Years of simmering tensions between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates exploded into the open on Dec. 30, 2025.

That’s when Saudi officials accused the UAE of backing separatist groups in Yemen and carried out an airstrike in the southern Yemeni city of Mukalla targeting an alleged shipment of weapons from the UAE to the Southern Transitional Council, one such separatist group.

Amid a rapidly rising war of words, Saudi-backed forces in Yemen recaptured two provinces that the STC had previously taken. Continued Saudi pressure resulted in the expulsion of the STC leader, Aidarous al-Zubaidi, from the Presidential Leadership Council – an eight-strong executive body that represents Yemen’s internationally recognized government. On Jan. 7, 2026, al-Zubaidi fled Yemen. That, plus the reported disbanding of the STC, brings a dramatic end to years of UAE influence in the south and dramatically fractures the coalition against the Houthis, a rebel group that currently controls most of northern and central Yemen.

For observers of Yemen it should come as little surprise that the country is now splitting apart along the two-country axis that has defined so much of the geopolitics of the Middle East since the 2011 Arab uprisings. It continues a long-term trend away from initial alignment between Saudi Arabia and the UAE over Yemen that risks not only reigniting conflict there but exposing a deeper power struggle that could fracture the entire region.

The Saudis and Emiratis entered the Yemen conflict in alignment, forming an Arab coalition in March 2015 to push back the advance of Houthi rebels and forces loyal to the government of ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Almost from the start,........

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