Since the Houthi movement seized the Yemeni capital Sanaa in September 2014, Yemen has experienced a conflict that is simultaneously a civil war and a regional proxy war. The Saudi- and Emirati-led military interventions in March 2015 entrenched this dynamic, embedding Yemen within broader regional rivalries – most notably the confrontation between Iran and the Gulf states.
What is now emerging, however, is a far more dangerous phase. The open rupture between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) inside Yemen itself risks transforming the Yemeni conflict into a multi-layered regional contest resembling aspects of the conflicts in Libya, Sudan and, previously, Syria – where local factions serve as vehicles for competing regional agendas while Yemeni national interests are, at best, sidelined. Rather than stabilizing the conflict, the deepening Saudi-Emirati divergence risks multiplying frontlines, hardening fragmentation, and further marginalizing Yemeni agency.
This shift is particularly consequential because it signals the collapse of a key pillar of regional coordination around Yemen. While Saudi-Emirati disagreements have existed for years, they were largely managed quietly and contained within a broader coalition framework. The recent escalation suggests that Yemen is no longer merely a proxy battleground for external rivalries, but a space where those rivalries are now directly colliding. The result is a conflict that is not only more regionalized, but also more unstable and significantly harder to resolve.
From Coalition to Confrontation
Saudi-Emirati disagreements over Yemen developed gradually over the course of the war. While both countries entered the Yemeni conflict together in 2015 to counter the Houthis, their strategic priorities diverged relatively early on. Saudi Arabia viewed Yemen primarily through the lens of border security, countering the Houthis, and preserving a unified Yemeni state under the internationally recognized government. The UAE, by contrast, increasingly prioritized control of strategic ports and maritime routes, conducting counter-terrorism operations on behalf of the United States, and influencing southern Yemen through local allies.
These differences became more visible by 2018–2019. In 2018, the UAE deployed forces to take over Hudaydah province from the Houthis via its own local proxy, the National Resistance Forces led by Tarek Saleh, the nephew of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh. Saudi Arabia subsequently went into a deal with the Houthis, known as the Stockholm agreement, effectively freezing the frontlines. This move, undertaken with no coordination with the UAE, deprived Abu Dhabi of the opportunity to consolidate control over Hudadyah. In return, in 2019 the UAE began reducing its direct military presence and consolidating support for southern separatist forces, particularly the Southern Transitional Council (STC), prompting Saudi efforts to contain fragmentation by brokering a power-sharing deal in November 2019 between the Yemeni government (backed by Saudi) and the STC (backed by UAE) in hopes of keeping the anti-Houthi camp united.
Over time, this divergence hardened into a structural rift though disagreements were mostly managed quietly. As Saudi Arabia moved toward de-escalation and mediation – driven by war fatigue and economic priorities – the UAE continued to entrench proxy networks and de facto zones of influence in southern Yemen.
The attempt by the UAE-backed STC to consolidate control over southern Yemen in late 2025 and advance a project of southern secession represented the final collapse in Saudi-Emirati collaboration over Yemen. The STC had long sought to reverse Yemen’s 1990 unification and restore an independent southern state. However, its military conquest of strategic provinces like Hadramawt and al-Mahra in December 2025, drove Saudi Arabia to intervene directly. Saudi airstrikes targeted STC positions, and Riyadh deployed Yemeni and Saudi troops along its southern border with Hadhramout. Saudi Arabia also publicly accused the UAE of undermining coalition cooperation while asking the Yemeni government to formally demand that UAE forces leave Yemen within 24 hours. UAE immediately announced its withdrawal of forces from Yemen.
While Saudi Arabia framed its intervention as a defense of Yemen’s unity and sovereignty, the episode constituted a political divorce between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi over Yemen.
Despite Saudi Arabia’s recent military intervention and the appearance of reasserted dominance, it would be premature to conclude that Emirati influence in southern Yemen has been decisively rolled back. The UAE’s approach to Yemen has never relied on overt military confrontation with Saudi Arabia, but on the cultivation of durable local networks, economic leverage, and security partnerships that can be reactivated even in the absence of a formal troop presence. Abu Dhabi retains strong ties to key southern and northern actors, influence over ports and maritime infrastructure, and the financial capacity to sustain allies over the long term. Moreover, Saudi Arabia’s priorities limit its willingness to remain indefinitely entangled in southern Yemen’s internal politics, and past experience has shown that its attention span in Yemen is short. Furthermore, aside from the Salafis, its local allies are weak and viewed as corrupt. These asymmetries suggest that while the balance of power has shifted tactically in Saudi’s favor, the underlying competition between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi over Yemen’s future is likely to persist, continuing to shape the conflict in perhaps less visible but no less consequential ways.
Deepening Loss of Yemeni Agency
For Yemenis, this further regionalization of the war carries severe consequences. It accelerates the erosion of Yemeni political agency, leaving the country’s future increasingly shaped by the strategic calculations and interests of external powers rather than domestic political processes and calculations. It also complicates any credible peace process by adding another layer of complexity and reducing the prospects for a coherent regional framework to support a settlement at a time when the UN-led negotiations already struggle with fragmented authority and overlapping chains of command.
While the Houthis have not launched military operations to immediately exploit the rift among their adversaries, the developments are nonetheless strategically advantageous to them. A decade after Saudi Arabia and the UAE intervened in Yemen as close partners, the fragmentation of the anti-Houthi camp has weakened deterrence and coherence on the ground. Even if the Houthis choose, for now, to let their opponents absorb the costs of internal confrontation, it would not be surprising if they eventually seek to leverage this divide to advance militarily, particularly in strategically sensitive areas such as Marib.
The economic implications for Yemen are equally serious. A prolonged Saudi-Emirati rift jeopardizes both humanitarian funding and future reconstruction commitments. The UAE – after Saudi Arabia – has been among Yemen’s largest donors, particularly in the south. In addition to Saudi, the UAE was also expected to play a major role in post-war reconstruction, having been deeply involved in military operations that devastated Yemen’s infrastructure. Now, it can wash its hands off from any long-term reconstruction responsibilities in Yemen.
Short-term Victories, Long-term Risks
Although anti-STC factions within Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council and the Yemeni government have celebrated and welcomed the recent setback to the separatist movement, their relief is likely to be short-lived and also ill thought. Saudi Arabia’s effort to impose stability through direct security control does not align with the dynamic and politicized social and political culture of southern Yemen – or even northern Yemen as a matter of fact. It also does nothing to resolve southern grievances; indeed, suppressing the STC militarily, especially in its historical stronghold governorates, risks deepening resentment and entrenching separatist sentiment over the long term. Since 1994 and the use of force by various Yemeni governments and regimes to suppress the southern independence base, it only actually increased through the years.
More troubling is what is replacing STC influence in parts of the south. In most coastal areas, STC units are being supplanted by hard-line Salafi groups whose loyalties are ideological rather than national. The newly appointed governor of Aden is himself a prominent Salafi figure who has openly opposed any political activity or practice of politics overall. He in fact previously led campaigns to expel northern Yemeni workers from the city.
Regional Consequences Beyond Yemen
The Saudi-Emirati split in Yemen will not remain confined to Yemeni territory. It will reverberate across the region: shaping both countries’ approaches to Palestine, influencing Gulf collaboration over Syria’s future, affecting the trajectory of the conflict in Sudan, and forcing regional powers such as Egypt into uncomfortable strategic choices.
At the international level, the rift also risks ending a fragile but important constant of the Yemen war: consensus among the UN Security Council’s permanent members. For over a decade, even amid deep divisions over Syria and Libya, the P5 maintained alignment on Yemen – often reflecting Saudi preferences, but at least allowing UN diplomacy and humanitarian operations to function.
That consensus is already fraying. In 2025, China objected to the renewal of an arms expert within the UN Panel of Experts on Yemen. As Saudi-Emirati competition sharpens, major powers will increasingly face pressure to choose between two key economic and security partners. Many are likely to prioritize bilateral relationships with the two countries over Yemeni stability, regardless of the humanitarian and political costs for Yemenis. At the very least, they will practice strategic silence at any misdoings of the two countries in the next phase.
Yemen is entering a phase of conflict that is more fragmented, more regionalized, and more difficult to resolve. The costs of this trajectory will be borne primarily by Yemen’s population – but its destabilizing effects will be felt far beyond Yemen’s borders.
Unless regional actors urgently move to contain their rivalry and restore a minimum level of coordination on Yemen, the country risks becoming the next prolonged arena of Middle Eastern great-power competition, with consequences that will take generations to undo.