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The United Arab Emirates announced on Tuesday that it was withdrawing its remaining forces in Yemen after Saudi Arabia backed a call for Emirati forces to leave the country within 24 hours. in a major crisis between the two Gulf powers and oil producers.
The move follows an airstrike by the Saudi-led coalition on the southern Yemeni port of Mukalla on Tuesday, targeting what it described as a shipment of weapons from the United Arab Emirates destined for separatist forces.
The Saudi airstrike is a significant step in a country along a key international trade route that threatens to pose new risks to the Persian Gulf region. He warned that it considered the Emirates’ actions to be “extremely dangerous”.
The latest escalation comes as Yemen remains mired for more than a decade in a civil war that involves a complex interplay of sectarian grievances and the involvement of regional powers.
Here’s a look at what happened and what it could mean for the region.
Who is involved?
The Southern Transitional Council, or STC, a UAE-backed secessionist group, this month seized most of Hadramout and Mahra provinces, including oil installations.
The STC is the most powerful group in southern Yemen, benefiting from crucial financial and military support from the United Arab Emirates. It was established in April 2017 as an umbrella organization for groups seeking to restore South Yemen as an independent state, as it was between 1967 and 1990.
The Houthis, aligned with Iran, control the most populated regions of the country, including the capital Sanaa.
WATCH | How Iran helped the Houthis become major players in the region:
Once a ragtag group in Yemen – one of the world’s poorest countries – Iran has helped the Houthis become major players capable of disrupting global shipping traffic in the Red Sea. CBC’s Paul Hunter analyzes the rise of the Houthis and what the world needs to pay attention to. [Correction: In a previous version of this video, we reported that Hamas is considered a terrorist organization by several countries and entities, including the United Nations. In fact, the UN does not consider Hamas a terrorist organization.]
The other party involved in the latest fighting is the Yemeni army, which reports to the internationally recognized government. They are allied with the Hadramout Tribal Alliance, a local tribal coalition backed by Saudi Arabia.
These forces are concentrated in Yemen’s largest province, Hadramout, which stretches from the Gulf of Aden in the south to the border with Saudi Arabia in the north. This oil-rich province is a major source of fuel for Yemen’s southern regions.
The escalation shattered the relative calm of Yemen’s war, which has been stalemated in recent years after the Houthis reached a deal with Saudi Arabia to stop their attacks on the kingdom in exchange for a cessation of Saudi-led strikes on their territories.
What happened?
The confrontation threatens to open a new front in Yemen’s decade-long war, with forces allied against Iran-backed Houthi rebels possibly turning their attention to others in the Arab world’s poorest country.
This latest escalation highlights strained ties between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, which supported competing camps in Yemen’s war against Houthi rebels, amid unease in the Red Sea region. The two countries, while closely aligned on many issues in the broader Middle East, are increasingly in competition over the region’s economic and political issues.
Once twin pillars of regional security, the two Gulf heavyweights have seen their interests diverge on everything from oil quotas to geopolitical influence.
Declaring its national security a red line, Saudi Arabia claimed Tuesday that the United Arab Emirates had pressured separatists in southern Yemen to carry out military operations that had reached the kingdom’s borders.
It was Riyadh’s strongest language yet against the UAE in the conflict between the neighbors, who once cooperated in a coalition against Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis but whose interests in Yemen have gradually diverged in recent years.
The latest moves have strengthened the STC’s positions in southern Yemen, which could give them leverage in future negotiations aimed at settling the Yemen conflict. The STC has long demanded that any settlement give southern Yemen the right to self-determination.
Ohthe origins of the crisis
Yemen’s war began in 2014, when the Houthis left their northern stronghold of Saada.
They took the capital, Sanaa, and forced the internationally recognized government into exile. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates went to war the following year in an attempt to restore the government.
The new fighting pits the STC against forces of the internationally recognized government and its allied tribes, even though they are both members of the side fighting Houthi rebels in the country’s wider civil war.
Latest advances in the region
Earlier this month, STC forces marched toward Hadramout and took control of major facilities in the province, including PetroMasila, Yemen’s largest oil company, after brief clashes with government forces and their tribal allies.
This came after the Saudi-backed Hadramout Tribal Alliance seized PetroMasila’s oil facilities in late November to pressure the government into accepting its demands for a greater share of oil revenues and improved services for Hadramout residents.
The STC apparently used this initiative as a pretext to take control of Hadramout and its oil installations and to expand the areas under its control in Yemen.
STC forces then marched towards Mahra province, on the border with Oman, and took control of a border post between the two countries. In Aden, UAE-backed forces also took control of the presidential palace, which serves as the headquarters of the ruling Presidential Council.
Saudi troops also withdrew earlier this month from their bases in Aden, a Yemeni government official said.
The withdrawal was part of a Saudi “repositioning strategy,” said the official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Saudi Arabia on Friday targeted the Hadramout region in airstrikes that analysts described as a warning to separatists to halt their advance and leave Hadramout and Mahra governorates.
