UAE weaponizes Al-Qaeda militias to destabilize the situation in Yemen

Official Yemeni sources revealed that the UAE was behind an attack by Al-Qaeda militias on a military point in the Abyan Governorate, southern Yemen, as part of Abu Dhabi’s plots to blow up the situation in the country.

The sources unanimously agreed that the Al-Qaeda attack in Abyan was planned by the UAE and had two goals, the first to strike the Islah party and its leaders in Yemen and the second to promote the Transitional Council as the only legitimate force capable of confronting terrorism in Yemen.

The killing and wounding of dozens of the Security Belt of the UAE opened trigered questions and speculation about what is happening in the south and the areas under the control of forces loyal to the UAE.

The attack killed the commander of the First Battalion in the First Combat Terrorism Brigade of the Security Belt, Yasser Nasser Shaye, and wounded others.

Press reports quoted a security source saying that the clashes between the two sides resulted in the killing of 6 al-Qaeda members.

Al-Qaeda militants are deployed in several areas in the Abyan governorate, despite the announcement by the Security Belt forces that “the province has been cleansed of these elements after military operations carried out previously.”

The targeting was attributed to al-Qaeda, but in terms of timing, it came two weeks after the transitional forces took control of large parts of the city at the expense of forces loyal to the Islah party, after the transitional forces carried out a military operation in the context of the ongoing conflict between them in the southern governorates.

But political analysts had other opinions and legitimate questions about the attack and who was behind it. Who is the beneficiary? And how did the UAE-backed Transitional Council deal with it?

Some of the observers accused the senior leaders of the STC, led by the head of the council, Aidarous al-Zubaidi, of planning or benefiting from the operation as the council moved, hours after the attack, battalions from Lahj and Radfan towards the central regions of Abyan.

This indicates that it is part of arrangements to ignite a conflict between Abyan and Lahj. The aim may be to invade the strongholds of the opponents of the transitional in Mudiyah, Al-Watha’, Al-Mahfad, and Lawdar, who remained resistant to the STC even when all of Abyan fell into its grip and is still politically and militarily resisting the new reality.

The dead were among the forces affiliated with Abdul Latif Al-Sayed. Al-Zubaidi and the UAE failed to remove him from his position as Abyan security belt’s commander. One of the Yemeni websites says that Al-Zubaidi and the Al-Dhalea movements benefited more from the Abyan attack.

But another opinion says that the Al-Qaeda attack in Abyan was planned by the UAE and had two goals that are not third to them. The first is to strike the Islah party and its leaders in Yemen, and the second is to promote the Transitional Council as the only legitimate force capable of confronting terrorism in Yemen.

Here, observers expect an explosion of confrontations between the two parties, especially with the STC’s determination to root out the reform forces from all the southern and eastern governorates.

Tweeters wondered why the Emirati planes did not intervene in bombing al-Qaeda members during the clashes and the attack on a military point belonging to the UAE-backed security belt. It also intervened in bombing the legitimate security forces in Shabwa, Aden and others.

Observers confirm that the organization that emerged in Abyan is an organization established by the UAE to break all of its followers who rebel against it and to throw charges at reform so that it is not exposed to public opinion.

Some go far in their opinion and say that what is happening in these areas of security chaos and armed confrontations comes within the framework of the power-sharing struggle between Saudi Arabia and the UAE, especially over those oil-rich areas. At the same time, sharp differences prevail between members of the so-called Presidential Council, which seems incapable of managing the provinces with its members subject to Saudi and Emirati dictates.

While an important question arises on the surface, why did Emirati aviation not intervene to save its strongest ally in the south when the latter was subjected to a qualitative attack that killed and wounded the men of the Security Belt?