Saudi Arabia called on UAE-backed separatists in southern Yemen to withdraw from two strategic governorates they recently took over, raising the risk of a rupture within the coalition fighting Houthi rebels.
The Saudi foreign ministry urged Yemen’s Southern Transitional Council to pull its forces out of Hadramout and Mahra, which border the kingdom and Oman, and hand the provinces over to a Saudi-backed group in Yemen. Separatists accused the kingdom of launching air strikes against them on Friday.
The escalation risks renewing a war that has been largely dormant for almost four years and pits US allies in the Gulf against each other, according to April Longley Alley, a former adviser to the UN’s Yemen envoy. “US allies are on a collision course in Yemen,” Alley wrote for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, adding that US President Donald Trump will likely need to engage directly to get Abu Dhabi and Riyadh on “the same page.”