The Yemeni rally for Reform Party, the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood organization in Yemen, is living its worst days, after the humiliating defeat it suffered in Shabwa province (south-central) following its attempt to rebel against legitimacy in the province located on the borders of the Houthi militia control areas, which prompted the party to threaten to withdraw from the Presidential Leadership Council formed as a compromise solution last April.
While Al Jazeera tried to support the Islah militias by attacking its main opponent, the Southern Transitional Council, out of spite of the UAE, which supports the “Transitional Council” within the framework of its presence within the “Arab coalition to support legitimacy”.
Between this and that, the Houthi group stands in the position of lurking for what the situation will turn out to be, hoping that a political rift will occur within the government and within the Presidential Council, and in order to achieve this, it is issuing statements suggesting rapprochement with the Islah party.
The Defeat of the MB in Shabwa…
Security and military tensions in Shabwa province between the MB militias and the legitimate forces supported by the Arab Coalition, developed into fierce fighting on the eighth of August, concentrated in Ataq (the capital of the province), which led to the mobilization of Islah security forces against the military units of the Presidential Council.
The dismissal of the commander of the special forces, Abdurraba Laqab, calculated on “reform”, was the spark that ignited the crisis. After three days of hit-and-run battles, on August 10, the Giants Brigades and the Shabwa Defense Forces, close to the UAE, took control of the city, and pro-Islah leaders fled the province and ended the rebellion.
In the wake of these events, the presidential council took decisive measures, foremost of which was the dismissal of the rebel MB leaders, and the appointment of 3 military and security leaders in their place in the Ataq axis, the special forces and the Shabwa police. While the “Reform” responded to this with a sharp escalation language against the council and its president, culminating in denying the legitimacy of the council, and incitement against it.
On August 12, the MB party issued a statement in which it acknowledged its involvement in the rebellion and coup in Shabwa and launched a sharp attack on the governor Awad Ibn al-Wazir and demanded that he be dismissed or he would be forced to withdraw from all fields, meaning the dissolution of the Presidential Leadership Council consensus.
Shabwa is important in the MB’s calculations, in terms of maintaining their military and security presence in the south, as well as their political situation, which has been reduced since the transfer of the powers of former President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi to the presidential Command Council, and the dismissal of the leader of the military wing of the organization Ali Mohsen Al-Ahmar last April, not to mention the province’s enormous oil, gas and mineral wealth.
The defeat of the Reform Party in the Shabwa battles marks the culmination of the path of removing the party from the sphere of influence in the province, where it has monopolized power for years. The first blows that the MB received in Shabwa were the removal of the pro-reform Governor Mohammed Bin Adieu in December 2021 and the appointment of the current governor Awad Bin Al-Wazir Al-Awlaki.
According to a report published by the SANA’a Center for studies, “Islah” is afraid of uprooting its roots politically and militarily in its remaining areas of influence, where Shabwa borders the southern borders of Marib, its most important Center in Yemen, but Islah’s biggest concern about losing Shabwa is its influence in the Hadhramaut Valley and desert and the first military zone in Sayoun, classified as loyal to the party and former vice president Ali Mohsen.
Nevertheless, the report considers that there are still many factors in favor of the MB of Yemen, which bets on loyal networks within state institutions at the national, provincial and local levels, which give it influence and a means of escalation against its opponents. “Since its establishment in 1990, the party has enjoyed a special relationship with Saudi Arabia, which deepened with the beginning of the war against the Houthis, despite Riyadh’s dissatisfaction with it from time to time, and the party also relies on an electronic army and significant media arms, Yemeni and non-Yemeni, both inside and outside Yemen, which strengthens its influence in the media battlefield,” he said.
Support from “Al-Jazeera”…
It seems that the “SANA’a Center for studies” has hit the nail on the head in his talk about the media arms loyal to the group, where the Qatari channel “Al-Jazeera” came out to support the wide media campaigns targeting the Southern Transitional Council, and its leadership as the one who leads the military operations against militias in the south with other military formations.
In the program “Al-Mutahari”, on the evening of Friday, August 19, Al-Jazeera reviewed the conflicts in southern Yemen, which led to the outbreak of the events of January 13, 1986, which was witnessed in Aden and resulted in thousands of deaths and injuries, which observers linked to the channel’s attempt to recall the regional conflict buried in the south, and fanning its flames again.
The episode, entitled “Enemy Brothers”, included documents and interviews of personalities who were familiar with the events, including the president of South Yemen at the time, Ali Nasser Mohammed, talking about the state of the political struggle for power in that period, before it turned into regional and tribal fighting.
The program, which is prepared and presented by the Yemeni Jamal al-Maliki, who belongs to the Yemeni rally for Reform Party, dropped the old political conflicts and what led to them, on the reality of southern Yemen at the present time.
The political analyst, Khalid Salman, said that what Al-Jazeera broadcasts is just a collection of scraps and narrations that have already been recorded for decades, and stealing the Hadith of Al-Bayd (president Ali Salem Al-Bayd, president of the people’s Democratic Republic of Yemen, from 1986 to 1990) from the Aden TV library, and exporting it exclusively to Al-Jazeera, There is nothing new that deserves to be addressed in the program other than opening the wounds of internal conflicts and using them in the battle of the current political conflict between the presidential, transitional and angry reform,” he said.
“What the MB media will work on after the investigation is that the South is open for another January, and that every vendetta owner should carry his gun and pull the trigger,” Salman said in a Facebook post.
