The Saudi and UAE-led coalition is planning to establish a new militia in Mahrah province, eastern Yemen, bordering Oman, said an official in the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC).
Khaled Saeed Taha, director of the so-called Cultural Department of the STC in Mahrah affirmed that the coalition directed the establishment of a militia ” Mahri elite and Mahrah defense Forces, in order to stabilize the pillars of what he called “security and the southern army”.
He pointed out that a meeting was held for a number of notables and sheikhs who demanded the removal of all Yemeni military brigades from Mahrah, under the pretext of implementing the so-called “Riyadh Agreement”, which was signed on November 5, 2019, which stipulates the return of presidential protection brigades and Islah militants to Aden, after they were expelled by the UAE-backed militia in August of the same year.
The UAE and Saudi Arabia are seeking to transfer security chaos to Mahrah, through bringing in members of their militias from Dhalea and Yafa districts, after they took control of the provinces of Abyan and Shabwah.
The Saudis handed those provinces to its militias to make it easier for Saudi Arabia to implement its project, which is extending the oil pipeline through Yemeni territory in Mahrah to the port of Nishtun on the Arabian Sea.
Saudi Arabia had begun installing ground signs to extend the oil pipeline through Yemeni territory during 2018, but the members of the Mahrah tribes confronted the Saudi plan and uprooted those marks.
The people of Mahrah announced their peaceful sit-in against foreign occupation at the end of 2017, demanding the departure of the American and British forces from province.
The leaders of the sit-in who demand the departure of foreign forces are subjected to widespread distortion and incitement by the Emirati and Saudi media, in a clear indication that they are heading to confront these leaders through the STC militia.
