Saudis tightening grip on eastern Yemen through new oil routes

Ahmed Abdul-Kareem

Saudi Arabia which has invaded and occupied parts of Yemen, is trying to consolidate its military hold on the al-Mahrah province in the east, hoping to use the area for an oil pipeline that would bypass the Strait of Hormuz.

MintPress correspondent in Sana’a, Ahmed Abdul-Kareem has compiled a report in this regard, titled: “Saudis Tightening Grip on Eastern Yemen through New Oil Routes”.

 “The Saudi forces must leave all our townships and villages from the coast to the desert,” Ahmed Balhaf, a resident of Yemen’s eastern al-Mahrah province told a cheering crowd gathered to protest the presence of Saudi troops in Yemen. The demonstrations were part of a series of protests spread across six cities in al-Mahrah, Yemen recently, including in al-Mesilah, Sihout, al-Huson and al-Ghaydha.

Protesters hoisted large Yemeni flags and held banners declaring, “Our steadfastness continues,” and, “No to occupation by Saudi Arabia, Yes to national sovereignty.”

The protests follow an announcement by the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia’s main coalition ally in its war on Yemen, that it is withdrawing troops from the country, following warnings that the Yemeni resistance was planning attacks on the cities of Abu Dhabi and Dubai if UAE forces remained in the country.

Now, emboldened protesters are demanding that Saudi forces transfer control of key ports, including Shehn, Sarfeet and Nashton to back to Yemeni authorities. Protesters are also calling for the reopening of the Gheidah International Airport, which was transformed into a Saudi military base and is allegedly home to Saudi-run secret prisons.

The sit-in committee which organizes protests in al-Mahrah said in a statement during the protest: “What’s going on in the Mesila, Sehout, Hassouin, Nashton directorates and the Luisic district is no different from what happens in other districts in al-Mahrah where Saudi Arabia continues to build camps, harass local residents and cut off their income by preventing them from grazing [livestock] and fishing.”

As a result of the continued Saudi expansion in the province, which is dominated by eastern Yemen’s barren deserts and abuts neighboring Oman, both local Yemeni political leaders, as well as the sit-in committee, announced that they were willing to resort to more active means to force the Saudi military to leave their home.

Sheikh Ali Salem al-Harizi, a former deputy governor of al-Mahrah warned: “If the peaceful protests of al Mahrah’s residents bear no result, we have other options that will force the occupier to leave.”

The protests are part of a wave of demonstrations that have flared up regularly over the few past years calling for Saudi Arabia to withdraw its military from al-Mahrah. On July 5, a group of residents protested after members of a Saudi-backed militia attacked a woman’s home in the city of Ghaydha. The attack occurred near a recently constructed Saudi checkpoint and sparked instant outrage from local residents, who were already so upset with the new Saudi presence in their neighborhood that they formed a makeshift citizen’s militia in what was ultimately an unsuccessful attempt at halting the checkpoint’s construction.

In most cases, Saudi Arabia has been able to quell the protest with violence, and relied on buying off local officials and appeasing residents with promises of civil construction projects such as newly paved roads and medical clinics. But those measures haven’t always enough to stem the tide of popular discontent in the restive region. In Jadwa, an area which lies in al-Mahrah’s al-Hassouin directorate, Saudi forces fired live ammunition into a crowd of unarmed protestors who had gathered in front of a makeshift Saudi military camp to protest Riyadh’ presence in their region.

Saudi Arabia is also keen on preventing media coverage of the growing demonstrations for fear that discontent in the region will spread. Riyadh routinely kidnaps local journalists who have worked to expose Saudi misdeeds in al-Mahrah.

Yahya as-Sawari was working for a local news channel that recently intensified its coverage of the al-Mahrah protest movement when he was kidnapped by Saudi-backed militants on July 3 while trying to take photos of wounded protesters in al-Ghaydha Hospital. He was then taken to Saudi Arabia’s “Criminal Investigation Prison” and eventually to a prison controlled by Saudi forces at al-Ghaydha airport.

The organizing committee for the peaceful protest accused Saudi forces of the abduction and has called on the journalists’ syndicate and international human rights organizations to protect Yemen’s journalists and to come to the aid of as-Sawari. The Committee to Protect Journalists sent a message to the Saudi-backed Yemeni Ministry of the Interior, which oversees the Criminal Investigation Police and emailed the Saudi Ministry of Defense inquiring about as-Sawari’s status but did not receive a response.  Allegations of Saudi Arabia targeting journalists in Yemen are nothing new.

The leader of Yemen’s journalist syndicate, Abdullah Subri and even MintPress’ own Ahmed Abdul-Kareem have been targeted for their coverage of Saudi war crimes in Yemen.

While residents of al-Mahrah have long opposed the Saudi presence in their region, a recent increase in the presence of Saudi troops in the region and the construction of a number of new military camps and checkpoints has renewed both suspicion of Saudi plans for a long-term presence in Eastern Yemen as well as calls for the Riyadh to vacate the region.

Saudi Arabia claims that its checkpoints and military bases are needed to combat an influx of alleged Iranian arms shipments and drug smuggling through Oman, which borders al-Mahrah to the east, though the Riyadh regime has provided no evidence to back its claim, a claim which Oman has repeatedly and vociferously denied.

Local residents aren’t buying the Saudi line either. They say that smuggling is just a pretext for a Saudi takeover of their province and resources. Local protest leader Ahmed Balhaf says claims of smuggling have been debunked and that despite a Saudi takeover of al-Mahrah, the Ansarallah are equipped with evermore modern weaponry. “Where are the Ansarallah getting all of their new weapons like those they recently showed at their exhibition if Saudi forces are spread out through the whole of al-Mahrah,” Balhaf asked. “There is no smuggling of weapons to the Ansarallah Movement in al-Mahrah and besides, the military bases were built in oil-rich areas.”

In reality, Saudi Arabia has a strategic interest in the province. In late September, MintPress revealed that Riyadh began construction on a pipeline in al-Mahrah that would allow it transport oil directly to the Arabian Sea, bypassing the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait.

Now, following recent attacks on a Saudi pipeline in Yanbu’ by the Ansarallah,  Saudi Arabia is stepping up its activities in al-Mahrah, hoping to finish construction on the pipeline as soon as possible in a bid to circumvent the Strait of Hormuz.