Southern Transitional Council: Aidarous Al-Zoubaidi is overseeing military operations from Aden
The position of the Southern Transitional Council comes in response to a Saudi statement claiming that Al-Zoubaidi had fled to an unknown destination.
On Wednesday, the Southern Transitional Council in Yemen said that its president, Aidarous Al-Zoubaidi, is in Aden, where he supervises military and security operations in the city. This came in response to a Saudi statement that spoke of his escape to an unidentified location, at a time when Yemenis hope tensions will ease through the conference planned in Riyadh between the rival parties.
Earlier on Wednesday, the Arab Coalition supporting legitimacy in Yemen — led by Saudi Arabia — announced that Al-Zoubaidi had “fled to an unknown place,” while Yemeni Presidential Leadership Council Chairman Rashad Al-Alimi decided to revoke his membership in the council.
In a statement responding to this, the Council said: “President and leader Aidarous Qassem Al-Zoubaidi continues to carry out his duties from the capital Aden, alongside his people, closely following and directly supervising the work of the military, security, and civil institutions, in a way that ensures security stability, the continued functioning of state institutions, and the preservation of security and stability in the capital Aden and the rest of the southern provinces.”
The coalition confirmed that Al-Zoubaidi had fled to an unknown destination and did not board the plane that was heading to Riyadh for talks aimed at addressing the escalation in the east of the country.
The coalition also stressed that its forces, in coordination with government forces and the “Shield of the Nation,” had carried out limited pre-emptive strikes at dawn to disrupt the advance of Southern Transitional Council forces toward Al-Dhalea.
Al-Zoubaidi had been expected to travel to Saudi Arabia a few days after the Yemeni government announced that it had asked Riyadh to host a forum to discuss the southern issue.
In its statement, the Southern Transitional Council said it continues to “engage positively and responsibly with various political initiatives and dialogue efforts,” adding that this position stems from its conviction that “serious dialogue is the best way to address just causes, foremost among them the cause of the people of the South.”
On Tuesday night, a delegation from the Council headed to the Saudi capital Riyadh, led by Secretary-General Abdelrahman Shaher Al-Subaihi, accompanied by several members of the Council’s leadership.
The Council explained that the purpose of the visit was “to participate in the upcoming conference related to the cause of the people of the South, reflecting its openness and readiness to engage constructively with any political process that takes into account the aspirations and legitimate rights of the people of the South.”
However, it soon expressed deep concern “over the inability to communicate or make contact with the Council’s delegation that arrived in Riyadh hours earlier.”
Since last December, military and political confrontations have escalated between, on one side, the Southern Transitional Council, and on the other, the government and the coalition supporting legitimacy.
At the beginning of that month, the Council’s forces took control of Hadramout and Al-Mahra — on Yemen’s southern border with Saudi Arabia — two provinces that together make up nearly half of Yemen’s territory (around 555,000 square kilometers), before later withdrawing from them.
