Local Editor
The United Arab Emirates, a key member of the Saudi-led coalition bombing Yemen, is scaling back its military presence there as worsening U.S.-Iran tensions threaten security closer to home, four western diplomatic sources said.
The UAE has pulled some troops from the southern port of Aden and western coast, two of the diplomats said, areas where the Gulf state has built up and armed local forces who are leading the battle against Yemen’s popular Houthi group along the Red Sea coast.
Three of the diplomats said Abu Dhabi preferred to have its forces and equipment on hand should tension between the United States and Iran escalate further after attacks on oil tankers in the Gulf and Tehran’s downing of a U.S. unmanned drone.
“It is true that there have been some troop movements ... but it is not a redeployment from Yemen,” a senior Emirati official told Reuters, adding that the UAE remains fully committed to the military coalition and “will not leave a vacuum” in Yemen.
The official would not provide details on the movements, the numbers involved or specify whether it was happening inside or outside Yemen, where the alliance launched a military campaign in 2015 to forcefully restore the resigned regime of former Yemeni president Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi.
It is not clear how many Emirati forces are in Yemen. One Western diplomat said the UAE withdrew “a lot” of forces from the Arabian Peninsula nation over the last three weeks.
Source: News Agencies, Edited by Website Team
