Fishing in troubled waters: Yemeni Brotherhood takes advantage of war to control the southern governorates

Nora Bandari

The efforts of the Yemeni Congregation for Reform (Islah) party, the arm of the Brotherhood in Yemen, to control the southern governorates, especially those under the control of the Southern Transitional Council, have returned to the fore once again, seeking to wrest them from the control of the Southern Transitional Council and impose Brotherhood hegemony over them after the Southern armed forces succeeded during the past two years in exposing the Brotherhood’s corruption in a number of Yemeni governorates, especially Shabwa Governorate, and launched Operation Arrows of the East last August, which resulted in the expulsion of the Brotherhood from Shabwa after the popular rejection of the group.

Brotherhood maneuver

In light of this, the Brotherhood’s Islah party is looking for an alternative to impose its control and influence under the cover of its loyalty to the legitimate Yemeni government, and therefore, on June 3, the party elected new leaders for its executive offices in the governorates of Hadramout, Al-Mahrah and Socotra. A number of local Yemeni sources revealed that the party’s change of leadership in these three governorates aims at preparing the Brotherhood to partition the three governorates under the slogan of “establishing a region within the federal state.”

A number of experts and analysts considered that these elections represent a “new maneuver” for the Brotherhood’s party through which it aims to control these southern governorates despite lacking popular support, but it wanted to compete with the Southern Transitional Council, which has a large presence within these governorates.

Houthi movements

On the other hand, the movements of the Yemeni Brotherhood coincide with other movements of the Houthi militia that have escalated during the recent period and aimed at the militia’s focus on the responsibility of its media platforms to try to distort the image of the Arab coalition countries, the Southern Transitional Council and the legitimate government, claiming that their presence in the southern governorates, especially Socotra, Al-Mahrah and Hadhramaut, aims to seize Yemen’s oil wealth enjoyed by the three governorates. The Houthi desire to launch such allegations seeks to put pressure on the Arab coalition countries, especially Saudi Arabia, in order to return once again to negotiations with Sanaa and to agree to the latter’s conditions, especially those related to the legitimate government’s payment of the salaries of all Houthi civil and military employees from the oil and gas revenues in the liberated areas under the control of the legitimate government, which has so far rejected this.

Brotherhood endeavors

Regarding the significance of the Brotherhood’s movements, Yemeni political researcher Mahmoud al-Taher said that the Brotherhood is always seeking to fish in “troubled waters” and considers that Hadramout Governorate is stable and the last remnant of the legitimate government, and it is the only one far from the Houthis, so they seek to control it and keep the Southern Transitional Council away from it.

Taher pointed out in a special statement to the Reference that when the Brotherhood carries out these political or other military maneuvers under the cover of legitimacy, its main goal is to provoke the Southern Transitional Council, because the Brotherhood party realizes that the Southern Transitional Council will not remain silent about its movements in these southern governorates, which may threaten its project to restore the state of the south, of which Hadramout is one of its pillars.

He added that in light of this, the Brotherhood seeks to force the Southern Transitional Council to take military action and then to obtain great condemnation from the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council, especially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which does not want any hostilities in this governorate and wants it to be stable.