Local Yemeni sources confirmed that a number of demonstrators were injured when Emirati-backed forces opened fire on them in Al-Ma’afir District in Taiz Governorate, western Yemen.
The sources pointed out that these forces had rebelled against the 35th Armored Brigade of the National Army of the government of President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi.
The sources added that the gunmen prevented the demonstrators from more than one area from reaching Al-Ain, in which a pro-army demonstration and refusing to revolt were to be organized against President Hadi's decision to appoint Brigadier Abdul-Rahman Al-Shamsani as commander of the 35th Armored Brigade on the tenth of this month, to succeed his leader Adnan Al-Hammadi, who was assassinated in early December.
A statement issued by the demonstration called on the local authority to extend its control over all areas of Taiz Governorate, including the port of Mokha in the west, which is controlled by Emirati forces, and to reactivate it instead of turning it into a barracks.
A demonstration in Taiz.
The people of Taiz governorate renewed yesterday evening their rejection of what they described as the tampering of the UAE in their country, where activists and the people of Taiz city organized a march to condemn what Abu Dhabi is doing through its forces and militias, and demanded the departure of the latter, and called on the legitimate government to end the role of Abu Dhabi within the coalition that Led by Saudi Arabia.
The demonstrators expressed their refusal to form armed militias outside the official state institutions, including the militias that were formed by the Emirates in the name of the Republic’s guards on the western coast of Yemen led by Tariq Saleh, son of the late President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s son.
In the same context, Anatolia news agency reported that a Yemeni soldier was killed on Friday in clashes between the army and Emirati-backed forces at the Beihan military site in the city of Al-Tharbah, south of Taiz.
The agency added that the UAE-backed forces bombarded the house of the commander of the first battalion in the Fourth Brigade, a mountain infantry Abdo Noman Al-Zoraiqi.
Al-Hijriyya Today, the crowds were intercepted by the militias of the Emirates, and there were martyrs and wounded
A scene while some crowds stop @ # Taiz_ reject the UAE militias pic.twitter.com/anqwAKVxAc
- Journalist / Anis Mansour (provisional) (@TWiianis) July 25, 2020
Rebel force
A government military source explained to Anatolia that the attacking forces are rebel from the 35th Armored Brigade, and do not receive their orders from the brigade's command.
As a result of the artillery shelling, the confrontations between the two sides intensified in different parts of the city of Al-soil, leaving injured people in the ranks of the rebel forces.
Since the decision to appoint Brigadier Shamsani to head the brigade's 35-armored brigade, UAE-backed military have led a rebellion in Taiz, and they refuse to hand over military sites, including the brigade headquarters to the new commander, according to a military source in the brigade itself to Anatolia.
It is noteworthy that Yemen has been in war since 2015, after a military coalition led by Riyadh intervened to restore the legitimate government to power after the Houthi coup over it and their seizure of state institutions, but the conflict developed in the following years, to be added to another conflict between the legal forces and military forces supported by the UAE in areas West and south of the country.