ADEN: The Saudi-led coalition fighting Ansar Allah forces in Yemen acted on Monday to work out a ceasefire with its nominal allies in the south of the country who turned on each other in a power struggle, fracturing the military alliance.
The Arab coalition, have formed a joint committee to oversee a truce between southern separatists and government forces in the provinces of Abyan and Shabwa, a joint statement carried on state media said.
The separatists, who are demanding self-rule in the south, are part of the coalition that intervened in Yemen in March 2015 to try to restore the government of Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi which was ousted from power in the capital Sanaa by the Ansar Allah in late 2014.
“Internal dialogue, and not fighting, is the only way to resolve internal Yemeni differences,” the Saudi vice minister of defence, Khalid bin Salman, tweeted on Monday.
“We are working for the security and stability in Aden, Shabwa and Abyan and...to unify ranks and voices to combat terrorist threats,” said Khalid.
The Ansar Allah have stepped up missile and drone attacks on Saudi cities. On Monday, the group’s military spokesman said they launched armed drones on a “military target” in Riyadh, the first such attack on the Saudi capital in over a year.
Coalition spokesman Colonel Turki al-Malki, responding to a reporter’s request for comment, said the Houthi claim was “fake and deceptive”. There was no immediate confirmation from Saudi authorities.
Saudi Arabia wants to resolve the standoff in the south. Separatists forces early this month seized control of the southern port of Aden, interim seat of Hadi’s government, and last week took the capital of nearby Abyan province.
Separatists and government forces have also clashed in the oil-producing province of Shabwa.
On Monday, Hadi’s forces moved towards Balhaf, site of Yemen’s liquefied natural gas terminal, in Shabwa, where southern forces have a major military base, military sources said. Balhaf is run by France’s Total but it has been in a preservation mode - maintaining equipment but without production or export of oil - since 2015 due to the war.
Austria’s OMV, one of the few foreign oil firms still operating in Yemen, said on Monday that production at Shabwa’s oilfield was not affected by the latest fighting.
— Reuters
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