Al Mukalla: Hundreds of army troops graduated on Tuesday from a military camp at Al Anad Military Base in the south of Yemen, months after joining a programme aimed at merging thousands of local resistance fighters into security forces and the national army.
Yemeni president Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi attended the graduation among senior army officials. The fresh graduates are to be deployed to Aden and other cities in the southern part of the country, a security official told Gulf News.
Sudanese military officials were involved in training the men, according to the source who did not want to be named.
In July of 2015, Hadi ordered all resistance soldiers fighting Iran-backed Al Houthi militants to be integrated into the Yemeni army and security forces.
A Saudi-led Arab coalition, fighting alongside Yemeni troops, helped establish training camps both inside and outside of the country.
UAE military officers have already trained and graduated two batches of security forces which are now in charge of securing key government agencies in the port city of Aden.
Aden’s governor Aidarous Al Zubidi and the city’s security chief Shalal Shaye, have both vowed to defeat what “sleeping cells” of Al Houthi militants and loyalists to ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh.
A string of assassination attempts on government and security officials in Aden have been funded and directed by intelligence agencies working for Al Houthis, according to Aden officials.
Al Zubidi said that a night time curfew imposed in Aden earlier this month would be extended for another month and security forces will set up more checkpoints in the city.
Last week government forces recaptured the Aden seaport and airport form militants and are currently mounting a campaign to recapture Al Mansoura district from local armed groups.
On Tuesday, armed men shot dead a security officer in Al Mansoura district of Aden, a day after the killing another intelligence officer in the same district. Residents said that the men were driving a pickup when they opened fire at Amen Shaif, an investigator at Aden airport as he was leaving his house.
