Saudi Arabia Bungles Yemen—Again – Middle East Forum

A year ago, southern Yemen was the most stable and secure part of the country. Aidarous al-Zubaidi, the president of the Southern Transitional Council and the vice president of Yemen, had not only restored security, but also had created a climate conducive to investment. Yemeni diaspora, Saudis, Indians, and especially Emiratis were investing in the region. The Emiratis were building civilian airports in every province. In Ataq, capital of the southern Shabwa province, a huge solar farm was about to come online.

Both the portion of Southern Yemen that Zubaidi controlled and nearby Mocha, a part of the former North Yemen controlled by Tareq Saleh, nephew of the late Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, were the only truly secure and prosperous regions of Yemen. Zubaidi and Saleh coordinated closely, though Zubaidi declined to hold territory across the former border, a diplomatic signal that Yemenis welcomed but spurred Saudi paranoia.

On December 30, 2025, the Saudi Air Force bombed Mukalla, the capital of southern Yemen’s Hadramawt Province. Saudi authorities justified the strikes with the accusation that the United Arab Emirates had shipped military goods to Zubaidi’s Southern Forces. Riyadh was upset because Southern Forces had recently pushed into the interior of the Hadramawt after internal tribal unrest. The Southern extension into Hadramawt improved regional security; the Hadramawt is key terrain through which smugglers sought to transfer Iranian weaponry through Oman or directly from small fishing boats along the Hadramawt’s coast into northern Yemen. With the Houthis seeking to take over the Marib oil fields, stopping the weapons flow was important.

Saudi authorities long had sought to cultivate the very same tribes who profited off the smuggling that sustained the Houthis. Islah, the Yemeni Muslim Brotherhood affiliate, also found safe-haven in the Saudi-run region, even as its members aided both the Houthis and Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

While the Emiratis were likely guilty of transferring equipment, if not weaponry, to the Southern Forces, that reflected success rather than subterfuge. When the Saudis, Emiratis, and Sudanese militaries entered Yemen in 2015, their goal was to stabilize Yemen and build Yemeni capacity to counter Houthi expansion and defeat Al Qaeda; they were neither to remain in Yemen permanently nor treat the Arab state as a colony. To allow the Southern Transitional Forces to act autonomously showed Abu Dhabi had been successful.

Riyadh never fully understood this. It saw Yemen as a battlefield for influence with Abu Dhabi. While the United Arab Emirates largely succeeded in driving Al Qaeda out of its zone, the Saudis bungled their anti-Houthi efforts. The problem was not only military incompetence, but also Riyadh’s arrogance. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman never grasped that the reason for his Emirati rivals’ success in South Yemen had less to do with Southern autonomy or secessionism than with tribal sensitivity. In effect, Saudi Arabia made the same mistakes in Yemen that the United States had made in Afghanistan and Iraq.

When Saudi forces attacked Yemen’s Southern Forces, they left behind a vacuum into which Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula resurged and looting grew widespread. Saudi authorities used Islah to fill the vacuum but did not recognize the antagonism locals had toward the Muslim Brotherhood.

While Bin Salman had cracked down on the Muslim Brotherhood at home, he has repeated the mistake that Syria, Libya, and Pakistan made by cracking down on Islamism at home while simultaneously exporting it abroad. The same analogy holds true for Saudi Arabia’s previous support for Al Qaeda. The problem is that co-opting local jihadists by allowing them to conduct their sponsorship of radicalism abroad always results in blowback.

Months after asserting control by force, the Saudis remain impervious to any lessons. On April 4, 2026, Saudi-controlled Yemeni forces fired live munitions to disburse peace protestors in Mukalla who were demonstrating against the crimes of Saudi troops and their Islah allies. Just a week ago, the Saudis displayed only the Saudi flag but not the Yemeni or South Yemeni flags during meetings between Saudi officers and Shabwa’s security and military commanders. In effect, Riyadh now treats South Yemen as a Vichy state.

Saudi Arabia’s strategy in Yemen is a dead end. Running roughshod over genuine local sentiment is always a losing prospect. Between 1962 and 1967, Egypt intervened in the North Yemeni civil war; it transformed into Egypt’s equivalent of the Vietnam War. British troops likewise failed in South Yemen. The Saudis today are simply the latest incarnation whose arrogance leaves them deaf to local sentiment. The only winners now from Saudi Arabia’s missteps are the Houthis and Al Qaeda.