He pointed out in his speech to the "Beyond the News" program (21/8/2022) that these militias "which have been created and legalized, are taking deliberate steps to control the country, which is a sad stage that requires a serious stand by all the people of the country," as he said.
He rejected the description given by the UAE-backed forces to the national army as militias, accusing these forces of overturning the facts on the ground, because they were the ones who rebelled against the elected legitimate president and received external support to be able to expel the country's southern leaders.
His response came in the context of accusing the Yemeni army, the Giants Forces and the UAE-backed Shabwa Defense, of attacking the protection forces of companies and oil and gas facilities in Shabwa Governorate, and looting property belonging to the Yemen Gas Company and capturing members of the protection forces.
The Yemeni army also confirmed in a statement that the attack exceeded presidential directives not to target these facilities, and called on the coalition and the Presidential Council to implement presidential decisions.
Legitimacy struggle
As for "Saleh Al-Noud", a spokesman for the office of the Southern Transitional Council in London, he saw that Yemen is in a completely different stage, as the Presidential Leadership Council represents legitimacy and not any other party, according to him.
He explained that what happened in Shabwa is that the southern forces dealt with the rebellion against the governor of Shabwa, and there were raids to be able to resolve the battle.
He also considered that heading towards the oil installations is normal because they were considered black boxes that plundered their wealth, and therefore it is not surprising that they are heading towards these facilities to liberate them from those he described as thieves.
He pointed out that the Presidential Command Council is directly aware of this escalation, as the facilities were "liberated" and the governor directed them to operate them again so that they could solve the stifling economic problems experienced by Shabwa and the rest of the governorates.
It is noteworthy that the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) in Yemen had threatened last Thursday to expel the forces of the First Military District of the Yemeni army from Hadhramaut Governorate, adjacent to Shabwa Governorate, after its forces took control of Shabwa.
The Southern Transitional Council called - after a meeting of its leadership body - for what it called "taking a decisive position" on the current events in Shabwa governorate, and stopping what it described as military mobilization operations by the Army's First Military District and Marib Governorate, towards Shabwa, according to a statement.