Tribesmen shut down oil companies in southeastern Yemen

A number of oil and gas companies and government facilities in Yemen's southeastern province of Shabwa were shut down on Sunday in response to the kidnapping of the director of the presidential office by Shiite Houthi gunmen, officials said.

"Armed men of some powerful tribes forced the oil and gas companies in Shabwa province to shut down and threatened to escalate their protest," a government official told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

Shabwa province is the hometown of Ahmed Award Bin Mubarak, director of the Yemeni presidential office, who was kidnapped by Shiite Houthi gunmen in the capital Sanaa on Saturday.

A security official said that "the armed forces were unable to protect the foreign oil companies."

Meanwhile, leaders of the powerful tribes in Shabwa demanded the Shiite Houthi group to release Bin Mubarak without any conditions.

Mubarak, along with his bodyguards, were intercepted by gunmen on their way to the secretariat of the National Dialogue Monitoring Committee, an Interior Ministry official told Xinhua.

"He was assigned by President (Abd-Rabbo Mansour) Hadi to hand over the draft of Yemen's new constitution to the secretariat of the monitoring committee to approve it before it goes to public," the official said.

According to the draft constitution, Yemen will be divided into six federal regions. However, the Houthis have been demanding to divide the country only into two.

The Shiite Houthi group, based in the northern province of Saada, has been expanding influence southward after signing a UN-sponsored peace and power-sharing deal on Sept. 21, 2014.

The deal put an end to week-long deadly clashes and also empowered the Houthi rebels to play an important role in the government. Endit