The UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) on Tuesday anticipated the overthrow of Mahrah province with a new offer of its social forces in an attempt to provide a popular incubator to achieve its goals there.
The head of the Southern Dialogue Team affiliated with the STC, Ahmed Omar bin Farid, promised during a meeting with a delegation from the Council of the Sons of Mahrah and Socotra that the two provinces would be declared an independent region in the future.
The STC’s offer came at a time when it intensified its military and political movement to complete its control over the eastern provinces of Yemen, after its success in seizing the southern provinces.
It is not yet known whether the STC’s threat to separate Mahrah and Socotra from Hadhramaut is a message to the Hadhrami forces that refuse to surrender to the STC and wave the announcement of the state of Hadhramaut, which includes Mahrah and Socotra within a federal union in Yemen, or an attempt to mobilize the feelings of citizens there who demand their separation from Hadhramaut.
However, the timing of the moves indicates that the STC, whose presidency, at its last meeting, demanded the departure of those it describes as the Islah party factions from Mahrah, is preparing to bring down the province.
