Fighting last week over the provincial capital city of Hadibo on Yemen’s island of Socotra came to a halt this weekend, with both sides agreeing to a deal to stop pushing into the area. Military vehicles and heavy weapons are to leave the area.
Yemen’s Saudi-backed government was in control of Hadibo, and it was being attacked by the Southern Transitional Council (STC), a UAE-backed separatist movement which has declared itself operationally independent.
Socotra is considered a very valuable strategic location in South Yemen, with the UAE openly interested in establishing a substantial base there going forward, and the STC having control of the island would ensure they could count on continued support.
Socotra mostly has not been contested during the Yemen War, though the UAE did invade it at one point. The island historically is tied to South Yemen, and some local island groups are said to have been aligned with the STC for months.
Its easy to lose track of all who’s fighting who in Yemen…
anyone who supports the houthi’s are the bad guys without question.
I support partition in Yemen, and pretty much everywhere else, but if the STC sells that beautiful island to those gaudy savages in the UAE, god will never forgive them.