Yemen’s Other War
YemenExtra
By:Abdel Bari Atwan
Saudi Arabia and the UAE fight it out by proxy in the South
Abdelmalek al-Houthi, leader of Yemen’s Ansarallah movement, must have rubbed his hands in glee when fighting broke out in the southern city of Aden – temporary capital of the ‘legitimate’ government – between forces of the separatist Southern Transitional Council (STC) and the Presidential Protection Force (PPF) commanded by President Abed-Rabbo Mansour Hadi’s son.
Clashes raged on Sunday and Monday in several districts of Aden, including Crater and Khor Maksar, and extended to the vicinity of the presidential palace in Maashiq, leaving at least 14 people dead and 161 wounded. The high casualty toll was tragic, but the significance of the fighting goes beyond that, due to the identity of the combatants and their respective backers and its possible medium- and long-term repercussions.
The clashes were about far more than the STC’s demand for the replacement of Prime Minister Ahmad Obeid bin-Daghr and his government, which it accuses of corruption and incompetence and of neglecting southern Yemen and failing to improve its inhabitants’ living conditions.
The Council, headed by the Aidarous al-Obaidi – who was sacked by Hadi as governor of Aden but remains popular there — wants to revive the independent state that existed in the South before it merged with North Yemen in 1990. It also has the backing of the UAE, which due to its military intervention has the first and last say in southern Yemen nowadays.