in this region that maintains several vital sites, and oversees the ports and strategic line linking Aden to Hadramout governorate, and can Its military presence there obstructs communication between the areas of legitimacy along the southern coast of the country.
Abu Dhabi may have believed that its presence might instil hope that the Shabwa could be retaken by separatists backed by the Emirates, and then secure the required form of the southern state that was around the corner in August of the previous year.
The tension that developed into an armed confrontation in Shabwa that led to the fall of the wounded, is directly related to the escalation witnessed in the areas of contact between the National Army and the Transitional Forces in the east of Zanzibar, the capital of Abyan Governorate, which may at any moment move towards a war that may allow the return of legitimacy to Aden.
Riyadh stands strongly behind the gathering that takes the form of the combat readiness of the National Army in the city of Shakra, located approximately fifty kilometers east of Zanzibar, and its goal is to get the Transitional Council to accept the implementation of the Riyadh Agreement after more than five months of its signing by the legitimate authority and the Transitional Council Powered by the Emirates.
Abu Dhabi and Riyadh are hiding are so dangerous that reveals the anti-Saudi media escalation by groups in the orbit of the Emirates and close to the Transitional Council, which took its field dimensions in carrying out insurgencies in Socotra, and in preventing Saudi military supplies from reaching government fighters on the White fronts in particular, in addition to the media line-up alongside the Houthi coup.
And against the background of fears of an imminent military advance of the national army towards Aden, the Transitional Council sent a letter to the Security Council that can be described as a dangerous development parallel to the armed confrontations witnessed Friday night, Saturday, in Balhaf.
The letter represented an implicit complaint against the Kingdom, which initiated the restriction of the transitional options in Aden and Abyan, desiring to compel it to take practical steps to implement the Riyadh agreement, which Saudi Arabia has a monopoly over supervising its implementation, and the current developments are taking place in Aden, Abyan and Shabwa under its umbrella.
Rather, the Transitional Council saw that the military escalation is taking place with the support of a state that sponsors terrorism, an accusation that cannot be interpreted, as it is heading directly towards Saudization itself and not any other party, especially since elements affiliated with the transitional have demonstrated before the Saudi camp in Aden and raised banners accusing Saudi Arabia. Supporting terrorism.
The Transitional Council, and the UAE, are making their claim in their political and media discourse, claiming that the national army loyal to President Hadi is nothing but forces belonging to the reform, which the UAE classifies as terrorist, and officially confirmed that part of its military mission in Yemen was to fight this party, which it considers the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood. According to this perception, it is Riyadh that supports the subsidiary forces (in their view) for reform in the current confrontation with the separatists.