DUBAI (Reuters) - The Saudi-backed Yemeni government accused southern separatists of staging a coup in Aden after their fighters took over all military camps in the southern port city, seat of the internationally recognized government, on Saturday.

“What is happening in the temporary (government) capital of Aden by the Southern Transitional Council is a coup against institutions of the internationally recognized government,” the foreign ministry said in a Twitter post. </s> Five militants of the Southern Transitional Council were killed by snipers, while four soldiers died in clashes.

The day before clashed resulted in 12 people dead and over 130 wounded, while supporters of a movement to restore South Yemen's independence from the North reportedly captured several government facilities.

Clashes between former allies — the Saudi-led pro-government forces and militants of the Southern Transitional Council erupted the day after the internationally recognized government hadn't met a deadline for the resignation.

READ MORE: Yemen's Southern Movement: What They Want and Who They Are

Southern rebels initially backed internationally-recognized Yemen President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi, who fled from advancing Houthi rebels to his hometown of Aden, and alongside the Saudi-led coalition helped push the Houthis away from southern regions.

Hadi, in turn, rejected the ultimatum and banned public gatherings before January 28 — subsequently, clashes erupted. The president has called on the Saudi-led coalition to help and currently facing two fronts — one against the Houthis and a second against the Southern rebels. </s> DUBAI (Reuters) - Yemen’s southern separatists agreed on Sunday to a Saudi-led coalition’s calls for an immediate ceasefire in Aden, seat of the internationally recognized government, they said in a statement.

“The spokesman of the Southern Transitional Council (STC) confirmed its adherence to the ceasfire called for by the leadership of the Saudi-led coalition,” the statement said. </s> MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 11th August, 2019) Yemeni Interior Minister Ahmed Misri said on Sunday that 400 UAE military vehicles were used by separatists from the Southern Transitional Council in the port city of Aden.

On Saturday, after several days of fierce fighting, the Southern Transitional Council captured the Maashiq presidential palace in Aden. The clashes have already left at least 40 people dead and 260 more injured.

"A total of 400 UAE [military] vehicles took part in the fighting. We fought against them using primitive weapons," Misri wrote on his Twitter page.

He pointed out that neither Saudi Arabia, not the administration of internationally recognized Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi commented on the situation in Aden.

The Yemeni conflict between the government and the rebel Shia Houthi movement has been ongoing since 2015. Earlier this week, separatists supporting the Southern Transitional Council engaged in clashes with their former allies, pro-government forces in Aden. </s> In this Friday Aug. 9, 2019 frame grab from video, Southern Transitional Council separatist fighters line up to storm the presidential palace in the southern port city of Aden, Yemen. The separatists backed by the United Arab Emirates began withdrawing Sunday from positions they seized from the internationally-recognized government in Aden. Both the southern separatists and the government forces are ostensibly allies in the Saudi-led military coalition that’s been battling the Houthi rebels in northern Yemen since 2015, but the four days of fighting in Aden have exposed a major rift in the alliance. (AP Photo)

SANAA, Yemen (AP) — Yemeni separatists backed by the United Arab Emirates began withdrawing Sunday from positions they seized from the internationally-recognized government in the southern port city of Aden.

Both the southern separatists and the government forces are ostensibly allies in the Saudi-led military coalition that’s been battling the Houthi rebels in northern Yemen since 2015.

But a major rift in the coalition was exposed during the four days of fighting for control of Aden, as the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council wrested the city from government forces. More than 70 people were killed in the clashes.

The UAE is the dominant force in Yemen’s south, where it has an estimated 90,000 allied militiamen and has long been at odds with the government, which is largely based in Saudi Arabia.

The two U.S.-allied Gulf monarchies appear to have diverging interests in Yemen, where the stalemated war has spawned the world’s worst humanitarian crisis and drawn mounting criticism in Washington.

Saudi Arabia views the Houthi rebels in Yemen’s north as a major national security threat, in part because the Houthis have launched numerous cross-border missile attacks targeting the Saudi capital and other cities. The UAE, which recently began withdrawing troops from Yemen, appears more interested in securing its interests in the south — which lies along major trading routes linking Africa to Asia — than waging a war that appears increasingly unwinnable.

Saudi Arabia had responded angrily to the takeover in Aden, calling for an immediate cease-fire and ordering the separatists to pull back as Saudi troops moved to secure government buildings. On Sunday, Saudi state TV reported that the separatists had begun withdrawing.

The coalition said Sunday it struck a target that posed a “direct threat” to the government, without elaborating, and warned of further military action if the separatists did not pull back.

Yemeni officials said the UAE-backed fighters had withdrawn from the streets but still held military positions seized in recent days, and were still stationed outside the presidential palace. Other officials at Aden’s airport said flights had resumed after being halted since Thursday because of the clashes. All of them spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief media.

The government forces that were expelled from Aden are led by President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, who has been based Saudi Arabia for five years. Officials within his government have said Hadi wants to return to Aden, but his Saudi hosts would prefer he remain close at hand in their capital, Riyadh.

Hadi’s interior minister, Ahmed al-Maisar, sharply criticized Saudi Arabia for remaining silent during the past four days while fighting raged in Aden. He spoke in a video released Sunday that was recorded while he said he was awaiting evacuation from Aden to Saudi Arabia a day earlier.

The current crisis began last week following the funeral of a separatist leader killed in a Houthi rocket attack. After his funeral in Aden, southern separatists attacked the nearby presidential palace. At the time, Hani Bin Braik, a separatist leader and former Cabinet minister, called for the overthrow of the government.

Bin Braik tweeted Sunday that the southern separatists accept Hadi as president and are committed to the coalition, but want his Cabinet replaced. The government has said it will not negotiate with the separatists until they hand over all the military positions they seized.

Peter Salisbury, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group, a non-profit research institute, said the separatists “withdrawing from installations won’t make a huge difference right now, as the Hadi government forces have largely dispersed.” He told The Associated Press that Saudi Arabia was likely trying to “save face and work out if there is a deal to be done” between the government and the UAE-backed separatists, whose goal was to “lay the groundwork for the formations of a separate southern state.”

Yemen was split into two countries, in the north and south, during much of the Cold War before unifying in 1994.

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a statement Sunday that preliminary reports indicate as many as 40 people have been killed and 260 wounded in Aden since Aug. 8.

Elsewhere in Yemen, the Houthi-run health ministry claimed an airstrike by the Saudi-led coalition killed at least 11 people, including four children and three women, and wounded at least 18 people in the northern Hajjah province.

A spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition could not immediately be reached for comment. </s> ADEN - Yemen’s southern separatists took control of all government military camps in Aden on Saturday, officials said, after four days of clashes between nominal allies who have turned on each other, complicating UN efforts to end the four-year war.

The separatists also surrounded the all-but empty presidential palace of the internationally recognized government that is temporarily based in the port city, a government official and another local official told Reuters.

At least eight civilians were killed on Friday in fighting between the separatists and government forces, according to medical sources. Fighting resumed early on Saturday but has since abated, residents said.

The combatants are both part of the Saudi-led pro-government coalition that has been battling the Iran-aligned armed Houthi movement in Yemen since March 2015, indicating a rift within the alliance. The war has killed tens of thousands and pushed the poorest Arabian Peninsula nation to the brink of famine.

“It is all over, the (Southern Transitional Council) forces are in control of all the military camps,” an official in President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi’s government told Reuters.

He said the two sides had agreed the separatist forces would not try to seize the palace, located in the predominantly residential Crater district, while government forces would refrain from attacking them.

The separatists also took over the house of Interior Minister Ahmed al-Mayssari after he was evacuated from his residence with the help of coalition forces, government officials said. President Hadi is based in the Saudi capital Riyadh.

There was no immediate comment from the Western-backed, Sunni Muslim coalition led by Saudi Arabia that intervened in Yemen after the Houthis ousted Hadi’s government from power in the capital Sanaa in late 2014.

Alliance member the United Arab Emirates, which has armed and trained thousands of southern separatist fighters, earlier called for calm and for the two sides to focus on opposing the Houthis.

Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayed called on UN special envoy Martin Griffiths, who is trying to de-escalate tensions across Yemen, “to deploy efforts and exert pressure” to that purpose.

The Norwegian Refugee Council said the battles had trapped civilians in their homes with dwindling supplies of food and water. The aid group said prolonged fighting in Aden, a gateway for commercial and aid supplies, could impact efforts to tackle the humanitarian crisis gripping the rest of the country.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has urged the parties to end hostilities and engage in “inclusive dialogue”. The clashes began on Wednesday after the separatists accused an Islamist party allied to Hadi of complicity in a missile attack on a military parade in Aden, one of three separate attacks that targeted southern forces.

The Houthis claimed responsibility for the parade attack that killed a senior southern commander.

Despite their alliance, the separatists and Hadi’s government have rival agendas for Yemen’s future.

Analysts say the Houthis may have used the parade attack to test dynamics on the ground after the UAE in June scaled down its military presence in Yemen under pressure from Western allies to end the war and concerns about rising tensions with Iran in the Gulf.

The United Nations is trying to implement a stalled peace deal in the main port city of Hodeidah, further to the north, to pave the way for wider political negotiations to end the war. </s> ADEN (Reuters) - Southern Yemeni separatists took control of the port city of Aden after two days of fighting, residents said on Tuesday, confining the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi to the presidential palace.

They said forces loyal to the Southern Transitional Council, which is backed by the United Arab Emirates, a main component of the Saudi-led coalition, seized the last stronghold of its Presidential Protection forces rival in Dar Saad area in northern Aden on Tuesday after heavy fighting.

The Saudi-led coalition is battling the Iran-aligned Houthi movement which controls most of northern Yemen. </s> Separatists from southern Yemen have seized key buildings in the city of Aden from the internationally recognised government, prompting a wave of Saudi airstrikes and ending an Eid truce only hours after it was called.

The Southern Transitional Council had been fighting in tense coalition with forces loyal to President Hadi against Houthi rebels backed by Iran. However, long-standing splits between the STC and the president’s forces have escalated into armed clashes in recent days, killing up to 40 people, according to the UN.

Mr Hadi’s government has been based in Aden, a port city in the southeast of the country, since being ousted from Sanaa, the capital, in September 2014. Mr Hadi is living in Saudi Arabia, which is providing his faction with air… </s> The Saudi-backed Yemeni government accused southern separatists of staging a coup in Aden after their fighters took over all military camps in the southern port city, seat of the internationally recognized government, on Saturday.
Saudi coalition forces intervene in Aden. The Southern Transitional Council says it will not "negotiate under duress" with their coalition partners.