Yemeni warring military factions complete redeployment

ADEN, Yemen - Forces loyal to Yemen's government and other military units of the Southern Transitional Council (STC) on Wednesday completed redeployment plans in the country's southern part under Saudi Arabia-led coalition's supervision.

Local military officials said that "the process of redeployment warring troops was completed successfully under the auspices of observers of the Saudi Arabia-led coalition."

"The Saudi-led coalition succeeded in ending the military escalation in the strategic southern regions and reunited its two nominal allies," one of the officials told Xinhua by phone.

"The coalition paved the way for declaring the new power-sharing government between the two rivals during the next days," he said anonymously.

Another official of Yemen's government said that reuniting the government forces and the STC's military units will push for liberating the country's northern regions from the Houthi rebels' control during the upcoming period.

"The new power-sharing government backed by the coalition will direct all the military operations to target the Houthis," the official said.

On Saturday, military units of the STC completely withdrew from flashpoint areas in the country's southern province of Abyan and headed back to their locations in the neighboring province of Lahj.

On the other side, a number of army units affiliated with Yemen's government were also redeployed from the military contact lines on the outskirts of Zinjibar, capital city of Abyan.

In 2019, Saudi Arabia persuaded the STC and the Yemeni government to hold reconciliation talks, which succeeded in reaching a deal to form a new technocratic cabinet of no more than 24 ministers.

But numerous obstacles have stood in the way of implementing the deal, which excluded the Houthi rebels who are still controlling the capital Sanaa and other northern provinces of the war-torn Arab country.

The impoverished Arab country has been locked in a civil war since late 2014, when the Houthis overran much of the country and seized all northern regions including Sanaa.