Yemeni diplomat: UAE wages an all-out war to divide our country

The former diplomat in the Yemeni Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Anis Mansour, said that the UAE is waging an all-out war to push the country’s division, serving its ambitions and hidden conspiracies.

In his statements, Mansour stated that Abu Dhabi practised a policy of killing for the sake of killing, imprisoning outside the law, and eliminating opponents.

He pointed out that the UAE practices espionage operations, violation of the private space of citizens, conducts systematic torture, and segregates society regionally and internationally.

He also highlighted Abu Dhabi’s pumping of inflammatory rhetoric that continues to fragment society through the rampant material and moral crimes in areas under the control of a militia supported by the UAE in the south and elsewhere.

Mansour said that the Yemeni scene now, after years of war, revealed that the real battle is neither against the Houthis nor against Iran, and not for the return of Yemeni legitimacy, but rather a war against Yemen’s land, people, sovereignty and economy, and against the lively national Yemeni forces.

He pointed to the dangers of plans to eliminate national institutions and politicians against the Yemeni Congregation for Reform and the entity of the Yemeni tribe.

He cautioned that the last scene indicated this by the events of the battles and clashes in Shabwa, in which the National Army was replaced by militias and security and military companies funded and controlled by the UAE against the fundamental state institutions.

“Unfortunately, the Presidential Council took decisions according to the dictates of Abu Dhabi, and the Yemeni people washed their hands of any glimmer of hope in the coalition that opened fronts and battles against the homeland and the real national forces,” he said.

On the other hand, there is no tangible change other than that the people’s life is going for the worse in light of an unprecedented economic collapse and the decline of the local currency. The Saudi-Emirati alliance was able to make Yemen and its land vulnerable to looting and internal tyranny, and external invasion.

This comes as clashes continue between the Yemeni government forces, especially the 21st Mecha Brigade and the Special Forces on the one hand, and the Shabwa Defense Forces and the Giants Brigades supported by the Emirates on the other hand in the Yemeni governorate of Shabwa, which is known for its oil and gas.

Yemeni sources said that Emirati warplanes launched a series of new raids targeting Yemeni government forces’ positions on the international line linking the city of Ataq, the capital of Shabwa Governorate, and the Wadia port of Hadhramaut.

It also targeted government forces points in the Ayyad, Nokhan and eastern districts of Jardan, the areas to which those forces withdrew after leaving Ataq, following violent clashes with UAE forces during the past two days to resolve the battle in favour of its militias and strike the Yemeni Islah party and its places of influence in Yemen.

This series of raids, and the intervention of the UAE aviation in favour of one team without another, is not the first time that Abu Dhabi has carried out. The UAE aviation has always intervened every time the battle entailed decisive action against the militias loyal to it at the expense of legitimacy. The issue has many reasons.

This Emirati military intervention prompted the former governor of Shabwa, Muhammad Saleh bin Odayo, to say, “What happened in the extermination of the best men of Shabwa by the Emirati aircraft, by carrying out dozens of raids in a hysterical manner, and causing large numbers of martyrs and wounded, represents a blatant attack and a full-fledged war crime and an assault on the sovereignty of Country”.

As for the Yemeni Islah party, the Presidential Leadership Council demanded the dismissal of the governor of Shabwa and referral to the investigation. Otherwise, Islah will have to reconsider its participation in all fields, according to a statement by the party.

Al-Islah added that complacency with any conspiracy might prevent the end of the coup and the restoration of the state in Yemen, as it targets at the same time the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf, led by the brothers in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

This is not the UAE’s first accusation of bombing sites affiliated with Yemeni legitimacy. The UAE was accused in 2019 of launching a violent bombardment on gatherings of the Yemeni army forces preparing to retake Aden from forces affiliated with the Southern Transitional Council, which was established and funded by the Emirates.

International and local human rights reports have often accused the UAE of being behind the political assassinations in Aden to eliminate those whom Abu Dhabi considers political or ideological opponents.

Political analysts say that there is an ambition for Abu Dhabi to expand its regional influence on energy supply lines through the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab Strait and to return to the strategic port of Aden, which prompted it to strengthen its presence in the Yemeni scene during the past years and reset the course of events in light of its agenda drawn in the country through Supporting local militias loyal to them that implement this agenda, which is incompatible with the existence of a legitimate Yemeni government.