Southern Transitional Council calls for confrontation against Saudi moves in Hadhramaut

Southern Transitional Council calls for confrontation against Saudi moves in Hadhramaut

The UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) has on Saturday pushed tribal groups to confront Saudi moves in Hadhramaut province, eastern Yemen.

The STC organized a massive consultative meeting for the tribes of Yafea Hadhramaut that are loyal to it, in order to discuss what it called “challenges and conspiracies targeting Hadhramaut and seeking to drag it into projects far from its southern strategic depth.”

The head of the STC in Hadhramaut, Saeed Ahmed Al-Muhammadi, confirmed that the meeting aimed to “study and consult in order to respond to developments in the situation in Hadhramaut and the south in general with a unified position in the face of conspiracies against the province.”

This comes after Saudi Arabia announced on June 20,l the establishment of the so-called “Hadhramaut Council”, composed from various tribes of the Hadhramaut valley and desert districts.

With the creation of the Council, Saudi Arabia presumably aims to attempt to take back Hadhramaut from Emirati and STC control.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE are officially allied in the conflict in Yemen, both being part of the coalition that invaded Yemen in 2015 to try defeat the National Salvation Government of Sana’a. However, the Emirates soon proved to have plans for the secession of southern Yemen as a satellite state of sorts, while Saudi Arabia wants to keep Yemen unified under a single pro-Saudi government. This has led to severe disagreements between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, sometimes translated into actual conflict and deadly clashes between the Saudi-backed forces and Emirati-backed separatist units such as the STC.