Like the member of the RSLF Paratroopers and Special Forces seen here during Exercise 'Red Alligator 4' in November 2014, the foreign soldiers spotted in Aden carried AK-103 rifles. Source: Saudi Press Agency
Saudi Arabia's
Al-Watan newspaper cited unidentified sources on 17 July as saying that Saudi special forces soldiers had arrived in Aden to guard officials from Yemen's internationally recognised government who had arrived in the city after a series of victories by pro-government forces.
It said the unit consisted of 50 men, including officers, and had accompanied Yemeni officials who returned to their country from exile in Riyadh.
The report was corroborated by photographs that emerged on social media showing well-equipped foreign soldiers escorting Yemeni dignitaries around Aden. The soldiers carried AK-103 assault rifles, a Kalashnikov type used by the Royal Saudi Land Forces (RSLF) Paratroopers and Special Forces.
A Saudi source told
IHS Jane's that the soldiers are from the RSLF's 64th Airborne Brigade.
The presence of United Arab Emirates (UAE) soldiers inside Yemen seems also to have been confirmed. According to the official news agency, WAM, the country's General Command of the Armed Forces announced on 16 July that Lieutenant Abdulaziz Sarhan Saleh al-Kaabi had been killed while participating in Operation 'Restoring Hope', the name for the Saudi-led military intervention against Yemen's Ansar Allah group.
The death of a second soldier participating in 'Restoring Hope', Saif Yusuf Ahmed al-Falasi, an NCO of unspecified rank, was announced on 21 July.
While no further details on either fatality were provided, WAM also reported the minister of transport in Yemen's exiled government as saying that the UAE had deployed a specialist team to Aden to re-open the port city's airport.
Aden International Airport was captured by forces fighting against Ansar Allah on behalf of the internationally recognised government on 14 July in an operation that involved newly arrived Oshkosh M-ATVs, a type of armoured vehicle that is used by both Emirati and Saudi special forces and has not previously been seen in Yemen.
While these vehicles are in service with both RSLF and UAE special forces, the ones seen in Yemen were operated by men in civilian clothes.
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Saudi, UAE forces deployed to Yemen - IHS Jane's 360