ADEN, Sept 7 (NNN-SABA) – The Saudi-led coalition intervened, in the imminent round of military conflict, as tension between local Yemeni rivals continued rising, over the control of the country’s oil-rich province of Shabwa, some government officials said yesterday.
Tension escalated between forces loyal to the Southern Transitional Council (STC) and other Yemeni military units, over the control of the country’s strategic seaport of Balhaf, a liquefied natural gas plant on the Gulf of Aden, an official said on condition of anonymity.
“Military units linked to Islamist Yemeni political parties began preparations to raid Balhaf and expell the STC’s elite Shabwani troops stationed inside the gas export facility,” he said.
Another Yemeni official confirmed that the Saudi-led coalition intervened through conducting a mediation, in an attempt to cease the rising tension between the local allies.
“The mediation team began contacting with leaders of the two warring rivals and urged the military units to immediately lift the besiege, imposed around the entrances of Balhaf.”
The official indicated that warplanes of the Saudi-led coalition hovered low over Shabwa airspace, as the military units of the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Islah party, continued deployment in the oil-rich Yemeni province.
The strategic seaport of Balahi, Yemen’s largest industrial project, was established in 2006 for exporting gas and oil.
The escalating tension between the Yemeni rival factions indicated that the country’s recent power-sharing government, may lead to disrupting the implementation of a Saudi-brokered deal signed in 2019, according to local officials.
The recent military developments in southern Yemen might also threaten the United Nations efforts, which aimed at achieving permanent de-escalation and pushing the various Yemeni warring factions into peace negotiations.
In 2019, Saudi Arabia persuaded the STC and the Yemeni government to hold reconciliation talks, which succeeded in reaching a deal to form a new technocratic cabinet and ending a deadly conflict in the country’s southern regions.
