Shabwa Governor Mohammed Saleh Bin Adyo accused the United Arab Emirates (UAE) of financing chaos and exploiting people's needs to serve its ambitions. 

Bin Adyo said on Twitter that the money the UAE spends to finance chaos could be better spent “on providing services or helping people fulfill their needs."

"We have a deeper belief that any attempt to disrupt the security and stability of the governorate will fail and that the money paid to cause chaos and spread sedition will not work in the face of the will, determination and wisdom of Shabwa people," Bin Adyo said in a tweet.

The governor’s statements come at a time of heightened tensions in Shabwa between supporters of the Southern Transitional Council (STC) and government forces. Southern Resistance Forces, aligned with the STC, argue that Bin Adyo is using the UAE threat as cover to crackdown on separatist populations.

The tensions unfold as Saudi Arabia attempts to implement a power-sharing deal known as the Riyadh agreement in the interim capital of Aden, where STC and government forces have been jockeying for power since August. After pro-STC siezed Aden from the government in August, they pushed into Abyan and then Shabwa, only to be expelled from the latter shortly afterward.

Bin Adyo called on Yemen President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi in mid-December to stop the “tampering and provocations” of UAE forces in Shabwa. It's uncertain how much influence Hadi, who lives in Riyadh, to that end.