Southern Yemeni separatists on Thursday vowed revenge against government forces for their assault on Aden and dispatched reinforcements from elsewhere as fighting between the nominal allies in a Saudi-led coalition showed no sign of abating.
Yemen’s foreign minister accused the United Arab Emirates, which has armed and trained separatist militias in the south, of carrying out air strikes on government positions in Aden. A Yemeni official said over 30 soldiers were killed by air strikes on the eastern outskirts of Aden.
UAE officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The separatists and the internationally recognised government of President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi are supposed allies in the Saudi-led coalition in its four-year-old war against Iran-aligned Houthis, who hold Yemen’s capital Sanaa in the north and most of the country’s populated areas. The UAE is also part of that coalition.
Aden is the temporary seat of Hadi’s government.
Blaming UAE
But the UAE has fallen out with Hadi’s side because it includes a party the UAE sees as close to the Muslim Brotherhood, which the Gulf state has been fighting across the Middle East and North Africa.
The infighting between forces loyal to the internationally recognised government and the separatists has added another layer to the complex civil war in the Arab world’s most impoverished country.
Col Mohamed al Oban, a commander of the special forces in Abyan province, said the troops were on the road, headed toward Aden on Thursday, when the strikes took place. He didn’t say who carried them out, saying only the planes were from the Saudi-led coalition.
Yemen’s Foreign Ministry tweeted a statement by Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammed Abdullah al Hadrami, saying, “The government condemns the Emirati air strike on government forces.”
“We hold the UAE fully responsible for this explicit extra-judicial targeting” of the government forces, the statement said.
Control of Aden
On Wednesday, government troops wrested back control of Zinjibar, the capital of neighbouring Abyan province, from the separatists and headed toward Aden.
Hadi’s government said later on Wednesday it had captured Aden airport and controlled most of the southern port city, an assertion quickly disputed by the separatists.
On Thursday, the separatist Southern Transitional Council (STC) said some of its troops positioned on the outskirts of the Red Sea port city of Hudaidah, which is under Houthi control, had returned to Aden to join the battle against Hadi’s forces.
“To whomever said the southern resistance has fled, I say, we are here,” Hani Ben Brik, STC’s vice-president, said in a video shared on social media showing him with dozens of his fighters outside Aden’s airport building.
The push by the government forces into Aden underscored the seesaw nature of the fighting. Only weeks before, the separatists had gained much territory in southern Yemen, pushing government forces out of strategic cities and areas.
A Yemeni official said Saudi Arabia and the UAE had made contact with both sides to try to defuse the conflict but more fighters were seen arriving in Aden and the other southern provinces of Shabwa, Lahej and Abyan.
The separatists seek to restore the South Yemen republic which merged with the north in 1990. They had clashed occasionally with government forces for several years before major new hostilities erupted this month.
Saudi Arabia has called for a summit to end the standoff, which has roiled UN efforts to end a war that has driven Yemen to the brink of famine and is widely seen as a proxy struggle between Iran and Saudi Arabia for regional dominance.
But Hadi’s government has said it will not participate until separatists cede control of sites they seized earlier in August.
