US Aggressively Seeking to Assert Control Over Yemeni Energy Reserves, Plunder Them: PM

Sunday, 03 July 2022 9:26 AM 

Abdulaziz bin Habtoor, the prime minister of Yemen’s National Salvation Government (Photo via Twitter)

The prime minister of Yemen’s National Salvation Government has said that Washington is aggressively seeking to establish control over energy reserves and ports in Yemen’s eastern provinces of Hadhramaut and al-Mahrah and loot them.

During a meeting with Hadhramaut and Mahra provincial governors, Luqman Baras and al-Qatabi Ali Hussein al-Faraj respectively, in the capital Sana’a on Saturday, Abdulaziz bin Habtoor strongly condemned a recent visit by the US ambassador to the country’s energy-rich eastern provinces, stating that Steven Fagin’s trip falls within the framework of US attempt to dominate Yemen's oil wells and ports.

He underscored that occupier’s plots in the two provinces must be directly confronted, lauding popular resistance and steadfastness in the face of Saudi-led acts of hostility and schemes which are in flagrant violation of Yemen's sovereignty

A tanker operated by the UAE has reportedly left a port in Yemen’s southern province of Shabwah with more than 400,000 barrels of looted Yemeni crude oil.

Habtoor added that Fagin’s visit clearly indicates that the United States is trying to plunder Yemen's national assets and take advantage of its geopolitical position to serve its interests.

The Yemeni prime minister also stressed the need for supporting popular resistance in Hadhramaut and Mahra provinces in order to thwart colonial conspiracies.

In a related development, Tariq Salam, the governor of the southern province of Aden, said the US and its allied Takfiri militants have set their eyes on the natural resources of the strategic island of Socotra off the coast of Yemen.

Salam told the Arabic-language al-Masirah television network that there are six oil-rich areas on Socotra Island that are of paramount significance, and that explains why the US and its allied militants are seeking to control them.

Saudi-led coalition has seized yet another Yemeni fuel tanker with thousands of tons of fuel on board- the second in less than 24 hours- violating the ceasefire once more.

In mid-June Mohammad Tahir Anam, an adviser to the Yemeni Supreme Political Council said the country’s armed forces will launch retaliatory strikes against oil installations deep inside Saudi Arabia in case the Riyadh-led coalition keeps on smuggling hauls of contraband crude oil and natural gas out of the country.

He warned the alliance that Yemeni authorities would not allow Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to further violate the extended United Nations-brokered ceasefire and plunder Yemeni oil and gas.

The Yemeni official reported a sharp increase in the theft of Yemeni oil and gas in addition to the seizure of Yemeni vessels off the coast of the country’s southern province of Shabwah.

Saudi Arabia launched a devastating war on Yemen in March 2015 in collaboration with its Arab allies and with arms and logistics support from the US and other Western states.

The objective was to reinstall the Riyadh-friendly regime of Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi and crush the Ansarullah resistance movement, which has been running state affairs in the absence of a functional government in Yemen.

While the Saudi-led coalition has failed to meet its objectives, the war has killed hundreds of thousands of Yemenis and spawned the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.