Saudi Arabia has bombed Yemen’s port city of Mukalla, targeting what it said was a weapons shipment from the United Arab Emirates meant for the Southern Transitional Council (STC), a Yemeni separatist force.
The UAE said it was “surprised” by the Saudi strike, and that the shipment did not contain any weapons and was meant for UAE forces, rather than any Yemeni groups. It called for de-escalation and said the developments in Yemen should be handled “with responsibility”.
The attack came amid tension between Saudi Arabia and the UAE, after the STC made significant territorial gains, stunning Riyadh.
Both countries back different groups that are loosely aligned against the Iran-backed Houthis, which control the most populous parts of Yemen, but still compete among themselves within the territories they control.
The UAE backs the STC and other militia groups, while Saudi Arabia backs the military wing of the internationally recognised government of Yemen, as well as the Hadhramout Tribal Alliance.
In November, The STC, a powerful group of tribes seeking to create an independent state in southern Yemen, took control of key areas in the south of the country.
Some of the territorial gains came at the expense of Saudi-backed forces in Yemen and left UAE-supported groups in control of most of southern Yemen, including key port cities, oil facilities and islands. Saudi troops withdrew from its bases in Aden after STC forces seized the presidential palace there – a move that Saudi Arabia said was part of a “repositioning strategy”.
The strikes are signs of Saudi displeasure at the UAE’s manoeuvres in Yemen and will ratchet up tension between Abu Dhabi and Riyadh as competition between the two heats up in the Red Sea area. Saudi calls for the STC to withdraw from its new positions have been ignored until now.
Tuesday’s attack was followed by measures announced by the chairman of Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council, Rashad al-Alimi, a Saudi-aligned figure who chairs the internationally recognised government of Yemen. Al-Alimi ordered all UAE military forces to withdraw from Yemen within 24 hours, a 90-day state of emergency, and the blockade of all land and sea ports for 72 hours.
Al-Alimi also announced the cancellation of a joint defence agreement with the UAE. He accused the STC and Abu Dhabi of trying to “undermine state authority” and ordered Saudi-backed forces to assume control of the positions now under control of the STC.
The head of the STC, Mohammed Abdul Malik al-Zubaidi, refused the order to withdraw, describing the attack on the Mukalla port as a “blatant attack on Hadramout and its people”.
Analysts describe the STC and other UAE-backed groups as the strongest factions militarily within the anti-Houthi coalition, so it remains to be seen how much support Saudi Arabia is willing to lend its allies in Yemen to fight the group.
As many as 20,000 Saudi-backed forces have reportedly gathered on the border of Yemen.
The UN secretary general, António Guterres, said the resumption of full-scale fighting in Yemen could destabilise the entire Red Sea area, and urged a de-escalation between all parties. The war in Yemen has killed an estimated 377,000 people, according to the UN, and nearly half of the population faces hunger due to the continuing civil war.
A military statement carried by the state-run Saudi Press Agency announced Tuesday’s strikes, which it said came after ships arrived there from Fujairah, a port city on the UAE’s eastern coast.
“The ships’ crew had the disabled tracking devices aboard the vessels, and unloaded a large amount of weapons and combat vehicles in support of the STC forces,” it said.
“Considering that the aforementioned weapons constitute an imminent threat, and an escalation that threatens peace and stability, the Coalition Air Force has conducted this morning a limited airstrike that targeted weapons and military vehicles offloaded from the two vessels in Mukalla.”
It was not immediately clear if there were casualties from the strike or if any other military besides Saudi Arabia’s took part. The Saudi military said it conducted the attack overnight to make sure “no collateral damage occurred”.
The STC’s AIC satellite news channel acknowledged the strikes, without providing details.
The attack is likely to have targeted a ship identified by analysts as the Greenland, a roll-on, roll-off vessel flagged out of St Kitts. Tracking data showed the vessel had been in Fujairah on 22 December and arrived in Mukalla on Sunday. The second vessel could not be immediately identified.
Mohammed al-Basha, a Yemen expert and the founder of the Basha Report, a risk advisory firm, cited social media videos that purported to show new armoured vehicles rolling through Mukalla after the ship’s arrival. The ship’s owners, based in Dubai, could not be immediately reached.
“I expect a calibrated escalation from both sides. The UAE-backed STC is likely to respond by consolidating control,” al-Basha said. “At the same time, the flow of weapons from the UAE to the STC is set to be curtailed following the port attack, particularly as Saudi Arabia controls the airspace.”
Footage later aired by Saudi state television, which appeared to be filmed by a surveillance aircraft, purportedly showed the armoured vehicles moving through Mukalla to a staging area. The types of vehicles corresponded to the social media footage.
Mukalla is in Yemen’s Hadhramaut governorate, which the STC had seized in recent days. The port city is 480km north-east of Aden, which has been the seat of power for anti-Houthi forces in Yemen after the rebels seized the capital, Sana’a, in 2014.
The strike in Mukalla comes after Saudi Arabia targeted the council in airstrikes on Friday that analysts described as a warning for the separatists to halt their advance and leave the governorates of Hadhramaut and Mahra.
The council had pushed out forces there affiliated with the Saudi-backed National Shield Forces, another group in the coalition fighting the Houthis.
Those aligned with the council have increasingly flown the flag of South Yemen, which was a separate country from 1967 to 1990. Demonstrators have been rallying for days to support political forces calling for South Yemen to secede again from Yemen.
The actions by the separatists have put pressure on the relationship between Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which maintain close relations and are members of the Opec oil cartel but also have competed for influence and international business in recent years.
UAE support for the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan has reportedly angered Saudi Arabia, after the RSF committed mass atrocities in the Sudanese city of El Fasher. The two are also at odds over Somaliland, a breakaway region of Somalia where the UAE has a military base and airstrip.
The UAE notably did not join Saudi Arabia and 20 other countries and Islamic organisations in issuing a statement condemning Israel’s recognition of Somaliland on Friday.The Associated Press contributed to this report