Backed Separatists Tighten Grip of Southern Yemen

The airspace of war-torn Yemen was briefly closed Monday, an official said, as tensions escalated in the country’s south after a separatist group, backed by the United Arab Emirates, took over an oil-rich region in a rift that could fracture the anti-Houthi alliance. A Yemeni government official stated that the Saudi-led coalition didn’t issue required permissions for flights to or from Yemen, momentarily suspending flights to and from Aden, the seat of the internationally recognized government. The move, described as a ‘Saudi message’ to the separatist Southern Transitional Council’s recent clashes across southern Yemen, was later reversed, allowing flight operations in Aden airport. An Associated Press journalist at the airport reported that workers began processing passengers for a Cairo-bound flight that had been delayed. Since the Saudi-led coalition entered Yemen’s war in 2015, they have controlled the country’s airspace. The Southern Transitional Council (STC), an armed group financed by the UAE, has expanded its control over Yemen’s south by capturing Seiyun in Hadhramaut, including key oil fields and energy installations after clashes with the Yemeni military and allied tribes. STC forces were deployed in the strategic Wadi Hadramout area, claiming control of urban centers, military bases, the presidential palace, and the international airport in Seiyun, advancing to the province of Mahra on the border with Oman. STC supporters raised the South Yemen flag over buildings in the country’s south, expressing the desire for an independent state. The separatists aim to divide Yemen into two countries as it was between 1967 and 1990.