Saudi Arabia bombed Yemen’s port city of Mukalla on Tuesday over what it described as a shipment of weapons for a separatist force there, which arrived from the United Arab Emirates. The kingdom later directly linked the UAE to the separatists’ recent advances in southern Yemen and warned Abu Dhabi its actions were “extremely dangerous.”

The attack signals a new escalation in tensions between Saudi Arabia and the separatist forces of the Southern Transitional Council, which is backed by the Emirates and has swept through the south of Yemen this month, taking most of resource-rich Hadramawt province and swaths of neighboring Mahrah.

It also further strains ties between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi — which have been backing competing groups that are both fighting the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen’s decade-long war — amid unease across the wider Red Sea region. The two nations, while closely aligned on many issues in the wider Mideast, increasingly have competed with each other over economic issues and the region’s politics.

Yemen’s government forces declared a state of emergency Tuesday. The government issued a 72-hour ban on all border crossings in territory it holds, as well as entries to airports and seaports, except those allowed by Saudi Arabia. It also said it canceled a security pact with the UAE over support for the separatists.

A military statement carried by the state-run Saudi Press Agency announced the 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 Southern Transitional Council’s forces,” it said.

????????????Saudi Arabia Strikes Yemen

The Saudi military have carried out 'limited' strikes on the port city of Mukalla targeting shipments of weapons for separatists reportedly from the UAE. pic.twitter.com/QWY9wOjJZw

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“Considering that the aforementioned weapons constitute an imminent threat, and an escalation that threatens........

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