Events in Yemen are rapidly and dramatically escalating to the point where armed conflict has broken out between the Saudi Arabia-led Arab coalition supporting the internationally recognized Yemeni government and the so-called Southern Transitional Council (STC), which is supported by the United Arab Emirates.
Many see these developments as a natural outcome of the long and cumulative trajectory of complexities and subsequent humanitarian and economic impacts the country has experienced since the outbreak of civil war in late 2014.
External intervention has had the profound effect of causing political and administrative chaos, exacerbating internal divisions, exposing what remains of the legitimate state to further weakening, and culminating in the loss of the most important instruments of sovereignty: territorial unity and decision-making. These developments and events add further complexity to an already complex situation, and Yemen will no longer be safe from future impacts.
Others, however, see the situation from a different, less bleak angle. The strong reaction to the STC move by the Yemeni president (chairman of the Presidential Leadership Council (PLC)) and the Saudi-led Arab coalition behind it is a new and important variable that is quite different from the usual approach to many similar events. It is therefore hoped that these events and changes will mark a new phase that will work to correct the imbalances and deviations that have accompanied more than a decade of Arab Coalition intervention.
The Houthi rebels in northern Yemen have remained silent and appear to be watching closely to see what these events will produce as they continue to attack the cohesion of elements of the Arab coalition leadership and undermine the legitimate government. Either way, they understand that the end result will ultimately be in their favor. Therefore, according to multiple reports, the Houthis are currently intensifying their military preparations, redeploying and dispersing their forces along theaters of operations adjacent to frontline contact points, namely Taiz and Bab al-Mandeb in the northeast (Marib) and southwest, in preparation for zero hour.
So what is the nature and background of this bilateral conflict between the allies? Where have these events and developments led Yemen, and where will they lead it in the future? And how will they affect the future of the country and region?
It is widely agreed that what is happening today is just the early result of deep internal conflicts of interest between two major coalition states: Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Most of this conflict remained hidden, but its accumulation continued to roll and grow like a snowball.
To understand how things came to the point of an explosion of conflict between the allies, it is first necessary to understand the background of this conflict and conflict.
In late March 2015, Saudi Arabia led a coalition of 10 Arab and Islamic countries to intervene militarily in Yemen. The coalition, later called the Coalition Supporting Yemeni Legitimacy, aimed to restore the authority of Yemen’s former legitimate president, Abdrabu Mansour Hadi, from the control of Houthi coup forces.
Initially, the coalition achieved significant visible successes on the ground, but then differences began to emerge between the two main allies, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
There is a widely held and well-founded belief that the UAE entered this war with a plan to achieve purely geopolitical and strategic interests. However, some argue that this was not always the case initially, and that they later turned to exploiting weaknesses, gaps and internal divisions in order to redraw their strategies in light of this.
On the ground, the United Arab Emirates formed, trained, and financed local forces loyal to it to achieve its own objectives, separate from the coalition and the legitimate government. Within just two years of intervention, Yemen, through its own local forces, had succeeded in controlling all strategic maritime outlets along southern and eastern Yemen, reaching the west coast of Taiz province in the country’s southwest, where the strategic Bab al-Mandeb Strait lies.
Over the decade since the coalition’s intervention, the UAE has established and built a powerful military of home-grown militias, making it the most powerful force on the ground and the biggest threat to its allies’ interests in Yemen. It can be argued that Riyadh made a fatal strategic mistake in dealing with these deviations, remaining silent and failing to take decisive action on the ground to curb the excesses of its allies – perhaps getting away with minor safeguards and often acting as a mere “mediator” to resolve the sometimes escalating conflicts – until the ax finally hit it squarely in the head.
military escalation
In early December, the STC, established with support from the UAE, seized control of Hadramout and Al-Mahrah governorates in eastern Yemen, triggering a military escalation. This infuriated Saudi Arabia and disrupted normal diplomacy and calm. This major shift in policy may be interpreted by many to stem from the fact that Riyadh considers these two eastern border provinces to be a geographical extension of its national security, and any compromise to their security poses a direct threat to national security, as Riyadh has made clear in recent statements issued in the wake of the crisis.
The head of PLC therefore takes these moves very seriously and described them as “unilateral measures” which are unacceptable. Based on the powers granted by the Transfer of Power Declaration (April 2022), he called on the Saudi-led Arab coalition to intervene militarily.
The next day, coalition aircraft attacked military equipment arriving aboard two ships from the UAE port of Fujairah to Hadramawt’s Mukalla port. In response, Yemeni President Rashad Al Alimi declared a state of emergency and called on the UAE to end its military presence in Yemen. Later that day, the UAE Ministry of Defense announced the withdrawal of remaining troops in Yemen (the UAE had previously announced it would withdraw troops from Yemen in October 2019).
The military escalation had large-scale military and political consequences that unfolded rapidly, especially after the STC continued to refuse to heed calls and threats by the coalition leadership and the Yemeni president to withdraw troops from both governorates.
Some may ask, “Why does the STC refuse to withdraw its troops despite threats and repeated attacks?” The answer is that doing so would deal a powerful blow to the separatist project. Apparently, the occupation of these two provinces by the Council (both of which have rejected the plan) gave rise to widespread expectations among southern separatists that they would declare a state, but the decisive intervention of Saudi Arabia (in the name of the Arab Union) dealt a crushing blow to those plans.
Escalation and impact
As the new year began, Yemeni government ground forces (formed under the banner of Shield of the Homeland by presidential decision on January 27, 2023, with support from Saudi Arabia), supported by air cover and coalition aircraft, began moving toward Hadramawt and Al-Mahrah (eastern) to liberate them from STC forces, and the liberation and suppression operation began. In response, UAE-backed Giant Brigade troops came from the west coast of Taiz and moved towards Hadramawt Governorate to reinforce and support STC forces.
Amid the accelerating escalation and its effects, STC Director-General Aidars al-Zubaidi, who is also a member of the PLC, acted quickly and issued what he called a “Constitutional Declaration” (2 January 2026), in which he announced what he called an independent “Arab Southern State” during a two-year transition period.
While state institutions at national, regional and global levels have so far ignored the declaration, many Yemenis treat it with ambivalence, depending on their affiliations and loyalties.
While southern separatists expressed overwhelming joy at the state’s announcement, opponents derided the move as an attempt to jump ahead and run ahead, ignoring facts and local and international laws and regulations. Some believed this was simply a desperate attempt to relieve the council of the pressure of commitments on those dreaming of leaving, at a time when recent events and developments made it clear that leaving was no longer easy.
Regardless of its interpretation, even if this declaration has no legal effect, its political, economic, and administrative consequences will be difficult to bear, in terms of deepening divisions between Yemeni elites and people (north and south), preserving the legal status of the Yemeni state, or even continuing to operate the state in a fragile manner.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, there are dangerous implications for the main fight to restore the state and free the Yemeni people from the effects of a decade of war and state collapse.
Clearly, the situation in Yemen is becoming increasingly complex, with events accelerating, positions intensifying, and reactions escalating. No one knows exactly where Yemen’s development is heading.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of Al Jazeera.
