Mahra tribes are ready to fight Transitional Council, Arab coalition forces: former official

MAHRA, Sept. 5 (YPA) – Sheikh Ali Salem al-Huraizi, former undersecretary of Mahra province and opposed to military presence in the province, on Thursday said that Mahra tribes “are on alert following threats launched by the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council and Shabwani elite forces.

“We are ready to fight the Transitional Council if it or any of the Arab coalition forces reach our borders,” al-Huraizi added. “We will not surrender and give up our province to any party.”

This tribal mobilization in Mahra province comes coinciding with the announcement of establishing a southern political bloc called “National Rescue Council, which is scheduled – according to a political source – to hold its first meeting early next month.

Sheikh al-Huraizi pointed out that any dialogue with the Transitional Council “is conditional on correcting its positions, moving away from the relationship with the UAE, abandoning secession, and adhering to unity.”

The Transitional Council is one of the political components in the south, and “it does not have the right to represent the south, he added.

He called on all political components in the south to join the National Rescue Council in order to work for founding “a strong Yemeni state that does not depend on the Gulf States.”

YPA