Yemen’s fractured power struggle deepens its humanitarian, political crisis - opinion

Yemen, long a tangle of competing interests, has become a battlefield. Not only are three major entities, each wielding armed force, competing for power, but two Gulf states have been close to war with each other over Yemen-related issues.

The then-president ceded his powers and the governance of Yemen to the PLC, which is now led by Rashad al-Alimi.

He holds the powers of the presidency and is backed by Saudi Arabia.

The STC was formed in May 2017. It is an attempt, backed by the United Arab Emirates (UAE), to restore the independent South Yemen that had existed before the unification of north and south in 1990. The movement is headed by Aidarous al-Zubaidi, once governor of Aden, who serves as its president. Paradoxically, Zubaidi, who is in armed conflict with the government, simultaneously serves as a vice-president in the PLC.

The STC’s political leadership was based in Aden, which it dubbed the capital of a future South Yemen, but its fortunes have recently undergone a dramatic reversal.

On December 2, Zubaidi launched a major offensive across southern and eastern Yemen. Within a week, STC forces controlled most of the former South Yemen’s territory, including almost all of the southern coastline. One month later, on January 2, PLC president Alimi ordered a counteroffensive. Backed by Saudi forces and airstrikes, the PLC retook the towns captured by the STC, pushed its forces out of key positions, and assumed control of Aden, its main security sites, and institutions. By January 9, most of the STC’s December territorial gains had been reversed, and the PLC had reestablished its authority over the non-Houthi south and east.

Zubaidi fled to the UAE capital, Abu Dhabi. Even so, the UAE, without formally renouncing its support for the STC, has announced its “counterterrorism mission” is at an end, and declared it intends to pull its remaining forces from Yemen.

The present unhappy position stems back to 2011, when popular forces within Yemen, imbued with the intoxicating zeal of the Arab Spring, forced President Ali Abdullah Saleh from power. He abdicated in favor of his deputy, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi.

In March 2015, Saudi Arabia, alarmed at the prospect of Iran gaining a foothold on the Arabian Peninsula, formed an international coalition to support the government and attacked the Houthis.

Since then, the Houthis have entrenched themselves in their substantial tract of western Yemen, from where, supported by Iran, they have been striking not only Israel but international shipping, which often had little or no direct connection to Israel.

Until December 30, Saudi Arabia and the UAE had never attacked each other directly. On that day, Saudi aircraft bombed the southern port of Mukalla, claiming they were targeting a UAE weapons shipment destined for the STC’s anti-government campaign. The Mukalla strike, an unprecedented escalation, was followed by the PLC’s successful counterattack on the STC.

The international community continues to fail Yemen. Despite US President Donald Trump’s peacemaking aspirations and close relations with the leaders of both the UAE and Saudi Arabia, the US has not pressured either to de-escalate the political tensions.

The US has not intervened in Yemen’s internal civil war, nor sought regime change in Sanaa. What the US concentrated on was degrading the Houthis’ ability to attack shipping. US naval forces have taken the lead in coalition interception operations, shooting down Houthi missiles, drones, and unmanned surface vessels aimed at merchant shipping and warships in and around the Red Sea. The US directly linked these defensive actions at sea to targeted onshore strikes, since many of the radars and launchers destroyed were enabling the attacks on international shipping lanes.

On May 6, a US-Houthi ceasefire arrangement brokered by Oman took effect, ending the US air campaign in exchange for a halt to attacks on US vessels. The Houthis explicitly stated that this did not apply to Israel and that they would continue to attack vessels in the Red Sea. The ceasefire has held.

As for the UN, it has long had the Yemen situation under review, although its efforts have not succeeded in resolving its conflicts, either political or military.

This is not entirely a pie-in-the-sky aspiration, since in April 2022, Grundberg actually secured a nationwide two-month truce between the Houthis and the government. He secured two renewals of the truce (to early August 2022 and then to October 2, 2022), providing roughly six months of relative calm. Even though the truce later lapsed, Grundberg was able to use it to open some limited political and economic space for a time.

The UN is now reduced to issuing ineffective, if well-intentioned, aspirations for Yemen’s future. On December 22, the Security Council published a statement reaffirming its support for the efforts of the UN special envoy, and its “strong commitment to the unity, sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Yemen, and to the Presidential Leadership Council and the government of Yemen.”