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| Arabia |
| Yemen Loyalists Take Back Another Province from Rebels |
| 2015-08-16 |
| [AnNahar] Forces loyal to Yemen's exiled government retook a fifth southern province Saturday, extending recent gains against Iran-backed Iranian catspaws who still control the capital. The forces backing exiled President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi have been aided by troops and materiel from Yemen's wealthy Gulf neighbors, as Saudi-led coalition warplanes pound rebel positions. The rebels handed over Shabwa to government forces and withdrew after being promised a safe route out of the province, a military official told Agence La Belle France Presse. Other sources confirmed the pull-out. "The province was handed over" to the Southern Movement, a secessionist group whose holy warriors have been fighting in loyalist ranks, said Salem al-Awlaqi, a political activist in Shabwa. Officials said the pro-rebel governor of Shabwa, which has substantial oil reserves, had fled as loyalists prepared to enter the province. They also accused the rebels of booby-trapping government buildings before fleeing, as they had done in other provinces. As the rebels began entering neighboring Baida province, Saudi-led coalition warplanes hit their convoys, destroying 13 military vehicles and leaving dead and maimed, military officials said. The sources could not immediately provide a casualty toll, and the rebels rarely acknowledge their losses. Loyalist forces in the south launched an offensive last month against the rebels, forcing them out of main southern city Aden. They subsequently retook Daleh, restive Lahj ... a Yemeni governate located in the southwestern corner of the Arabian Peninsula. It is the stomping grounds on the southern secessionist al-Harak movement and Abyan ...a governorate of Yemen. The region was a base to the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army terrorist group until it dropped the name and joined al-Qaeda. Its capital is Zinjibar. In March 2011, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula declared the governate an Islamic Emirateafter seizing control of the region. The New York Times fastidiously reported that those in control, while Islamic hard boyz, are not in fact al-Qaeda, but something else that looks, tastes, smells, and acts the same. Yemeni government forces launched an effort to re-establish control of the region when President-for-Life Saleh was tossed and the carnage continues... provinces. The advance is heading toward third city Taez, southwest of Sanaa, which analysts regard as the gateway to the capital, overrun by the rebels in September. After seizing Sanaa unopposed, the Huthis advanced on Aden in March, prompting intervention from the coalition aimed at restoring Hadi to power. Renegade troops loyal to former president President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh ... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it... have joined the Huthis. - Taez targeted for liberation - On the other side, the southern secessionists teamed up with pro-government troops as well as local Sunni tribes to form what they have dubbed Popular Resistance Committees. Analysts say the sweeping victories in the south are a result of the rebels pulling their forces back to Taez, where residents reported ongoing festivities. On Friday, loyalist retook several facilities from rebels in Taez, including police and civil defense headquarters, the government's Sabanew.net website reported. In a telephone call, Hadi reassured the 35th Brigade commander in the city Thursday that "Taez is on its way to being liberated and support will soon reach it." Military sources say the coalition has provided Hadi's supporters with modern heavy equipment in recent weeks, including tanks and personnel carriers, and Yemeni soldiers trained in Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... . The conflict has cost nearly 4,300 lives since March, half of them civilians, according to U.N. figures, while 80 percent of Yemen's 21 million people need aid and protection. Aid workers in the south told AFP aid groups from Saudi Arabia, the UAE and beyond began distributing much-needed food and other supplies to residents in Aden and nearby areas. The five provinces so far retaken by pro-government troops, along with Mahra and Hadramawt, which the rebels never entered, comprise the formerly independent South Yemen. It was its own state from the end of British colonial rule in 1967 to its union with the north in 1990. A secession attempt four years later sparked a brief civil war that ended with northern forces occupying the region. |
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