Yemen: Pro-UAE gunmen attack Socotra port and battles in Marib

Local Yemeni sources said that clashes erupted in the port of Socotra island in southern Yemen when UAE-backed gunmen tried to storm the port to take out a container containing military equipment coming from the UAE, while intense confrontations between the National Army and the Houthis are taking place in Sarwah district, west of the northern Ma'rib governorate.

Anadolu Agency reported that clashes erupted between Yemeni security forces and UAE-affiliated militants after their attempt to storm Socotra port, and a senior port official told the agency that armed groups stormed the port to attempt to smuggle weapons, equipment and an armored vehicle that the authorities retained.

The Yemeni official added that the security forces clashed with the attackers, arrested two of them and imprisoned them, while still tracking the others who escaped.

The attack on Socotra Port comes two days after the security authorities detained the container in the port. The container includes an Emirati armored vehicle equipped with a weapon base used for military purposes. The container was sealed with a poster of Prime Fish, an Emirati company run by the Abu Dhabi delegate in Socotra Khalfan Al Mazroui.

Sarwah Front
On the other hand, Yemeni sources said that severe clashes erupted in the Sirwah District, west of Ma'rib Governorate, between the National Army and the Houthis, while the Houthis said that the Saudi-Emirati coalition aircraft launched a raid yesterday morning, 11, in Sarwah, and there was no information about human losses.

A Yemeni military source said that the army shot down two Houthi planes loaded with explosives belonging to the Houthis, who were flying in the sky of Sarwah.

In the "Qania" area of ​​Al-Bayda governorate, in the center of the country, military sources said that the National Army launched an attack in which a number of Houthi positions were controlled, a day after the army repelled a Houthi attack in which four of them were killed and eight families were captured, while a Yemeni army soldier was killed.

Transitional Council
In another context, the Yemeni Foreign Minister, Muhammad Al-Hadrami, in tweets on Twitter accused the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council of taking unjustified escalation steps in the temporary capital of Aden, which threatens the Riyadh agreement signed between the government and the transitional council.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in tweets on Twitter, quoted Al-Hadrami as saying that the military units of the Council had recently obstructed the work of government institutions, interfered in their tasks and created new points, and had also sent additional military reinforcements to Aden.

In another tweet, Al-Hadrami stressed that the implementation of the Riyadh Agreement has become an unbearable necessity for procrastination and disability by the Transitional Council, and that the continuation of this approach will have consequences that threaten the failure of the Riyadh Agreement.

Aden witnessed fierce fighting early last August between government forces and Council militants, which ended with the expulsion of the government, which accused the UAE of plotting a second coup, after the Houthi coup, which Abu Dhabi denies.

Since 2015, the Saudi-Emirati military alliance has been supporting forces loyal to the Yemeni government in the face of the Houthis, who are backed by Iran, and who have controlled several provinces, including the capital, Sanaa, since 2014.