In an increasingly awkward and alarming situation, Saudi Arabia announced over the weekend that the STC, the South Yemen separatist movement, has disbanded. Saudi state media showed footage of a member of the STC’s negotiating delegation announce the dissolution of the group and the closure of all STC offices worldwide.
That was a surprise to many, but none moreso than the STC, which maintains that they have definitely not disbanded, and that they still haven’t been able to contact that delegation that went to Riyadh Wednesday morning and promptly disappeared.
Reports had the delegation arriving at the airport, being loaded on a bus by Saudi officials, and then they’ve not been seen nor heard from since, beyond a few packaged videos from Saudi state media announcing how well “negotiations” are progressing, and their ultimate disbanding.
Mass demonstrations in support of the STC on 1/10/26 in Aden | Image from X
STC spokesman Anwar al-Tamimi reiterated in an interview with Sky News on Sunday that the group still has not been able to contact their delegation, and that family members of those they sent to Riyadh say they haven’t been able to contact them either. Indications are that they’re effectively gone, except when the Saudis need them to announce something beneficial to the Saudi position.
The STC has been fighting with Saudi-backed forces for well over a decade over control of the south, with intentions to declare South Yemen an independent nation, as they were before 1990’s unification. Such fighting picked up again last weekend, when the Saudi-backed forces attacked STC holdings in the country’s east, seizing Hadhramaut and al-Mahra Governorates and killing 80 STC fighters.
The STC responded by threatening to secede from Yemen outright and announced a referendum to that effect. The Saudis responded by offering talks in Riyadh, which is where the delegation came into this whole process.
On Wednesday, while the delegation was en route, the Saudis launched airstrikes against Aden, the STC-held historic capital of South Yemen, and the pro-Saudi faction that styles itself Yemen’s government announced they were expelling all STC members of the parliament, which was previously meant to be a “power-sharing” deal during a previous dust-up between the STC and the Saudi-aligned group.
By Thursday, the Saudis were claiming the talks with the STC delegation were progressing well, and further declared that STC President Aidarous Zubaidi was “a fugitive” who had fled the country and was in Abu Dhabi. They also claimed to have taken control of Aden in their attacks.
Then Friday, the STC conveniently “disbanded,” with the somewhat less convenient reality that they actually hadn’t disbanded at all and that the actual extent STC knew nothing about their missing delegation and hadn’t talked to them at all. Saturday saw mass demonstrations in support of the STC in Aden, which the pro-Saudi faction still purports to hold.
The Saudi perspective, at least publicly is that the STC effectively no longer exists, and that they will be controlling all forces in southern Yemen directly from here on out. Saudi DM Prince Khalid bin Salman says he sees Yemen as having a “path forward” after the STC dissolution, and promised a conference with delegates from all the southern governorates to reach a “comprehensive political solution.”
The conference will accept everybody “without discrimination,” bin Salman insists, though he was clear it would only include southern Yemen governorates, apparently to the exclusion of northern Yemen, which is still controlled by the Houthis after 15 years of Saudi-led war against them. The narrative, however, is that Yemen is unified with the STC off the table
Complicating matters there is that the STC is most definitely not off the table, that any claims to the contrary came from a delegation apparently being held incommunicado by the Saudi government, and that the Saudis have consistently failed to retake the northern governorates. This move, it seems, is an attempt by the Saudis to cover up a decade and a half of failure in their Yemen War by somehow spinning it as a victory on state media. The war, however, endures.
