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The United Arab Emirates said early Saturday it had withdrawn all its troops from Yemen after escalating tensions in the war-torn country that pitted the UAE against fellow Gulf powerhouse Saudi Arabia.
A UAE Defence Ministry statement said the move “follows the implementation of a previously announced decision to conclude the remaining missions of counterterrorism units.”
It provided no details on the number of soldiers and equipment moved, but there had been multiple Emirati military cargo flights heading in and out of Yemen in the last few days.
Separatists demand independent nation in south
Yemen’s UAE-backed separatist movement, the Southern Transitional Council (STC), announced a constitution for an independent nation in the south and demanded other factions in the country accept the move.
The STC depicted the announcement as a declaration of independence for the south, but it was not immediately clear if the move could be implemented or was largely symbolic.
Last month, STC-linked fighters seized control of two southern provinces from Saudi-backed forces and took over the Presidential Palace in the south’s main city, Aden.
Members of the internationally recognized government — which had been based in Aden — fled to the Saudi capital of Riyadh.
Saudi warplanes bombed camps and military positions held by the STC in Hadramout province on Friday, as Saudi-backed fighters tried to seize the facilities, a separatist official said.
It was the latest direct intervention by Saudi Arabia, which has carried out strikes on STC forces in recent weeks and hit what is said was a shipment of Emirati weapons destined for the separatists.
Ostensibly, Saudi Arabia and the UAE and their allies on the ground in Yemen have all been part of a Saudi-led coalition fighting Iranian-backed Ansar Allah rebels, commonly known as the Houthis, who control the north in the country’s decade-long civil war.
The coalition’s professed goal has long been to restore the internationally recognized government, which was driven out of the north by the Houthis.
But tensions between the factions and the two Gulf nations appear to be unravelling the coalition, threatening to throw them into outright conflict and further tear apart the Arab world’s poorest country.
