Qatar escalated the issue of Hadramout, the oil-rich region in eastern Yemen, on Sunday, coinciding with indications of Saudi-Emirati convergence, reflecting Doha’s rejection of its exclusion.
Exclusive – Al-khabar Al-Yemeni:
Factions known as “popular resistance,” funded by Qatar, have strengthened their military presence on the oil plateau of Hadramout in recent hours.
Media sources reported military reinforcements arriving from Marib, indicating the passage of two military convoys so far through Al-Khash’a.
These military reinforcements followed a display by these factions in Marib and Taiz amid explicit calls for war against the Southern Transitional, which is backed by UAE.
They also followed a call by Hamoud Al-Mekhlafi, the commander of these factions residing in Turkey and supported by Qatar, to prepare to confront the reasons for separation and restore Yemeni unity. This came in conjunction with a similar threat by the head of the Reform Party branch in Marib, Mabkhout bin Aboud Al-Sharif, against the UAE, in which he vowed to thwart projects to divide Yemen.
And despite the Islah Party’s participation in the Riyadh negotiations regarding Hadramout, where the party possesses a number of seats representing Hadramout, the party is moving the arm of the “popular resistance” towards the Wadi and Desert of Hadramout.
It is not yet clear whether the party is witnessing internal conflicts or preparing to launch an attack on its most important strongholds in the Wadi Hadramout following the announcement of the Riyadh agreement. But the coincidence of the moves comes with Qatar’s media shedding light on the Hadramout file, suggesting Qatar’s involvement in the recent moves.
In this context, the Qatari-funded newspaper Al-Araby Al-Jadeed revealed indications of an international conflict in the Hadramout province, pointing out that France, the United States, and China have entered the confrontation plan to control the oil in Hadramout.
The newspaper predicted that the battle for Hadramout would become a bigger international and regional conflict in the coming period.
These stances come as rumors of a Saudi-Emirati agreement over the state of affairs in the oil-rich province surface and as their forces get ready to formally declare it an independent territory. This demonstrates Qatar’s opposition to its exclusion from the ongoing agreements for sharing influence centers, despite its involvement since the beginning of the Saudi-led war on Yemen.
