Saudi Arabia bombs Yemen port over separatist weapons shipment from UAE

No casualties reported in attack on Mukalla; Riyadh warns Abu Dhabi its actions in war-torn country are ‘extremely dangerous’

Saudi Arabia bombed Yemen’s port city of Mukalla on Tuesday over what it described as a shipment of weapons for a separatist force there, which arrived from the United Arab Emirates. The kingdom later directly linked the UAE to the separatists’ recent advances in southern Yemen and warned Abu Dhabi its actions were “extremely dangerous.”

The attack signals a new escalation in tensions between Saudi Arabia and the separatist forces of the Southern Transitional Council, which is backed by the Emirates and has swept through the south of Yemen this month, taking most of resource-rich Hadramawt province and swaths of neighboring Mahrah.

It also further strains ties between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi — which have been backing competing groups that are both fighting the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen’s decade-long war — amid unease across the wider Red Sea region. The two nations, while closely aligned on many issues in the wider Mideast, increasingly have competed with each other over economic issues and the region’s politics.

Yemen’s government forces declared a state of emergency Tuesday. The government issued a 72-hour ban on all border crossings in territory it holds, as well as entries to airports and seaports, except those allowed by Saudi Arabia. It also said it canceled a security pact with the UAE over support for the separatists.

Airstrike hits Mukalla

A military statement carried by the state-run Saudi Press Agency announced the strikes, which it said came after ships arrived there from Fujairah, a port city on the UAE’s eastern coast.

“The ships’ crew had the disabled tracking devices aboard the vessels, and unloaded a large amount of weapons and combat vehicles in support of the Southern Transitional Council’s forces,” it said.

“Considering that the aforementioned weapons constitute an imminent threat, and an escalation that threatens peace and stability, the Coalition Air Force has conducted this morning a limited airstrike that targeted weapons and military vehicles offloaded from the two vessels in Mukalla,” it added.

It wasn’t immediately clear if there were any casualties from the strike or if any other military besides Saudi Arabia’s took part. The Saudi military said it conducted the attack overnight to make sure “no collateral damage occurred.”

The UAE did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the AP. Abu Dhabi’s English-language state-affiliated newspaper The National reported on the strike.

The Council’s AIC satellite news channel acknowledged the strikes, without offering details.

The attack likely targeted a ship identified by analysts as the Greenland, a roll-on, roll-off vessel flagged out of St. Kitts. Tracking data analyzed by the AP showed the vessel had been in Fujairah on December 22 and arrived in Mukalla on Sunday. The second vessel could not be immediately identified.

Mohammed al-Basha, a Yemen expert and the founder of the Basha Report, a risk advisory firm, cited social media videos that purported to show new armored vehicles rolling through Mukalla after the ship’s arrival. The ship’s owners, based in Dubai, could not be immediately reached.

“I expect a calibrated escalation from both sides. The UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council is likely to respond by consolidating control,” al-Basha said. “At the same time, the flow of weapons from the UAE to the STC is set to be curtailed following the port attack, particularly as Saudi Arabia controls the airspace.”

Footage later aired by Saudi state television, which appeared to be filmed by a surveillance aircraft, purportedly showed the armored vehicles moving through Mukalla to a staging area. The types of vehicles corresponded to the social media footage.

Strike comes as separatists advance

Mukalla is in Yemen’s Hadramout governorate, which the Council had seized in recent days. The port city is some 480 kilometers (300 miles) northeast of Aden, which has been the seat of power for anti-Houthi forces in Yemen after the rebels seized the capital, Sanaa, in 2014.

The strike in Mukalla comes after Saudi Arabia targeted the Council in airstrikes Friday that analysts described as a warning for the separatists to halt their advance and leave the governorates of Hadramout and Mahra.

The Council had pushed out forces there affiliated with the Saudi-backed National Shield Forces, another group in the coalition fighting the Houthis.

Those aligned with the Council have increasingly flown the flag of South Yemen, which was a separate country from 1967 to 1990. Demonstrators have been rallying for days to support political forces calling for South Yemen to secede again from Yemen.

The actions by the separatists have put pressure on the relationship between Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which maintain close relations and are members of the OPEC oil cartel, but also have competed for influence and international business in recent years.

There has also been an escalation of violence in Sudan, another nation on the Red Sea, where the kingdom and the Emirates support opposing forces in that country’s ongoing war.

A statement Tuesday from Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Ministry directly linked the Council’s advance to the Emiratis for the first time.

“The kingdom notes that the steps taken by the sisterly United Arab Emirates are extremely dangerous,” it said.

The long war in Yemen

The Iranian-backed Houthis seized Sanaa in September 2014 and forced the internationally recognized government into exile. Iran denies arming the rebels, although Iranian-manufactured weaponry has been found on the battlefield and in sea shipments heading to Yemen despite a UN arms embargo.

A Saudi-led coalition armed with US weaponry and intelligence entered the war on the side of Yemen’s exiled government in March 2015. Years of inconclusive fighting have pushed the Arab world’s poorest nation to the brink of famine.

The war has killed more than 150,000 people, including fighters and civilians, and created one of the globe’s worst humanitarian disasters, killing tens of thousands more.

The Houthis — whose slogan calls for “Death to America, Death to Israel, [and] a Curse on the Jews” — also began attacking Israel and maritime traffic in November 2023, a month after the October 7 Hamas massacre in Israel, which sparked the Gaza war.

They targeted Israel with over 130 ballistic missiles and dozens of cruise missiles and drones, including one that killed a civilian and wounded several others in Tel Aviv in July 2024, prompting Israel’s first strike in Yemen. Dozens of people have been injured in other Houthi attacks.

Israel has attacked the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen, located some 1,800 kilometers (1,100 miles) away, 19 times.

Since a ceasefire in the Gaza war began on October 10 this year, no attacks have been claimed by the rebel group. The last Houthi missile attack on Israel was apparently on October 5, and the last drone attack on October 7.

Further chaos in Yemen could again draw in the United States, which joined Israel’s bombing campaign against the Houthis during the administration of Joe Biden, with President Donald Trump also doing so earlier this year.