The United Arab Emirates has announced plans to pull out its remaining troops from Yemen, following a sharp escalation with Saudi Arabia, which carried out airstrikes on Yemen’s port city of Mukalla on Tuesday.
Saudi Arabia bombed Mukalla after a weapons shipment from the UAE reportedly arrived for separatist forces operating in the war-torn country, warning that Abu Dhabi’s actions were “extremely dangerous.” The strike came amid rising tensions over the advance of UAE-backed separatists from the Southern Transitional Council.
The council and its allies issued a statement backing the UAE’s presence in Yemen, even as other factions demanded that Emirati forces leave the country within 24 hours. The UAE urged “restraint and wisdom” and rejected Riyadh’s allegations. Shortly thereafter, however, Abu Dhabi said it would withdraw its remaining troops, though it remained unclear whether the separatist forces it supports would relinquish territory recently seized.
The standoff threatened to open a new front in Yemen’s decade-long conflict, with factions nominally aligned against the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels potentially turning on one another. It also deepened strains between Saudi Arabia and the UAE, neighbours on the Arabian Peninsula whose rivalry has increasingly played out over economic interests and regional influence, particularly around the Red Sea.
Tuesday’s strike and Saudi ultimatum marked the most serious confrontation between the two allies in decades. The escalation followed Saudi airstrikes on the Southern Transitional Council on Friday, which analysts described as a warning to halt the separatists’ advance.
