Alwaght- Former Yemeni president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi has blamed the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for inciting fighting in the country’s port city of Aden.
Hadi, who is reportedly under house arrest in Saudi Arabia, released an audio recording from Riyadh, saying the UAE is behind the latest clashes in Yemen's city of Aden, Watan newspaper reported Sunday.
The UAE, he said, is plotting a coup in the southern port city.
Hadi said the Emirati regime is pursuing its own interests in Yemen and is competing with Saudi Arabia for influence in the impoverished country. Saudi Arabia launched a brutal aggression against Yemen in March 2015 in an attempt to reinstall Hadi and crush the popular Ansarullah movement which administer the capital Sana'a and several provinces.
Nearly 14,000 Yemenis, mostly women, children and the elderly, have been killed since the onset of Saudi Arabia’s military campaign against the impoverished state. Much of the Arabian Peninsula country's infrastructure, including hospitals, schools and factories, has been reduced to rubble due to the war. The Saudi-led war has also triggered a deadly cholera epidemic and famine across Yemen.
Saudi-backed forces loyal to Hadi controlled Eden but were ousted last month by the UAE-backed separatists after bloody clashes.
The recent fighting, in which the so-called Southern Transitional Council (STC) turned against their former allies, laid bare the underlying rifts between the UAE and Saudi Arabia and their jockeying for position in Yemen.
