Many Yemeni and other Arab activists have said that the storming of the presidential palace by the Southern Transitional Council (STC) gunmen in Aden on Tuesday when the army had just begun to make gains against the Houthi militia in the north confirms the relationship of collusion between the Houthis and STC and, by extension, between Iran and the UAE in Yemen. The activists said that by storming the palace and holing up the ministers inside, the UAE-affiliated STC militia in the country’s south wanted to alleviate the military pressure exercised by the army on Iran’s Houthi militia in the country’s north, and to help the Houthis, the STC’s ostensible opponents, keep up their terror attacks in Yemen and in Saudi Arabia.
Saudi political analyst Suleiman al-Aqeeli said in a tweet, “The attempts to topple the [Yemeni] unity government … confirms what I’ve always warned of: That there are sources of threat to the Saudi national security other than the Houthi and Iranian source.” Al-Aqeeli was alluding to the UAE.
Yemeni politician Ameen al-Shafak said “Saudi Arabia has decided to reinvigorate some Yemeni fronts” to alleviate the Houthi pressure on the army in Marib and “the UAE, in return, decided to reinvigorate some fronts against the government in Aden, Sayoon and Hadhramout to alleviate the pressure on Houthis.”
Yemeni researcher and journalist Nabil al-Bukeiri said in a facebook post: The UAE-Iranian collusion is resembled by the Houthi-STC cooperation.” “Whenever the Houthis start to lose in the north, the STC triggers chaos in the south. And the other way around,” he asserted.
