Fighting between UAE-backed separatists and Saudi-backed forces in Southern Yemen seem to be further escalating today, with Saudi-brokered peace talks seemingly in ruins and Saudi forces carrying out heavy airstrikes against the separatist STC’s positions.
Indications are that the talks never actually got a chance to begin. The STC sent a delegation of some 50 people to Riyadh for the talks, and after their plane was delayed for three hours they arrived, were ushered onto a bus by Saudi officials, and were never seen again.
The STC is reporting that they have had no contact with their delegation since they were put on the bus, and all their phones were switched off. At the same time, Saudi warplanes started bombing the STC again, at the time when talks were nominally meant to just be getting underway.
The Yemeni “government,” which is a Saudi-backed faction that controls little of Yemen’s actual territory, used this opportunity to oust the STC entirely from their coalition government, and accused top STC leader Aidrous al-Zubaidi of fleeing rather than going to Riyadh as ordered.
It’s not clear what Zubaidi’s status is, but if he indeed didn’t go to Riyadh, that suggests that he’s still present within Yemen and not simply disappeared. Given what apparently happened to the rest of the delegation, it might well have been prudent for him to not attend.
Forces loyal to the “government” officials attacked more STC targets in the interim capital city of Aden. This included the airport and the presidential palace. Pro-Saudi forces also claimed the easternmost governorates of Hadhramaut and al-Mahra in offensives over the weekend, killing at least 80 STC fighters in the process.
With heavy Saudi warplane backing, the goal seems to be to prop up a non-separatist force with meaningful territory in south Yemen, though the Saudis have been trying to do this for over a decade with only intermittent success, and styling their faction as anything resembling the rightful government of Yemen means little in practice for a country that’s been torn apart and which they haven’t controlled significant territory within for years.
