Yemen’s Southern Transitional Council (STC) is looking to continue to add to its gains across South Yemen, and on Thursday moved into parts of the Shabwa Province. Two stretches of territory in the province are being contested.
The more important of the two parts of Shabwa being contested is the capital of Atlaq,
where intense street fighting in reportedly raging in multiple
neighborhoods. The STC forces are trying to storm a military site in the
city.
The STC began a territory push early this month, seizing the historical
capital of South Yemen, Aden. Earlier this week, they moved into the
neighboring Abyan Province, seizing major territory there.
Shabwa is the comparatively oil-rich part of Yemen, which isn’t to say
there is a lot of oil by Middle Eastern standards, but it would be an
additional value proposition for the STC as they try to carve out a new
South Yemen.
More reason to hope that Yemenis will restore control over their country, even if it might mean splitting Yemen into new nations. This is at least better than puppet regimes of the Saudis and US.
They were never one country until Bill Clinton forced South Yemen under the governance of North. It never made sense: Read up on ZAIDI Yemen, a long lasting dynasty in the North with over 1000 years of history. We call the Houthis — a name game to avoid calling them Yemenis. Houthis are just one family of noblemen in the North. And to avoid at all cost mentioning their history.
South likewise has a history of multiple sultanates, very much like the neighboring Oman. Such are Hadhramout, and Al-Mahra. What happened to South following the ouster of British from Aden, that the ruing classes and wealthy merchants from Aden managed to subjugate weak sultanates, but later all of them, in order to prevent British return, put themselves under protection of Soviets and China. At the end of Cold War, with Soviets in retreat — South lost the ground, and was bullied into unification with North. It never worked. And when it fell apart, US bad the most reliable crown prince, Bin Nayaf — in power in Saudi Arabia.. Saudis dutifully accepted the role of protecting the “elected” president Hadi, and unified
Yemen. As North was not going along, bombing started. And until June 2017 US had a reliable proxy. But the new ruler, MBS had a different view — how are Saudi interests protected at the end of the war? There was no protection from US controlled Bab Al-Mandeb Straits. Same true for others dependent on Strait: Sudan and Egypt. US convinced UAE that MBS was just a flash in the pan — and will be soon gone. As a result — UAE was given resources, US mercenaries to remove pro-Hadi, that is to say, pro-Saudi politicians and tribal leaders. And UAE made it all the way to North port of Mocha. Until Kashoggi. When in spite of full court pressure to demonize MBS — Saudi ruling Allegiance Council gave support to MBS to clean up intelligence agencies. MBS took a trip to UAE — and UAE no longer worked against Saudi interests. How can you tell that a change happened? Up until then, UAE could do no wrong —- just the opposite, our media bragged about American mercenaries and how US laws were bent to allow the arrangement. After, suddenly UAE was guilty of crimes in the South — the same crimes we lauded as success before, then it was “discovered” how UAE missile was found in Libya. Now UAE is bad suddenly.
And now, the process of sorting out between North and South has started between Saudis and UAE.
It is worth paying attention to public relations — particularly in North. You would imagine that the official web portal for Sana’a government would be full if venom against the Saudis. But it is not — it ignores the Saudi middleman and points finger at US. Saba News byline is: “US killing Yemeni people”. They know who is the architect of naval blockade, and who will not let peace happen until its terms are met.
Unfortunately now — with other options being exhausted , it is Israel to the forefront of the battle for Straits.
Unified Yemen has always been a forced marriage. Time for a divorce.