There will be a huge political and military step by the STC soon. This step might be in coordination with the
UAE
The deeply divided society has been nicknamed the “new graveyard of empires”, winning it comparisons
with those who have tried and failed to leash Afghanistan.
For southern Yemenis, it’s morphed into a joke that every four years there is a war in the south. Right now
that is overdue.
“I expect the STC to try to take over provinces [east of Aden] like Abyan, Shabwah and they will keep
marching east into the desert,” Huraizi continues grimly. “They think they represent south Yemen – but
they don’t. If they come here we will fight them. We are prepared.”
His prediction was eerily correct. Just over a week after the seizure of Aden, separatist forces
commandeered two more military camps in Abyan, a province adjacent to Aden.
Despite urgent pleas from Yemen’s recognised president Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi, Saudi Arabia and the
UAE to withdraw, the STC delivered a statement to the UN insisting it “cannot risk the security of the
southern people... by handing control of Aden over to the government.”
Although it attended talks in Jeddah and reluctantly withdrew from some state institutions following
pressure from Riyadh, which it still professes to support, it refused to let go of key military positions.
An STC fighter stands guard in Aden with a
poster of STC chief Aidarous Zubaidi
(AFP/Getty)On Thursday, its forces clashed with government troops in Shabwah province, further east, and at the same
time it was reportedly holding meetings with tribal leaders in Hadramout, Yemen’s largest province, which
is still further east of Shabwah and borders Mahra. On Saturday a call for arms from other tribal sheikhs, not
affiliated with Huraizi, was widely circulated on social media amid fears that STC forces were actually
marching on Mahra already. The communique, shared by experts on Twitter, urged Mahra people to
“mobilise and unite to repel all who invade” warning of an imminent “invasion” and STC sleeper cells
within the province.
A new devastating multilayered war is apparently around the corner.
Yemen, as a whole, was originally plunged into conflict in 2015 when the Iran-backed Houthis swept
control of the country, ousting President Hadi and sparking fears within Gulf states of the expansion of
Iranian influence on their borders.
And so Saudi Arabia and the UAE, together with other Sunni allies, launched a devastating bombing