Saudi Arabia moves to establish camps for armed factions in Mahra

Last updated Dec 8, 2024 6:50 PM

MARHA, Dec. 08 (YPA) – Saudi Arabia is moving to establish camps for the Dera al-Watan factions in Mahra province, which borders the Sultanate of Oman in eastern Yemen.

Local sources in the province said that Saudi Arabia was working to establish camps for the extremist Salafist factions under the name of Dera al-Watan or Homeland Shield in the vicinity of the city of Ataq, the provincial capital of Shabwa, to secure the extension of oil pipelines from its lands through Mahra to the port of Nishtun on the Arabian Sea.

For his part, Badr Kalshat, the “Mahra deputy for Youth Affairs,” considered in a post on the “X” platform an attempt to create the camps for factions in the middle of the residential neighborhoods of citizens in Al-Ghaydah an illusion that would not be achieved.

“Anyone who pushes in this direction bears full responsibility,” he added. “The consequences will come back to him in an unexpected way.”

“Since the beginning of the war on Yemen, Mahra has been wisely seeking to distance itself from conflicts, thanks to the community awareness to maintain the security and stability of the province,” Kalshat explained.

He pointed out that such factions have proven their failure in Aden and Shabwa, and have only brought about security chaos, lack of development, the spread of crime and secret prisons.

Kalshat stated that Mahra would never accept the passage of this danger with the spread of these factions and dragging them into various conflicts, calling on the local authorities in Mahra and the tribesmen to stand united in the face of conspiracies.

He called on also the coalition to keep Mahra away from any interventions that threaten the security and stability of the province and an attempt to drag it into chaos that threatens security and social peace.

Saudi Arabia had closed Al Ghaydah Airport in mid-2017 and turned it into a joint American-British-Israeli military base on the Arabian Sea amid local demands to remove foreign forces from the province.