Seven killed as Saudi coalition strikes UAE-backed forces in Yemen
Air strikes killed seven separatist fighters in Yemen on Friday, an official with the group said, as a Saudi-led coalition hit back against a sweeping advance by the UAE-backed Southern Transition Council and Abu Dhabi called for calm.
The deaths are the first from coalition fire since the secessionist STC seized swathes of Hadramawt and Mahra provinces last month. Other strikes hit the airport and military base in Hadramawt's Seiyun city on Friday, an STC source and witnesses said.
A military spokesman for the STC said it was in a "decisive and existential" war with Saudi-backed Yemeni forces, characterising it as a fight against radical Islamism -- a longtime preoccupation of the UAE.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE have for years supported rival factions in Yemen's government-run territories, but the STC's offensive has angered Riyadh and left the oil-rich Gulf powers at loggerheads.
The UAE said after the strikes on Friday that it sought de-escalation and that its last forces had left Yemen.
"The UAE concluded the presence of its counterterrorism forces," a government official said, adding Abu Dhabi "remains committed to dialogue, de-escalation, and internationally supported processes as the only sustainable path to peace".
Mohammed Abdulmalik, head of the STC in Wadi Hadramaut and Hadramaut Desert, said seven air strikes earlier hit the Al-Khasha camp, killing seven and wounding more than 20.
Further strikes targeted other sites in the same region, he added.
At Seiyun, the major city seized at the start of the separatists' campaign, air strikes rocked the airport and military base, an STC military source and separate eyewitnesses told AFP.
The air raids came shortly after pro-Saudi forces launched a campaign to "peacefully" take control of military sites in Hadramawt.
"This operation is not a declaration of war," Hadramawt governor Salem Al-Khanbashi, also leader of the province's Saudi-backed local forces, was quoted as saying by the Saba Net news agency.
"This operation does not target any political or social group," he said, adding that it "aims to peacefully and systematically hand over military sites".
Saudi sources confirmed the air strikes were carried out by the Saudi-led coalition, which also nominally includes the UAE and was formed in 2015 to fight the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen's north.
A source close to the Saudi military warned: "It will not stop until the Southern Transitional Council withdraws from the two governorates."
The STC seized much of resource-rich Hadramawt, bordering Saudi Arabia, and neighbouring Mahra on the Omani frontier last month.
- Rival factions -
Riyadh and Abu Dhabi are rival powerbrokers in Yemen's government-run areas.
The wealthy Gulf powers formed the backbone of the military coalition aimed at dislodging the Houthis, who forced the government from the capital Sanaa in 2014 and seized Yemen's most populated areas.
But after a brutal, decade-long civil war, the Houthis remain in place and the Saudis and Emiratis are backing different factions in the government-held territories.
Amr Al Bidh, foreign affairs representative for the STC, accused Riyadh of having "knowingly misled the international community by announcing a 'peaceful operation' that they never had any intention to keep peaceful".
"This was evidenced by the fact that they launched 7 airstrikes minutes later," he posted on X.
Saudi Arabia has repeatedly urged the STC to withdraw from the recently conquered territories.
The UAE had first announced its intention to withdraw its remaining troops in Yemen after the Saudi-led coalition bombed an alleged Emirati weapons shipment on Tuesday.
- Flights grounded -
The Yemeni government comprises a fractious coalition of groups including the STC, united by their opposition to the Houthis.
The STC's advance has raised the possibility that South Yemen, a separate state from 1967 to 1990, might declare independence, while dealing a hammer blow to slow-moving peace negotiations with the Houthis.
Also on Friday, the Saudi ambassador to Yemen, Mohammed Al-Jabir, said the STC had blocked a Saudi delegation from landing at Aden airport, accusing the group of "intransigence".
On Thursday, Yemen's STC-controlled transport ministry denounced a Saudi demand that all planes to and from the UAE make a stop in Saudi Arabia for security checks.
According to the Flightradar24 tracking website, no planes have taken off or landed at Aden airport for more than 24 hours, although the ministry did not officially announce its closure.
