Saudi-backed Dera al-Waten commanders’ mutiny threatens to ignite armed conflict

ADEN, Aug. 19 (YPA) – The continued detention by Saudi Arabia’s Special Committee of Salafi leader Bassam Al-Mahdhar, following his removal as commander of the Saudi-backed Dera al-Waten forces in early July, has sparked tensions that could lead to an armed confrontation within the factions in Aden.

Saudi-aligned media sources said senior commanders in the Dera al-Waten forces had threatened to escalate the situation in response to Al-Mahdhar’s continued detention for a second consecutive month after being summoned to Riyadh and imprisoned without any legal justification.

The sources said the commanders demanded Saudi Arabia release Al-Mahdhar and rejected attempts to fabricate false charges against him over differences in military positions within the factions, which Riyadh reportedly regarded as crossing red lines.

According to the reports, the Special Committee detained Al-Mahdhar on allegations that he had colluded in a plot to seize Aden in coordination with leaders of the dissolved Southern Transitional Council, following the takeover of the city by armed tribesmen from Radfan, Al-Sabihah and Dhalea last month.

After Al-Mahdhar was subjected to questioning by Saudi intelligence, the “Special Committee” reportedly assigned command of the Dera al-Waten forces to former Al-Qaeda member Abdul Rahman Al-Lahji.

Some commanders within the force rejected the appointment, and Riyadh is expected to remove him before the situation escalates.

In recent days, women in Aden and Lahj have held protest rallies demanding that the people of Yemen’s southern and eastern provinces, which are controlled by Saudi Arabia, not be pushed into “death battles” against Sanaa forces.

They cited the deaths and injuries of nearly 70,000 people from those areas while serving with Saudi and Emirati forces over the past several years.

Hundreds of Saudi Dera al-Waten forces’ recruits from Yemen’s southern and eastern provinces have reportedly abandoned their positions in recent weeks, refusing to participate in any war launched by Saudi Arabia against Sanaa.

They reportedly consider such confrontations unrelated to them and believe they serve no interests of the southern cause, following calls by southern political and military figures affiliated with the Southern Transitional Council, which was dissolved by Riyadh in January after its forces came under Saudi airstrikes in Wadi Hadramout.