December 8, 2025

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UAE-Backed Forces Expand Control in Southern Yemen

(AP Photo/Osamah Abdulrahman)

Last week’s sudden seizure of additional territory in Yemen’s oil-rich Hadhramaut region by the Hadrami Elite Forces, a faction of the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC), marked the first material change in Yemen’s politico-military topography since a 2022 UN-brokered ceasefire between the Houthi movement (Ansarallah) and the Republic of Yemen Government. The STC called its “Promising Future” operation a response to the “…exhaustion of all options proposed in recent years to restore stability to the [Hadhramaut] valley, end the state of security breakdown, and halt the exploitation of the region by forces alien to the (Hadhramaut) Valley and the governorate.” The STC claims that, “…over the past years, areas of the (Hadhramaut) Valley have been transformed into a platform for smuggling operations benefiting the [Houthis] and into hotbeds for the activities of extremist organizations such as [the Islamic State, ISIS] and al-Qaeda, which has led to the continued bloodshed of the people of the South and the targeting of our brothers in the Arab Coalition forces (Saudi Arabia and the UAE). Given this reality, we state unequivocally that the South will never be a corridor for threatening regional security, a haven for terrorism, or a logistical lifeline for the [Houthi] militias.” Beyond its enmity with the Houthis and Islamist organizations, the STC, founded in 2017 with financial and military support from the UAE, calls for the creation of an independent southern Yemen, such as existed for several decades until it unified with northern Yemen in 1990.

On Wednesday, STC-allied forces swept into Seiyun, capturing the presidential palace, airport, and later vital oilfields and energy installations. The group subsequently captured additional areas in both Hadhramaut and Mahra governorates, bringing their units to the border with the Sultanate of Oman. The campaign, which significantly increased the area under STC control, involved little actual combat, prompting close observers to describe the events as more of a “handover” by the Government-allied tribal groups than an STC capture by force. Providing further insight into its motives, the STC and its allies accused regional forces in Seiyun, known as the First Military District of being linked to the Muslim Brotherhood – a group the UAE considers a terrorist organization - and colluding with extremist groups. Even though the STC campaign caused minor damage, Petromasila, a Yemeni company, announced a halt to production in two major areas of the oil fields, citing the deteriorating security situation. The shutdown led to widespread blackouts in the region.

The STC campaign upends the politico-military complexion in southern Yemen to the detriment of Saudi Arabia. During the years of Arab coalition-backed active combat against the Houthis (2015-2022), STC leaders and the Republic of Yemen Government, led by a Saudi-backed Presidential Leadership Council (PLC), were able to mute the differences in their goals and ideologies – as were their patrons, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The two Gulf powers led an Arab coalition that sought but failed to defeat the Houthis militarily. The territorial seizure represents a breakdown in the STC-Yemen Government alliance, and a surfacing of the simmering differences between the Kingdom and the UAE over Yemen’s future. Sources close to the Hadrami Elite Forces told regional media outlet al-Akhbar that their campaign would cut Saudi supply lines and secure key facilities and desert roads connecting Hadhramaut to the Saudi border. On Saturday, sources close to Saudi military leaders asserted that Saudi forces have begun to withdraw some forces back into Saudi territory. On Saturday, some local reports surfaced that STC forces had taken control of the Yemeni Government's presidential palace in Aden, suggesting that STC aims to displace the government rather than limit its gains to securing control over the southeastern provinces.

Some see the STC goal as preventing Saudi leaders from offering the Houthis major concessions in return for a peace settlement with the Houthis. Saudi de facto leader Mohammad bin Salman (MBS) advocates providing financial benefits to the Houthis in the interests of a final settlement of the war – a conclusion he sees as enabling him to focus on his core priority: transforming the Kingdom economically and socially. Hadhramaut holds 80 percent of the country’s modest oil reserves, and STC’s consolidation of control over that area gives the group significant leverage not only over the Yemen Government and the Houthis, but also over MBS’s diplomacy. Houthi leaders demand, in a Yemen-wide peace settlement, a steady share of the revenue from Yemen’s oil sales, which, although small, provide much of the revenue stream that currently pays the salaries of bureaucrats not only in the south but in Houthi-controlled territory as well.

A U.S.-based Yemeni research organization, the Basha Report, called the STC breakout a deliberate effort to “sabotage” Houthi-Saudi peace talks. Social media quoted that think tank as saying: "They (STC and its allies) see Saudi Arabia working toward a political settlement with the Houthis in the north and want to ensure they hold full control of the south before any deal between Riyadh and Sanaa (Houthi-controlled capital of Yemen) is reached." However, speaking at the Doha Forum in Qatar on Sunday, the chief UN envoy for Yemen, Hans Grundberg, noted the prospects for a settlement with the Houthis were already dimmed by a “total erosion of trust” between the Houthis and their opponents in southern Yemen and in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi.

Others see the STC advance as a strategic initiative by the UAE to accomplish a number of key goals, most of which involve outflanking Iran and its Axis of Resistance partners, including the Houthis. UAE leaders, more so than their allies in Saudi Arabia, see a peace agreement with the Houthis as entrenching Iranian influence on the Arabian Peninsula – an outcome Abu Dhabi views as posing an enduring threat to the Arab Gulf states and their allies. Some experts assess the UAE and its STC allies plan to try to starve the Houthis of fuel, overland arms supply routes, and financial resources in order to force the Houthis to concede territory they now control. The STC takeover of much of southern Yemen, others assess, supports the longstanding UAE effort to outmaneuver Iran and other actors by exerting greater influence in the Gulf of Aden, the Red Sea, and the Horn of Africa. Some argue the UAE strategic plan envisions re-establishing a separate South Yemen that would ally with Israel to establish a bulwark against not only Houthi-controlled northern Yemen but against Iran as well. Others maintain that UAE leaders primarily sought to weaken or displace the Republic of Yemen Government because of its reliance on the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist militias that Abu Dhabi considers threats to Gulf rulers.

Analysts are unsure whether the STC, either on its own or at Abu Dhabi’s behest, will potentially engage in renewed combat against the Houthis, who control central and northern Yemen. In an online press briefing on Thursday, Amr Bidh, a senior STC official, said that the group was consulting with Yemeni and international partners on whether to pursue a coordinated ground operation against the Houthis. But most experts assess renewed combat against the Houthis would require substantial UAE-led support. The Houthis have been able to use the Gaza conflict to recruit thousands of new fighters, and the group continues to receive weapons from Iran.

A resumption of armed conflict with the Houthis might have significant regional and global implications. MBS and other Saudi leaders have long been concerned that a breakdown of the ceasefire with the Houthis could prompt the group to renew its missile and drone attacks on the Kingdom, as well as against the Emirates. Global diplomats are concerned that the Houthis might also restart attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea as a means of “internationalizing” renewed civil warfare, even if combat against forces in south Yemen is unrelated to the war in Gaza. The Houthis cited the Israeli war on Hamas in Gaza as justification for attacks in the Red Sea and against Israel. The prospects for escalation of renewed warfare in Yemen to quickly draw in regional and global parties, including not only the Kingdom and the UAE but also Israel and Iran, and potentially also the United States, are substantial.