Clashes Erupt in Yemen, 3 UAE-Backed Forces Killed
SANA’A (Dispatches) – The Southern Transitional Council has said in a statement that it lost 3 of its members in a conflict with the Sana’a government forces.
The council group said that the clashes took place in Lahij governorate in southwestern Yemen and in clashes with the Yemeni army and Popular Committees on Saturday.
On its website ‘Deraalganoob’, the separatist group said the three members of the group were killed during the conflict in “Yafe’a” district in the northeast of Lahj governorate.
This group is known as the proxy group backed by the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which usually engages in infighting with Riyadh-backed proxy groups in the south of Yemen. In the past years, the southern areas of Yemen have witnessed clashes between three different groups, the proxy forces of the UAE, the proxy elements of Saudi Arabia and the Sana’a government forces which consist of the Yemeni Army and Popular Committees, Ansarullah.
On Friday, the Southern Transitional Council announced its forces were engaged in a conflict with the Yemeni army and Ansarullah forces in Lahj province.
The conflict between the Yemeni army forces and Ansarullah’s Popular Committees and the separatists in the south intensified after Sana’a forces were able to take control of Zahir town in the west of al-Bayda province and on the border with Lahij province in July.
Saudi Arabia initiated a brutal war of aggression against Yemen in March 2015, enlisting the assistance of some of its regional allies, including the United Arab Emirates, as well as massive shipments of advanced weaponry from the U.S. and Western Europe.
The Western governments further extended their political and logistical support to Riyadh in their failed bid to restore power in Yemen to the country’s former Saudi-installed government.
The former Yemeni government’s president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, resigned from the presidency in late 2014 and later fled to Riyadh amid a political conflict with Ansarullah. The movement has been running Yemen’s affairs in the absence of a functioning administration.
The war further led to the killing of tens of thousands of Yemenis and turned the entire nation into the scene of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.