SANA’A (Dispatches) –
Militants backed by the United Arab Emirates seized control of vital southern oil and gas fields after nearly a week of fierce clashes with their rival militants, officials and tribal leaders said Monday.
The clashes pitted the UAE-backed so-called Giants Brigades and Shabwa Defense Forces on one side and the paramilitary police known as the Special Security Forces on the other.
They erupted earlier this month when Shabwa police and military commanders were sacked over alleged anti-Emirati sentiments and ties to the Muslim Brotherhood group.
The seizure of the oil fields is likely to consolidate the grip of southern, UAE-backed militants who seek to carve up the country and reestablish their own country in Yemen’s southern half. It also could weaken the Saudi-led coalition against the Sana’a-based government in Yemen and Ansarullah fighters in the north.
The Emirati-backed militias also took Shabwa’s provincial capital of Ataq, a few days ago, security and oil officials said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to reporters.
The Giants Brigades and Shabwa Defense Forces are part of the Southern Transitional Council, on-the-ground allies of the UAE, another pillar of a Saudi-led military coalition the popular forces.
Meanwhile, a former Yemeni foreign minister says French Foreign Legion, a military force comprising of foreign nationals, has arrived in the impoverished Arab country’s southern province of Shabwah to secure control of a gas facility there.
In a post on his Twitter account on Wednesday, Abu Bakr al-Qirbi said there are French “preparations being made to export gas from the Balhaf facility … in light of increased international gas prices,” in an attempt to reduce Europe’s reliance on Russian gas amid the global energy crisis exacerbated by the conflict in Ukraine.
He also suggested that the French move “could be the reason for recent clashes in Shabwah,” noting that the arrival of French forces to the area is meant to “provide protection for the facility.”
Saudi Arabia launched the devastating war on Yemen in March 2015 in collaboration with its Arab allies and with arms, logistical, and political support from the U.S. and other Western states.
The objective was to reinstall the Riyadh-friendly regime of former Yemeni president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, and crush Yemen’s Houthi Ansarullah movement, which has been running state affairs in the absence of a functional government.
While the Saudi-led coalition has failed to meet any of its objectives, the war has killed hundreds of thousands of Yemenis and spawned the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.