Saudi forces have arrived in the city of Ataq, the capital of Shabwa, southeast of Yemen, to be stationed at the city's airport after troops from the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council attempted to take control of the city as part of a military expansion recently launched by a coup against legitimacy in Aden, local sources said.
The arrival of Saudi forces at Ataq airport on Thursday morning coincided with the success of tribal mediation to reposition Yemeni government forces on the outskirts of the city, the sources said.
Under the agreement, according to local sources, government forces will not leave their positions and continue to perform their military tasks in Ataq.
The attempt by the NTC to take control of the city has exacerbated tensions that once prevailed in the province's center, where the UAE-backed Shabwani elite forces are trying to wrest security control from forces loyal to legitimacy.
In a statement published in late June on its Facebook page, the Shabwani elite forces accused the local pro-government authorities of bringing reinforcements from the province of Marib, in violation of a previous truce agreement between the parties.
In the meantime, Al Jazeera obtained special photos showing the control of the Transitional Council and the UAE-backed security belt forces over the government special forces camp in Abyan province in southern Yemen.
The forces of the Transitional Council took control of two camps of forces loyal to the legitimate government in the area of Kod and the city of Zanzibar in Abyan, while killed and wounded in clashes in the city on Tuesday.
The forces of the Transitional Council attacked the government camps in the province of Abyan after they seized all the civil and military institutions of the legitimate government in the province of Aden, after four days of battles and left dozens of dead.
The stated objective of the Transitional Council of accelerated military expansion in the southern governorates is to re-establish the state of southern Yemen.