Saudi-led coalition claims STC’s Al-Zubaidi fled to UAE via Somaliland | News

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The secessionist leader took a boat to Berbera, then boarded a panel that flew to Abu Dhabi via Mogadishu, according to the coalition.

The Saudi-led coalition in Yemen announced that the leader of the secessionist group Southern Transitional Council (STC) fled to the United Arab Emirates via Somaliland after leap Peace talks planned in Riyadh.

In a statement released Thursday, the coalition said Eidarous all-Zubedi “escaped in the middle of the night” on Wednesday aboard a ship that left Aden in Yemen for the port of Berbera in Somaliland.

Al-Zubaidi then boarded a plane with UAE officers and flew to Mogadishu, the Somali capital. “The aircraft turned off its identification systems over the Gulf of Oman, then turned them back on ten minutes before arriving at Al Reef Military Airport in Abu Dhabi,” the statement said.

There was no immediate comment from the STC or the UAE.

If confirmed, the move could escalate the feud between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which emerged after the Abu Dhabi-backed STC launched an offensive against Riyadh-backed Yemeni government troops in December.

The STC – which initially supported Yemen’s internationally recognized government against Houthi rebels in northern Yemen – seeks to create an independent state in southern Yemen. It seized the provinces of Hadramout and Mahra, bordering Saudi Arabia, in a campaign that Riyadh called a red line for its national security.

The Saudi-led coalition responded airstrikes on the Yemeni port of Mukalla on December 30, targeting what it called an arms shipment linked to the United Arab Emirates, and supported a call by Yemen’s internationally recognized government for Emirati forces to withdraw from the country.

For its part, Abu Dhabi denied that the shipment contained weapons and pledged to ensure the security of Riyadh. The same day, he announced the end of what he called his “counterterrorism mission” in Yemen.

Yemeni government troops, backed by Saudi air attacks, then recaptured Hadramout and Mahra, and the STC said on Saturday it would participate in Saudi-hosted peace talks.

But al-Zubaidi was not on board the Yemeni Air flight that took the STC delegation to Riyadh on Wednesday, the coalition said.

The head of the internationally recognized government’s Presidential Council, Rashad al-Alimi, meanwhile announced that al-Zubaidi had been removed from the council for “high treason.”

Al-Alimi said he had asked the country’s attorney general to open an investigation against al-Zubaidi and take legal action.