... Preparations for the current anti-AQAP campaign began as early as April 2015 with the opening of quiet negotiations between the Gulf coalition and key tribes in southern and eastern Yemen. By February 2016, the coalition was engaged in a major military effort to clear AQAP from al-Mukalla and the Lahij-Abyan coastal corridor.
To facilitate the campaign, units from the United Arab Emirates have brought to bear many of the lessons learned during deployments in Somalia, Afghanistan, and Libya. In Aden, the coalition developed six 100-man units of local resistance fighters bolstered by UAE special forces, while Gulf intelligence agencies worked with locals to create an AQAP and Islamic State target list. In early March, coalition airstrikes hit AQAP's leadership in Burayqah and in northern neighborhoods such as Salahuddin, Sheikh Othman, and Mansoura; on March 14, a UAE Mirage 2000 jet crashed in Burayqah during a low pass over Aden, reportedly downed by an AQAP 9K32 Strela man-portable air-defense system (MANPADS). On March 20, 600 Yemeni personnel mounted in UAE-supplied Nimr tactical vehicles launched ground operations against AQAP. With support from UAE Apache helicopters, they cleared the Mansoura district and dislodged AQAP fighters from their stronghold in the Mansoura central prison, killing an estimated 120 of them.
To the east, the coalition undertook a similar project in al-Mukalla, but on a far greater scale. A year ago, it began patiently developing a 10,000-strong force to recapture the city, including around 4,500 Yemeni army troops of the 2nd MRC, around 1,500 tribal fighters from the Hadramawt Tribal Confederation (HTC), and around 4,000 anti-AQAP rebels from within al-Mukalla itself. As in Aden, these forces eventually helped the coalition create a granular target list of AQAP operating locations, which were then hit by airstrikes and naval gunfire beginning on April 18, 2016. On April 20, army troops of the 1st MRC supported by UAE Apaches recaptured the PetroMasila oil facilities 190 kilometers north of al-Mukalla. And on April 23, the coalition launched ground operations to recapture the city itself and its nearby port and military bases. In two days of heavy fighting, AQAP tried to block the 2nd MRC and HTC forces from sweeping south into al-Mukalla, employing defensive positions on the three approach roads about 50 kilometers north. These blocking positions were defeated, allowing relief forces to link up with the anti-AQAP resistance inside the city on April 25, while UAE marines made ancillary landings along the coast to the east. An estimated 450 AQAP fighters were killed in these operations.
The campaigns in al-Mukalla and Aden have been complemented by follow-on efforts to prevent AQAP re-infiltration. Pursuit operations have spread east of Aden and west of al-Mukalla to break the group's hold on coastal towns and roads, and internal resistance forces are being retained as local police, with salaries paid by the coalition for now. In addition, even before liberating certain neighborhoods, coalition forces covertly surveyed the essential services needed by local communities, enabling them to immediately distribute food from warehouses and dispatch reconstruction teams in AQAP's wake to replace or improve on services the group and its tribal allies were providing.
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