Pro-UAE commander declares resignation in Abyan

ABYAN, Aug. 31 (YPA) – The so-called chief of staff of the UAE-funded “Security Belt” factions in Abyan province, southern Yemen, announced on Friday his resignation.

Leader Abdulrahman Al-Shanini, who was a member of Al-Qaeda in Abyan before 2015, attributed his resignation to his preoccupation and commitment to other tasks in the leadership of “counter-terrorism” in the province.

The resignation of Al-Shenini, a close friend of the leader Abdul Latif Al-Sayed who was killed in an unknown explosion in Mudiyah district on the same province in early August last year, coincided with the unprecedented anger witnessed in Abyan against the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) factions due to the factions’ leadership’s refusal to reveal the fate of the kidnapped Lieutenant Colonel Ali Ashal Al-Jaadani in Aden since mid-June.

The Abyan tribes announced the organization of the third demonstration on September 7 to demand the disclosure of the forcibly disappeared Ashal Al-Jaadani, after the million-man march in the parade square in Aden early this August was suppressed with live bullets by the STC factions, which led to killing, wounding 7 people, and arresting dozens of demonstrators.

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