Saudi–UAE rupture inside Yemen: Mukalla strike and a 24-hour deadline that could fracture the anti-Houthi camp
As of December 30, 2025, a Saudi-led strike on Yemen’s port city of Mukalla and an order from Yemen’s Saudi-backed leadership to terminate a defence arrangement with the UAE have pushed a long-simmering rivalry into open confrontation. The immediate trigger is a claimed weapons transfer into Mukalla tied to a UAE-backed southern faction, followed by a demand that Emirati forces leave Yemen within 24 hours.
What makes this moment different is not that Gulf partners disagree inside Yemen. It is that the disagreement has moved from political manoeuvring into direct coercion: airpower, deadlines, and border controls.
This piece explains what happened at Mukalla, why Yemen’s leadership moved so abruptly against the UAE, and what this escalation changes for the war against the Houthis and for southern Yemen’s fragile governance.
The narrative hinges on whether the Saudi-UAE split within Yemen remains a contained threat or initiates a broader southern front.
Key Points
A Saudi-led coalition strike hit areas linked to port activity in Mukalla after claims that weapons and military equipment were being unloaded for a UAE-backed southern faction.
Yemen’s Saudi-backed Presidential Leadership Council moved to cancel a defence pact with the UAE and issued a 24-hour demand for Emirati forces to leave.
Authorities also signalled tighter controls on air, sea, and land access points in areas they still influence, aiming to reassert “state” oversight of security decisions.
The escalation reflects rival endgames: Saudi Arabia prioritises a unified, controllable Yemen next door, while UAE-aligned partners have invested in a self-governing southern order.
The risk is not only Gulf-on-Gulf friction. It is the fragmentation of the anti-Houthi camp into competing armed coalitions, each claiming legitimacy.
Short-term outcomes range from de-escalation through backchannel bargaining to a rolling cycle of local clashes that paralyses ports, oil infrastructure, and governance in the south.
Background
Mukalla is the capital of Hadramawt, a strategic eastern governorate with coastline, trade routes, and proximity to key energy and security corridors. In Yemen’s civil war, control of ports and crossings is not just economic. It is leverage: customs revenue, supply chains, and the ability to arm or sustain allied forces.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE entered the Yemen war on the same side in 2015, backing the internationally recognised government against the Houthi movement, which controls much of northern Yemen. Over time, their priorities diverged. Saudi Arabia has tended to emphasise border security and a single recognisable state structure. The UAE has built profound relationships with southern armed groups, including the Southern Transitional Council, which argues for southern autonomy or independence.
That divergence has repeatedly surfaced in clashes between factions nominally under the same umbrella. When southern forces expand their control, Riyadh fears a split Yemen that is harder to manage and easier for hostile actors to exploit. When Saudi-backed structures try to rein in southern actors, Abu Dhabi and its allies see an attempt to reverse hard-won gains on the ground.
The Mukalla strike and the formal cancellation of a defence arrangement sharpen this into a test of who can set the rules for security activity in the south: the “state” institutions backed by Saudi Arabia, or the parallel networks built around UAE-aligned partners.
Political and Geopolitical Dimensions
Saudi Arabia is making it clear that it will not allow an independent military pipeline to bypass Saudi oversight into Yemen's east. Yemen’s Saudi-backed leadership, in turn, is trying to demonstrate that it still has sovereign authority, even as it depends on external patrons.
For the UAE, the strategic challenge is credibility with its southern partners. Should it appear to yield to pressure, its influence over southern factions may diminish. If it resists, it risks turning a quiet rivalry into a public breach with Saudi Arabia.
For Yemen’s southern actors, the situation is an opportunity and a danger. A southern faction can argue it is the only force capable of governing and securing territory, but the moment it appears to be importing arms outside a national framework, it hands rivals an argument that it is undermining the state. That makes international recognition harder, even if it consolidates local control.
Two big constraints shape all sides. First, the Houthis remain a powerful northern actor, and any southern infighting reduces the resources and attention available to counter them. Second, neither Saudi Arabia nor the UAE benefits from a “failed south” that becomes an arena for militant groups, smuggling, and economic collapse. That is why de-escalation remains plausible even after dramatic moves.
Economic and Market Impact
Ports are economic lifelines in Yemen, and Mukalla matters because it is a gateway for fuel, food, and commercial imports into eastern areas. If access is restricted, even briefly, prices rise quickly and shortages become political.
The Gulf also watches these escalations through a risk lens. When Saudi–UAE tensions spike, investors worry about policy unpredictability, cross-border retaliation, and the security of shipping routes that support regional trade. Even if oil prices do not jump immediately, regional equities can react sharply to the perception that a stable partnership is wobbling.
Inside Yemen, the economic stakes are more direct. Control of customs and port revenue is one of the few durable sources of income for authorities outside the Houthi-controlled tax system. A struggle over Mukalla is, in part, a struggle over who gets to fund salaries, security forces, and patronage networks.
Technological and Security Implications
This escalation also highlights how modern conflict logistics operate: ship movements, transponders, surveillance, and the claim-and-counterclaim cycle around what was transported, by whom, and for which faction. Leaks or selective releases of tracking data, imagery, or port records can quickly undermine "plausible deniability" in these environments.
On the ground, the security risk is miscalculation. Airstrikes and deadlines create compressed timelines. Local commanders, tribal intermediaries, and port authorities might respond defensively before political leaders have the opportunity to retreat from the critical situation.
There is also a counterterrorism dimension. Eastern Yemen has a history of militant activity and porous networks. If coalition partners turn their attention inward and fracture security coordination, gaps open for armed groups that thrive on divided authority.
What Most Coverage Misses
The overlooked factor is that Hadramawt is not simply “south versus north” or “separatists versus the government”. It is a distinct political space with its own local power brokers, tribal dynamics, and security formations. Any outside patron that treats it like a chess square risks triggering local resistance, not just rival-faction blowback.
The second area of concern is the erosion of institutional structures. Years of war and reliance on external sponsors have hollowed out Yemen's internationally recognised institutions. The dramatic cancellation of a defence pact and a 24-hour ultimatum look decisive, but they also expose how much authority depends on whether armed actors obey. If armed actors fail to comply with the order, the intended act of proving sovereignty may instead expose their weakness.
Why This Situation Matters: Saudi–UAE rupture inside Yemen
In the short term, the people most affected are Yemenis living under uncertain authority in the south and east: port workers, traders, families dependent on imported fuel and food, and local officials trying to keep services running.
In the medium term, the anti-Houthi coalition’s cohesion is at stake. A fractured southern front makes it harder to negotiate from strength, harder to coordinate security, and easier for the Houthis to exploit division through pressure, propaganda, or opportunistic military action.
In the longer term, this episode feeds a bigger regional trend: Gulf states pursuing overlapping but competing security architectures. Yemen becomes a test case for whether rivalry can be managed through compartmentalised influence or whether it spills into open confrontation.
Events to watch next are practical, not rhetorical: whether the 24-hour withdrawal demand is met in any form; whether port access restrictions expand or are quietly relaxed; and whether new coordination mechanisms are announced to control military movements and shipments through southern ports.
Real-World Impact
A logistics manager in Mukalla faces immediate disruption. A short closure or heightened inspections can stall containers of staples and spare parts, forcing merchants to ration supplies and raise prices to cover delays.
A nurse in Aden sees the ripple effect in hospital supply chains. Fuel shortages can limit generator use, oxygen delivery schedules, and transport for patients, even if fighting is not near the city.
A small importer in Dubai watches regional risk headlines and pauses a planned shipment to Yemen, not because the route is impossible, but because insurance and uncertainty can turn thin margins into guaranteed losses.
A Yemeni soldier in eastern Hadramawt receives mixed orders as command structures compete. The uncertainty is about who to fight, who pays, who resupplies, and the rules of engagement.
What’s Next?
The next phase will be shaped by whether this crisis is treated as a one-off enforcement action or a precedent. If Riyadh and Abu Dhabi move quickly into private bargaining, the public's posture may remain harsh while practical arrangements quietly stabilise port oversight and factional boundaries.
If neither side backs down, several scenarios become more likely. First, a rolling series of limited strikes and local clashes designed to signal resolve without triggering full confrontation. Second, a tightening of port and crossing controls that becomes a prolonged economic squeeze on rival-held areas. Third, a political split inside the anti-Houthi leadership that turns Yemen’s “recognized” institutions into a shell competing with a parallel southern authority.
The clearest indicators will be on the ground: who controls Mukalla’s access points, who issues enforceable security orders in Hadramawt, and whether coalition coordination is restored through a mechanism that both sides can live with.
