In the southern Yemeni port city of Aden, the fragile power sharing agreement between the Saudi-backed Presidential Leadership Council (PLC) and the Emirati-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) collapsed. The STC claimed to be securing south Yemen against “Jihadist factions” while mainly consolidating power.
The STC gained full control of the city as the PLC fled to Riyadh without a fight. STC forces then quickly moved into eastern territory controlled by independent groups and units loyal to the Presidential Council.
All resistance evaporated, and southern independence groups found themselves unifying nearly all of South Yemen under their authority for the first time since 1990, from Aden to the Omani border.
Despite being called a 'turning point', the crisis is far from over. The STC has long expressed the desire to re-declare the independence of South Yemen, and despite now controlling almost all the former state's territory, any such declaration won't be easy. The Houthis, who control northern Yemen, reject a southern state and claim to be Yemen's official government.
The Saudis and Emiratis now pursue widely different objectives. The Saudis want the war to end under a unified state tolerating the Iran-aligned Houthis for regional stability.
The Emiratis prefer a friendly southern client state to counter any Houthi threat against the region's energy and port infrastructure. A growing disconnect between Yemeni actors and foreign backers risks renewed violence.
Rotten foundations
The current crisis stems from 2017, when the exiled Yemeni government and southern political figures broke relations. After losing Sana'a to Houthi rebels in 2015, the Saudi-backed government under President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi relocated to Aden.
Once South Yemen's capital (1967-1990), Aden's political class grew frustrated with the Yemeni state amid civil war. Many found Emirati assistance, despite the UAE's nominal alignment with Saudi support for Yemen's UN-recognized government since 2015.
Following his dismissal as Aden governor in 2017, Aidarus al-Zoubaidi, appointed to the post in 2015 by then-President Hadi, established the STC and, with UAE backing, formed a military coalition that seized the city.
The Saudis forced a power-sharing agreement between Hadi and the STC, though al-Zoubaidi retained dominant military control around Aden. In 2022, the Saudi-led coalition removed Hadi and established the PLC, with al-Zoubaidi as Vice-Chairman and pro-Saudi Rashad al-Alimi as leader.
This anti-Houthi government existed in a dysfunctional stalemate: the STC controlled Aden and coastal Hadramawt, while the PLC controlled the rest through tribal alliances.
The bottom collapsing
This unhappy alliance depended on defeating the Houthis—which the Saudis, Emiratis, and Yemeni allies failed to do. Tired of military failures and Houthi attacks on Saudi territory, Riyadh shifted to negotiation and reached a 2022 ceasefire.
In 2023, China brokered Riyadh-Tehran normalization, warming Saudi officials to prolonged peace with Houthis. Since then, the three countries have consulted one another regarding Yemen and related trilateral issues such as freedom of navigation in the Red Sea and stability in the Arabian Peninsula’s south.
Saudi Arabia's policy shift meant the STC had little reason to tolerate the PLC. The Emiratis likely approved, given growing policy divides with the Saudis.
In early December 2025, the STC broke with the PLC and forced them to flee Aden. STC forces then launched an offensive across southern Yemen, seizing Hadramawt and Mahra governorates. They seized the Hadramawt oil fields—Yemen's largest—and Petromasila oil company.
The PLC, now exiled in Riyadh, controls only parts of Taiz and Marib governorates. Saudi-backed forces are reportedly withdrawing to the border. The offensive caused regional shock: Houthis denounced the STC, Saudis sought negotiation, and al-Zoubaidi declared Sana'a the next target—peacefully or through war.
Despite chaos and war risks, the stalemate may endure as actors struggle with conflicting goals and uncertain futures.
What do these actors want?
A main roadblock is that adversaries and major allies have differing objectives.
To understand these divides, here's each actor's position:
Saudi Arabia
Background
The Saudis conducted a largely unsuccessful air campaign since the Houthis took Sana'a in 2015. Houthi rocket and drone attacks on Saudi infrastructure forced Riyadh to pursue negotiations via Oman beginning in 2023.
Goals
Pacify the Houthis through force or agreement.
Desired Outcomes
With military success impossible and conflict risking Vision 2030, political agreement is best. The Saudis hope a unified Yemeni state including the Houthis will permanently end cross-border threats and reduce their Iranian reliance and ideological confrontation with the West.
The United Arab Emirates
Background
The UAE joined the Saudi intervention but instead of air power used ground forces, training and supplying southern Yemeni units while aligning with local security leaders.
Goals
Secure a friendly client state for resource access and sway over the Bab-el-Mandab strait, protected from Houthi-dominated north Yemen.
Desired outcomes
South Yemen secession—formal or informal—armed by and aligned with the UAE, with a weakened or defeated northern Houthi state. Alternatively, a unified state with substantial southern autonomy preserving UAE allies.
Houthis
Background
Originating from Yemen's minority Zaydi community in the northwest, the Houthis fought the Yemeni government in the 1990s. During the Arab Spring, they allied with former president Ali Abdullah Saleh before killing him after taking Sana'a.
Despite limited early Iranian ties, Iran's Revolutionary Guards and Lebanese Hezbollah later provided crucial financial, military, and logistical support, including drone and missile development.
Goals
Secure recent gains and institutionalize their movement as Yemen's sole legitimate government.
Desired outcomes
Complete state control, tolerating other factions only in minor roles. They seek a secure base for geopolitical confrontation with Western actors over Palestine and aim to reshape the Arabian Peninsula to their revolutionary image.
Southern Transitional Council
Background
Formed in 2017 by disgruntled southern factions opposing Hadi's government, the group emerged from public grievances and Emirati support.
Goals
Secure military gains through independence and recognition.
Desired outcomes
Despite controlling former South Yemen territory, potential Western political pressure makes independence risky, as do Houthi threats. The STC would likely support informal independence with indefinite ceasefire, or a deal legitimizing north-south division.
Notably, the PLC is not included, as that government's future is now essentially uncertain. Militarily weak and previously reliant on the STC and Hadrami tribal support, their complete rout in the region likely means the body will be shuttered or simply ignored.
When the Saudi and PLC-aligned National Shield Forces (NSF) retreated from the STC advance, leader Bashir Seif thanked the Saudis for redeployment assistance without mentioning PLC head al-Alimi. Any Saudi solution will likely exclude the PLC, given uncertain military capability against the STC and doubtful Saudi appetite for such an offensive.
Crossed swords and confused words
In its current state, with the four actors, their goals continue to be aligned and unaligned at the same time. The conflict both has a way out, and a way to continue either in stalemate or in war. Pragmatic concerns and ideological politics are clashing, driving wedges between allies and adversaries.
Of allies, Saudi and the UAE are failing to see each other's goals. The Saudis want a pragmatic end, to wash their hands clean of Yemen by reluctantly accepting the Houthis as a major political force.
For the UAE, the Houthis are everything Abu Dhabi loathes in that they are inflammatory, revolutionary, populist, Islamist, and vehemently pro-Palestine and pro-Iranian. The Emiratis have so far gained what they wanted through the STC's recent success, but the Houthis remain a threat for their regional gains and their port investments in the Red Sea.
Much of the UAE's goals comes from their resolution to continue their geopolitical rise through hard power, while the Saudis see a reverse to soft power and forming regional networks as their best bet.
The UAE has sought to become a major geopolitical player and expand their political and economic reach into Africa. They have increased their outreach and support to regional non-internationally recognised actors like the Libyan National Army, the Sudanese Rapid Support forces, the Somaliland separatist government, and now the STC.
These networks have allowed the UAE to project political and financial power in these countries, giving them access to resources like ports, gold, and hydrocarbons.
Of adversaries, the Houthis and the STC will likely fail to militarily defeat one another and pragmatically have more to gain from a begrudging truce, but their own alliances and ideologies make that somewhat impossible.
For the Houthis, their new revolutionary state would likely not tolerate a UAE-aligned state just to their south, especially as they profess, they are the legitimate Yemeni government.
For the STC, they have accomplished their goal of reconstituting the territory of the South Yemen state, but also are motivated to present themselves as investment facilitators and counter-terrorism partners to the West and the UAE.
The UAE, and in many ways Israel, cannot tolerate the Houthis and their possible threat in the region, and thus the STC will be encouraged to fight on to Sana'a, even though Aden now has everything it needs.
Scenarios
Despite their differences, the Houthis and the STC could both gain what they wanted through de facto separation. The Houthis want independence and a secure base to continue their revolutionary project, which they could get through a North Yemen state.
The STC would get its coveted independence, while the UAE would get full access to south Yemen's vital resources, ports, and oversight of vital shipping lanes. Ultimately, incremental governance gains would give the STC a privileged position in comparison to highly populated and impoverished Houthi-territories.
This outcome is unlikely, as renewed conflict between the sides is probable. Yemen's fragile future will likely see localized uprisings against the STC—especially in Hadramawt—potentially requiring Saudi air support, but this exposes a Saudi dilemma.
Riyadh fears the Houthis feel emboldened to expand territorially amid Yemen's fragmentation, yet countering the STC through proxies could accelerate a Houthi campaign. As a result, Saudi officials have prioritized diplomacy, viewing direct involvement as least desirable.
Efforts to revive STC–LPC ties via a proposed "unity" government are likely to fail, as neither the Houthis nor the STC and UAE—buoyed by current momentum—are inclined to agree. Rather than shaping the conflict, Saudi Arabia may step back, focus on border security, and pursue de facto arrangements with neighbouring armed groups, including the Houthis, while allowing other actors to contend with the wider conflict.
Bottom line
Yemen's current situation reflects broader geopolitical fracturing. Middle Eastern powers are rethinking existing political strategies, Western forces are withdrawing, and the emergence of a multipolar world is pushing an already battered Yemen into a confusing and complex new era.
Ideology and pragmatism increasingly clash as local actors gain greater influence in regional politics and former allies become rivals. It is difficult to predict what will happen next in Yemen, but a sustainable peace remains a long way off.
