Overt Military Movements by the “STC,” the First Since the Announcement of Its Dissolution… Will the Integration Plan Fail?
Yemen Monitor / Aden / Exclusive:
Military commanders belonging to the Southern Transitional Council (STC), which was previously announced to be dissolved, carried out field visits coinciding with the blessed Eid al-Adha to a number of combat fronts. This marks the first field movement since January and the transformations witnessed across the governorates of southern Yemen.
This step demonstrates the efforts of the UAE-backed council to rearrange the ranks of its military wing and consolidate its influence on the ground since the events of last January, following its expulsion from Hadramawt all the way to Aden, and the takeover of headquarters and military camps in the temporary Yemeni capital by the Giants Brigades and the National Shield Forces, which was followed by an announcement by several leaders dissolving the council with all its wings.
The military movements, which were published by the council’s media outlets as an execution of directives from the STC President, Aidarous al-Zubaidi, who is currently in the UAE, came after efforts to integrate the forces within the framework of the Fourth Military Region under the leadership of Major General Hamdi Shukri—who also commands the Second Division and was appointed by a presidential decree, as most of those military units fall within the region’s theater of operations.
The field visits to the combat fronts were preceded by a military statement issued under the name of the “Southern Land Forces” rejecting any changes to the names of its military formations. Additionally, military commanders held both public and secret meetings attempting to keep the military force cohesive, according to private sources.
Field Movements on the Frontlines
According to media sources affiliated with the STC, senior military commanders carried out a field visit described as a “holiday greeting” to the fighters stationed in both the Al-Anad military base and the combat fronts in Karish and Radfan, which are contact zones with the Houthi group.
The visiting delegation included several prominent military leaders in the armed wing of the STC, or what is known as the “Southern Land Forces,” most notably: Brigadier General Abdul Karim Saad, whom they identified as the Chief of Staff of the Land Forces and its Acting Commander; Brigadier General Waheeb bin Salam, appointed as Director of the Moral Guidance Department; Brigadier General Ali Al-Qadri, Director of the Control and Inspection Department; Brigadier General Fadl Waheeb, Director of Personnel Affairs in the brigades; and Abdul Malik Shabath, Deputy Director of the Training Department.
The STC media stated that the visit was meant to greet those stationed, raise combat readiness and morale, and reaffirm loyalty to the Southern Transitional Council and its project.
STC Statement: Rejecting “Restructuring” and Efforts to Change Nomenclature
These field movements came as an extension of a rigid political and military stance announced by the so-called command of the “Southern Land Forces” in a statement in which it declared its categorical rejection of what it called “absurd and suspicious attempts” aimed at renaming a number of land forces brigades with new names.
The statement accused parties (which it did not name explicitly, in a nod to the legitimate government and the Saudi side) of seeking to undermine the identity of the STC-affiliated forces and their history of struggle, considering that the bodies behind these movements do not possess any legal or military capacity authorizing them to make such decisions.
The statement warned against the continuation of these “provocative” actions, and called on the personnel of those forces and their supporters in the South to raise the “level of vigilance and alignment to protect military units from attempts at dismantling or erasing their identity.”
Rebellion Against Saudi Orientations and “Defense” Decisions
The military steps of the STC began on April 16, when the first meeting chaired by Staff Brigadier General Abdul Karim Saad Jaber in his capacity as “Commander of the Land Forces” was held, in the presence of the influential leader and head of the STC branch, Brigadier General Abdullah Mahdi.
The meeting, which mobilized military commanders and took place in Aden, explicitly declared a rejection of the steps being taken by the Yemeni government, with the support and sponsorship of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, to integrate the military formations belonging to the STC and reorganize them within the structures of the Ministries of Defense and Interior.
Regarding the salaries that Saudi Arabia committed to paying, conditioned on their restructuring and correcting their numbers through military committees belonging to the Arab Coalition forces—which launched their work last February—the military commanders of the STC stressed that salaries are an “inherent right that is not open to compromise.”
In mid-May, the Commander of the Fourth Military Region and Commander of the Giants’ Second Division, Major General Hamdi Shukri, met with the commanders of the STC’s most prominent military formations, in the first meeting of its kind.
The meeting, which took place informally at Shukri’s home, discussed rearranging the STC forces within the military region, after years of remaining outside the Yemeni Ministry of Defense and receiving their orders from the STC and its president, Aidarous al-Zubaidi, since their establishment with support from Abu Dhabi.