The United Arab Emirates has confirmed it launched air strikes on Yemen’s interim capital Aden, after furious accusations from the internationally recognised government which has lost control of the city to UAE-backed separatists.
In the face of charges it targeted Yemeni government troops, Abu Dhabi said it acted in self-defence against “terrorist militias” threatening the Saudi-led military coalition against Houthi rebels in which the UAE is a key partner.
The UAE’s foreign ministry issued a statement late Thursday, hours after the separatists regained control of Aden, forcing government troops who had entered the southern port city a day earlier to withdraw.
Air strikes on Wednesday and Thursday that reportedly left dozens dead hit “armed groups affiliated with terrorist organisations”, Abu Dhabi said, in a reference to hardliners it believes make up part of Yemeni government forces.
The operation “was based on confirmed field intelligence that the militias prepared to target the coalition forces — a development which required a pre-emptive operation to avert any military threat”, it added.
The accusations risk straining an already complex conflict in Yemen, which is being fought on two main fronts — a battle for control of Aden and the south, and the Saudi-led coalition’s campaign against the Houthis in the north.
IS ROLE IN ATTACK
In further violence in the port city yesterday, the Islamic State group claimed a suicide bombing that killed three separatist fighters, while a separatist military chief survived a roadside bomb that wounded five of his guards, security sources said.
The suicide attack wounded and killed “members of the Security Belt...in an explosion of a motorbike-borne device in the Saad area of Aden,” IS said via its propaganda arm Amaq, referring to the UAE-backed force of southern separatists who control the city.
Security sources had initially blamed both attacks on Al-Qeada, and said separatist forces made several arrests, adding that they aimed to dismantle militant “sleeper cells”. But residents have reported arrests of soldiers loyal to the internationally recognised government.
On August 1, separate attacks in Aden by militants and Houthi rebels killed 49 people, mostly separatist fighters.
The separatist Southern Transitional Council (STC) accused the government of complicity in the attacks, sparking a showdown between the two sides.
The intensifying conflict between Abu Dhabi and the government undermines the coalition, and poses a headache for regional powerhouse Saudi Arabia, which is focused on fighting the Houthis. The air strikes came in a see-sawing battle between the government and southern separatists who have tussled for control of Aden and the neighbouring provinces Abyan and Shabwa over the past three weeks.
Yemen’s government on Thursday accused the UAE of mounting the air strikes in support of the separatists, in an assault it said killed 40 combatants and wounded 70 civilians.
The UAE, which has a zero tolerance policy towards hardliners, believes that part of Yemen’s army is made up of militants from Al-Islah.
The allegation was backed by its Yemeni ally, the head of the STC, Aidarus al-Zubaidi, who aims to regain independence for South Yemen, which was forcibly unified with the north in 1990.
At a press conference in Aden on Thursday, he said that among fighters captured during the retaking of the city were “internationally wanted terrorists”. However, Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi redoubled his allegations against the UAE, accusing it late Thursday of having planned, financed and co-ordinated attacks on state institutions and military positions in Aden.
The Yemeni head of state, who is in exile in the Saudi capital, called on Riyadh to “intervene to halt the blatant interference of the United Arab Emirates, in support of the militias, and air raids against the armed forces of Yemen”.
The UAE’s minister of state for foreign affairs, Anwar Gargash, yesterday urged all sides to go back to the negotiating table under a Saudi proposal for talks in Jeddah.
Yemen’s government has said the STC must first withdraw from its positions. “The Saudi initiative is the way out of this crisis,” Gargash said on Twitter.
The coalition intervened in Yemen’s war in 2015 in support of the government after the Houthis swept south from their northern stronghold to seize the capital Sanaa and much of Yemen.
A Yemeni southern separatist fighter inspects the wreckage of government forces vehicles destroyed by UAE air strikes near Aden, yesterday.
