UAE-backed militia kidnaps academic official in Shabwa

SHABWA, Dec. 14 (YPA) – Militia of the UAE-backed “Shabwa defense forces” on Wednesday abducted an academic and former official in Shabwa province, eastern Yemen.

Local sources in the province said that the Shabwa defense forces kidnapped the former director of the endowments, Dr. Qaid al-Sharifi al-Masabi, and took him to one of its detention centers at Ataq airport.

The sources added that Al-Sharifi, who works as a professor at the College of Education in Baihan disitrct, was kidnapped from one of the points of the “Shabwa defense” militia, which is run by Emirati officers, without mentioning reasons.

The pro-UAE militia imposed control over the oil-rich Shabwa after the overthrow of the Islah Party authorities at the beginning of this year, and expelled the latter’s militants from the city of Ataq, the capital of the province, last August, after violent confrontations.

YPA