SANA’A (Dispatches) – Amid Washington’s attempt to wrest control over energy reserves and plunder natural resources in conflict-plagued Yemen, a new batch of U.S. military forces has entered the country’s oil-rich eastern province of Hadhramaut.
Yemen Press Agency, citing informed local sources who asked not to be named, reported that Hadhramaut Provincial Governor, Mabkhout bin Madi, had a face-to-face meeting with the U.S. delegation in his office.
During the meeting, bin Madi complained to the American military officials about the Sana’a-based National Salvation Government’s decision to ban the Saudi-led coalition from exporting the Yemeni crude oil, asserting that the decision would have adverse effects on the global energy market.
The development comes as visits by Western officials to eastern Yemen has lately witnessed an accelerating trend, the most recent of which was the visit of French Ambassador to Aden, Jean-Marie Safa, in late September. The visits are viewed as West’s efforts to secure its energy needs against the backdrop of the Russian military campaign in Ukraine.
Back on July 28, a batch of U.S. military forces landed at al-Ghaydah Airport in Yemen’s southeastern province of al-Mahrah onboard a flight from Riyan International Airport in Mukalla, which lies on the shores of the Arabian Sea and about 480 kilometers (300 miles) east of Aden.
Furthermore, one person has reportedly been killed and three others were injured when a U.S. Navy ship fired at an approaching fishing boat off the coast of Yemen’s southeastern province of al-Mahrah province in the northern tip of the Arabian Sea.
Yemeni media outlets, citing local sources, reported that a warship opened fire on the fishermen as they were roaming the Yemeni waters off the shores of the Hawf district in search of schools of fish to catch.
The sources added that three people were wounded in the attack, of whom one later succumbed to his critical injuries.
The development comes as foreign forces have turned most of fish markets in Mahra province into military barracks and weapons depots, adversely affecting the livelihood of fishermen there.