UAE-backed Yemeni Southern Transitional Council denies disbandment rumors

The Southern Transitional Council denied its dissolution on Saturday, contradicting a statement by one of its members that the group had decided to disband.

Yemen’s main separatist group, the Southern Transitional Council, denied its dissolution on Saturday, contradicting a statement by one of its members that the group had decided to disband.

The conflicting statements highlight a split within the STC, a UAE-backed group that seized parts of southern and eastern Yemen in December, raising tensions with another Gulf power, Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE used to work together in a coalition fighting the Iran-backed terrorist organization the Houthis in Yemen’s civil war, but the STC’s advances exposed their rivalry, highlighting stark differences on a wide range of issues across the Middle East, from geopolitics to oil production.

Saudi-backed forces retake lands seized by STC

Saudi-backed fighters have largely retaken areas of southern and eastern Yemen that the STC had seized, and a STC delegation traveled to Riyadh, the Saudi capital, for talks.

But STC leader Aidarous al-Zubaidi failed to attend scheduled meetings and fled Yemen on Wednesday, and the Saudi-led coalition accused the UAE of helping him escape aboard a flight that was tracked to a military airport in Abu Dhabi.

In an announcement carried by Saudi state media on Friday, one of the group’s members said the STC had decided to disband.

In a statement released on Saturday, the STC said it held an “extraordinary meeting” following the announcement in Riyadh and declared it “null and void”, saying it was made “under coercion and pressure”.

The group also said its members in Riyadh had been arrested and were “forced to make statements.”

The STC on Saturday reiterated its calls for massive protests in southern cities, warning against any attempts targeting the group’s “peaceful activities”.

Authorities in Aden, aligned with Yemen’s Saudi-backed government, on Friday ordered a ban on protests in the southern city, citing security concerns, according to an official directive seen by Reuters.