ADEN, Yemen — Stuck in Aden airport with an invitation from Saudi Arabia he couldn’t — but very much wanted to — refuse, Aidarous al-Zubaidi played for time, nitpicking on points of protocol that delayed the plane’s depature from Yemen for a few hours.
The Yemeni leader, who heads a separatist group backed by the Emirates but at loggerheads with Saudi Arabia, knew that whatever waited for him in Riyadh wouldn’t be to his liking. So he kept stalling.
Then a call came telling him the escape plan was ready.
Al-Zubaidi ran for it, taking five of his top lieutenants to a military camp in Aden. From there, he scrambled two convoys as decoys, then drove to the nearby coast as an Emirati drone kept watch overhead. By early morning, he was on a ship to Somalia, and from there, flew to the Emirati capital, Abu Dhabi.
Al-Zubaidi’s audacious escape this month— whose details were confirmed by Aden-based officials, militiamen, port workers and enraged statements from Saudi military officials — was the breaking point in an increasingly vitriolic feud between two of America’s top Middle East allies; it’s a conflict that puts Yemen’s very existence into question, even as it promises more pain for a people already contending with one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters.
“I’ve never seen the Saudis so pissed off. Period,” said Mohammed Al-Basha, a U.S.-based expert who is founder of the Basha Report, a U.S. risk advisory focused on the Middle East and Africa.
“The Saudis feel the Emirates hasn’t been an honest broker in Yemen and beyond,” he said. “They feel betrayed.”
The rift, the result of sharply diverging geopolitical and trade policies that over the years turned Riyadh and Abu Dhabi from close allies to friendly rivals to bitter adversaries, has strained relationships across the Middle East, Africa and Southeast Asia. And the sparring of two energy heavyweights is likely to upend markets and investments, not to mention disrupt the plans of a U.S. president who considers both nations key partners in commerce and diplomacy.
The fracas bubbled over in dramatic fashion last month when the separatist group al-Zubaidi leads, the Southern Transitional Council, or STC, captured much of the country’s south from Yemen’s internationally recognized government and appeared on the cusp of declaring a breakaway state over the resource-rich territory.
The offensive came as a surprise for Riyadh, which had partnered more than a decade ago with Abu Dhabi in a ruinous military campaign against the Houthis, an Iran-backed faction that commandeered the Yemeni capital Sanaa in 2014. The STC — formed in 2017 to re-establish south Yemen as an independent state and which the Emirates lavished with military support and funds — joined the anti-Houthi campaign in 2022 alongside the Saudi-backed Yemeni government. But the frontlines were stalemated until the STC’s recent advance
Saudi Arabia, which borders one of the regions seized by the STC separatists, appeared at first to accept the STC’s gambit to control more territory.
But it soon launched airstrikes on what it said was an Emirati arms shipment to the separatists (a charge the Emirates denied), then followed up with a ferocious blitz ousting the STC from all the territory it had taken, allowing government forces to seize the group’s bastion in Aden. Meanwhile, the Yemeni government told the Emirates to end its military presence in the country.
With the separatists all but defeated, Saudi Arabia invited — or ordered, depending on whom you talk to — al-Zubaidi and more than 50 other STC delegates to Riyadh to discuss the future of southern Yemen. Al-Zubaidi had good reason to fear he would be imprisoned or at least coerced into capitulation. That’s why he fled.
Saudi Arabia branded him a “fugitive,” while the Yemeni government accused him of high treason.
A day later, an STC delegate in Riyadh appeared on Yemeni state television: He declared the group’s dissolution — a decision many STC members outside Saudi Arabia insisted was void because it was done under duress, and that Saudi Arabia was holding the STC delegation hostage.
But on Sunday, STC members in Riyadh joined other Yemeni politicians in what was described as a “consultative meeting” on the future of southern Yemen — a move, observers said, meant to disprove any coercion on Riyadh’s part.
At the heart of the rift between Saudi Arabia and the UAE over Yemen is a difference in worldview between Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan.
When Bin Salman first came to prominence as Saudi defense minister in 2015, he espoused a pugilistic foreign policy that saw him launch the unsuccessful offensive on the Houthis and kidnap Lebanon’s prime minister. In 2017, Saudi Arabia teamed up with the UAE and Bahrain to institute a blockade on Qatar that lasted four years. But his outlook has since changed to prioritizing regional stability in the name of economic prosperity.
The UAE, on the other hand, has proven to be a disruptor. Not only did it normalize diplomatic relations with Israel during President Trump’s first term, going against Saudi Arabia’s long-standing conditions for a pan-Arab peace with Israel, but over the last decade it forged a network of proxies, military bases, ports and covert assets on the Red Sea and across Africa that threaten several nations’ governments.
Nowhere is this more evident than in Sudan, where critics castigate the UAE’s backing of the Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary faction accused of genocide in the country’s civil war. (The UAE denies aiding the RSF and says its goals are Sudan’s territorial integrity, despite comprehensive evidence to the contrary.)
Since the rupture over Yemen, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have engaged in a full-on media war, with influencers and media figures sniping at each other on social media while state-funded channels publish hit pieces. On Monday, Saudi Arabia organized a media visit to the southern Yemeni port city of Mukalla, where the Yemeni government accused the UAE of managing a secret prison.
Elsewhere in the region, a rapid reordering of relations and alliances is taking place.
Soon after al-Zubaidi’s escape, the Somali government shredded its security cooperation and trade agreements with the UAE, including a concession that allowed Emirati logistics giant DP World to operate out of the port in Berbera — the port al-Zubaidi used for his escape.
Observers add the UAE appears to have lost military overflight permissions over Egypt, Sudan and Saudi Arabia. Management of Al-Kufra, an airport in Libya which has become an important part in the UAE’s logistics pipeline to its allies in Sudan, declared that it would shut down for a month.
Even as Saudi Arabia is dismantling the UAE’s military network, it’s constructing one of its own.
One Somali official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss regional dynamics, said Saudi Arabia is planning a military alliance with Egypt and Somalia, and that Saudi officials pressured Somaliland against allowing Israel to build bases on its territory. Turkey is also making inroads with Saudi Arabia; a huge about-face for two long-time rivals. And Riyadh intends to purchase Chinese warplanes from Pakistan to give to Yemen.
In the meantime, Saudi Arabia has worked to excise Emirati influence from Yemen. Commanders in Aden interviewed by The Times say Riyadh agreed to pay all fighters’ salaries, amounting to roughly $80 million per month. UAE-backed politicians have been sacked from Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council and replaced with those more amenable to Saudi Arabia.
Despite the STC’s de-fanging, it’s unclear if the UAE will accept losing its foothold in the country.
“For now, the UAE seems focused on soft power in southwestern Yemen, much like it has done in Somaliland. Whether that eventually turns into backing an armed insurgency is an open question,” Al-Basha said.
For now, Aden is calm, despite fury at what many view as Saudi Arabia’s sabotage of a long overdue secession. (Yemen was two separate nations before unification in 1990; a move southerners came to resent. They waged a failed bid to secede in 1994).
In downtown Aden on Friday, many thousands joined a pro-STC rally, waving flags of the South Yemen state along with posters of al-Zubaidi, and the occasional Emirati banner. They chanted slogans vowing to “sacrifice ourselves for the South,” while an MC initiated a call-and-response.
“Do you want the Yemeni president? Do you want a federal Yemen? Do you want half solutions?”
“No!” roared the crowd each time.
“So what do you want?”
“The south!”
Dhiaa Al-Hashimi, a 44-year-old English teacher, said Saudi Arabia overstepped.
“This wasn’t about the UAE or anyone else. We’ve called for [a separate country] since 1994, and we’re behind President Al-Zubaidi.
“We entered in a partnership with the northerners to liberate the capital from the Houthis,” she said. “But unfortunately they want an alternative homeland in the south.”
Nearby, Sanad Abdul Aziz, 37, was more emphatic.
“We want the south and will fight for it,” he said. “After this, we see Saudi Arabia as a target.”
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