Saudi Arabia Just Bombed UAE Weapons in Yemen and This is a Big Deal
DUBAI — Saudi Arabia bombed Yemens port city of Mukalla Tuesday morning. Targeted what it called weapons shipments from the UAE bound for separatist forces. By the end of the day the Emiratis announced theyre pulling out their remaining troops.
Thats… not how allies usually operate.
The Saudi coalition said two ships came into Mukalla from the UAE on Saturday and Sunday. Disabled their tracking systems. Unloaded weapons and combat vehicles for the Southern Transitional Council which is a separatist group the Emirates have been backing for years.
So the Saudis bombed them.
CNN reported the Saudi Foreign Ministry called the UAEs actions “extremely dangerous” and a threat to national security. First time theyve directly linked Abu Dhabi to the separatists advance like this. Publicly anyway.
The context here matters. Saudi Arabia and the UAE have been fighting together in Yemen since 2015. Coalition partners against Houthi rebels who control the capital. Over 150,000 people dead. One of the worst humanitarian disasters on the planet.
But theyve always had different goals. The Saudis want a unified Yemen under the internationally recognized government. The UAE backs southern separatists who want to recreate South Yemen which was its own country from 1967 to 1990. Those competing interests just collided in a very loud way.
The STC swept through southern Yemen this month. Took most of Hadramout province. The oil rich one. Pushed out Saudi backed forces. Started flying South Yemen flags at rallies.
Yemens Presidential Leadership Council gave the UAE 24 hours to remove all forces. Saudi Arabia backed that ultimatum. The UAE initially denied shipping weapons but admitted sending vehicles “for use by UAE forces” in Yemen. Then announced theyre voluntarily withdrawing their remaining counterterrorism units.
This is the most serious confrontation between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi in decades probably. These are supposed to be tight allies. Control trillions in global assets between them. Key US partners in the region.
Secretary of State Rubio called for restraint and diplomacy. Which is the thing you say when you have no idea how to fix something but feel like you should comment.
Mohammed al-Basha who knows Yemen better than most said he expects “calibrated escalation from both sides.” The STC consolidates control. Saudi Arabia which controls the airspace cuts off weapons flows from the UAE. Maybe things stabilize. Maybe they dont.
The Houthis are still launching attacks on Red Sea shipping over Gaza by the way. American forces keep hitting them. And now the coalition fighting them is fracturing publicly.
The cracks in the Gulf alliance run deeper than most people realized apparently. This wont be the last headline out of Yemen. Not by a long shot.
Oil markets will probably react. They always do when things get messy in that part of the world.
