Forces loyal to Yemen‘s internationally recognised government have reclaimed control of the port city of Aden, a minister said, three weeks after the interim capital was seized by United Arab Emirates-backed separatists.
Information Minister Moammar al-Eryani said government forces retook Aden’s airport, its presidential palace and surrounding areas from forces aligned to the Southern Transitional Council (STC) on Wednesday.
“The National Army & the security forces impose full control over Aden’s districts amid great public satisfaction and welcome,” he said in a post on Twitter.
He tweeted a video of people holding pictures of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi in Aden.
Soldiers & officers of the Presidential Protection Brigades secured the Maasheq Palace in #Aden and the surroundings. the National Army & the security forces impose full control over Aden districts amid great public satisfaction and welcome.
#Aden_Wins pic.twitter.com/VeJFmpozAT— معمر الإرياني (@ERYANIM) August 28, 2019
Urgent:
The National Army regains Khor Maksar district in Aden Governorate and public welcome to the return of constitutional legitimacy to the governorate
#Aden_wins pic.twitter.com/08YkfuGVZe— معمر الإرياني (@ERYANIM) August 28, 2019
Despite al-Eryani’s claim, security officials told The Associated Press news agency the separatists still controlled Jabal al-Hadid military camp, one of the main military facilities Aden. They said the STC-aligned Security Belt militia were also still in their camps in Aden.
The fighting between Hadi’s forces and the separatists has threatened to open a new front in the complex war in the Arab world’s most impoverished country. The two sides are nominal allies in a Saudi-UAE-led coalition fighting the Houthi rebels who control the country’s north.
Hadi’s government was removed from power in the capital Sanaa by the Houthis in late 2014. His administration subsequently relocated to Aden.
But the separatists, who seek self-rule, turned on the government in July after accusing a party allied to Hadi of being complicit in a Houthi attack on southern forces.
Battle for Aden
The reported capture of Aden on Wednesday came after government troops also wrested control of Zinjibar, the capital of neighbouring province of Abyan, and secured most of the oil-producing province of Shabwa and its liquefied natural gas terminal in Balhaf.
Residents told Reuters news agency both sides exchanged artillery fire across Aden on Wednesday, but the separatists withdrew from some positions and check-points, allowing government forces to reach Aden’s central neighbourhoods. Hadi forces were seen securing areas around the presidential palace and the headquarters of Yemen’s central bank.
“The State’s return to Aden is a victory for all Yemenis,” Yemen’s Prime Minister Maeen Abdulmalik Saeed said in a statement, urging reform of the security services.
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Yemen separatists seize control of Aden (2:57) |
Yemen’s Interior Minister Ahmed al-Maysari warned government forces not to take revenge against southerners.
But according to Sama’a al-Hamdani, an independent analyst on Yemen, there are still some clashes between the STC and government forces.
“The control has not been complete yet,” al-Hamdani said, speaking from Washington, DC.
“Some are saying the STC is not fighting as aggressively as it could, signaling that the Arab coalition is supporting these different allies into come sort of deal moving forward,” she said.
Alkhader Sulaiman, a spokesperson for the STC, described the push on Aden by Hadi’s government as “cheap, immoral” tactics “to cause chaos in the city”.
“The legitimate government has proven to be incompetent, dysfunctional and is corrupted from the highest ranking government official to the lowest official,” Sulaiman told Al Jazeera from New York in the United States.
He said Hadi’s government has “no intention of fighting the Houthis”.
“They have been in a stalemate ceasefire in Aden with over 250,000 troops for over four years and they have only used these forces to destabilise what has already been liberated by the southern forces in the southern governates,” he said.
Al-Hamdani agreed.
“The Yemeni government had had control of the area for four years and failed to instill some sort of policies that had seemed fair to the population,” she said.
“So even if the Yemeni government captures Aden and the south again, they are going to really have to change their policies and address the concerns of the people, because the secessionist cause was not something that was born over this war – it’s a demand they’ve had way before the war started,” she said.
South Yemen was a separate state until it merged with the north in 1990. Four years later, an armed secession bid failed to reverse the reunification.
‘Yemeni-Yemeni dialogue’
The latest push by Hadi’s government came days after the Saudi-led coalition called for cease-fire and invited both sides to reconciliation talks in Saudi Arabia. The coalition also urged the separatists to withdraw from all government buildings and military bases.
But Hadi’s government said it would not participate until the separatists cede control of sites they have seized.
The standoff has also exposed a rift between Gulf allies Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which in June scaled down its presence in Yemen under Western pressure to end the devastating war, but continues to support thousands of southern separatist forces.
Commenting on Wednesday’s developments, a member of the Houthi group called for direct talks between Yemen’s warring partis.
“Saudi Arabia won over the UAE which means that the party that wants to destroy Yemen won over the one that wants to divide Yemen,” said Mohamad al-Bukahiti.
“We call on Yemeni-Yemeni dialogue without outside intervention,” he told Al Jazeera.
The crisis in the south has also complicated the United Nations’ efforts to implement peace deals elsewhere in the country and pave the way for negotiations to end a war that has killed tens of thousands and pushed Yemen to the brink of famine.
Yet al-Bukhaiti rejected the idea that a solution to the Yemen crisis must come through UN-sponsored negotiations, saying Hadi “has no power or authority”.
