News - Yemen: Member of the Supreme Political Council Mohammed Ali Al-Houthi has called on all Yemeni people to launch an open campaign on social media condemning the UAE aggression on the Yemeni island of Mayun.

“Every Yemeni is invited to interact in an open campaign against the aggression on Mayun Island under the hashtag #Mayun#Usurps,” Al-Houthi wrote‌ ‌in‌ ‌a‌ ‌post‌ ‌published‌ ‌on‌ ‌his‌ ‌Twitter‌ ‌page‌ on Wednesday.

The US news agency Associated Press (AP) revealed on Tuesday that the UAE is building a secret air base on the strategic Mayon Island in Yemen.

The agency noted that while no country has claimed the Mayun Island air base in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, shipping traffic associated with a prior attempt to build a massive runway across the 5.6-kilometer (3.5 mile)-long island years ago links back to the United Arab Emirates.

It quoted officials in the Saudi-backed exiled Hadi government saying the Emiratis are behind this latest effort as well, even though the UAE announced in 2019 it was withdrawing its troops from the Saudi-led military campaign against Yemen.

“This does seem to be a longer-term strategic aim to establish a relatively permanent presence,” said Jeremy Binnie, the Mideast editor at the open-source intelligence company Janes who has followed construction on Mayun for years. It’s “possibly not just about the Yemen war and you’ve got to see the shipping situation as fairly key there.”

The AP added that the runway on Mayun Island allows whoever controls it to project power into the strait and easily launch airstrikes into mainland Yemen. It also provides a base for any operations into the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden and nearby East Africa.

Satellite images from Planet Labs Inc. obtained by The Associated Press showed dump trucks and graders building a 1.85 kilometer (6,070-foot) runway on the island on April 11. By May 18, that work appeared complete, with three hangars constructed on a tarmac just south of the runway.

A runway of that length can accommodate attack, surveillance and transport aircraft. An earlier effort begun toward the end of 2016 and later abandoned had workers try to build an even-larger runway over 3 kilometers (9,800 feet) long, which would allow for the heaviest bombers.

According to the agency, the decision by the Emiratis to resume building the air base comes after the UAE dismantled parts of a military base it ran in the East African nation of Eritrea as a staging ground for its Yemen campaign.