UAE agrees with Saudi Arabia to rejoin Yemen fight as Houthi strikes rattle Riyadh

The United Arab Emirates has agreed to rejoin the Yemen conflict by resuming financial support to certain government forces battling the Iran-aligned Houthis in the south. In exchange, Saudi Arabia has committed to providing air cover for the anti-Houthi fighters, according to several media reports.

The new cooperation marks the first concrete indication that the longstanding rift between the UAE and Saudi Arabia over Yemen’s future may be mending, largely because the Houthis’ advance across the country has unsettled rival Gulf state leaders alike. This comes as Saudi Arabia is continuously under daily drone and missile attacks and is struggling to maintain a sense of normality, as Houthi strikes immobilise its airports and some of its energy infrastructure.

Anti-Houthi coalition

Southern forces, particularly the Giant Brigades, were once trained and financed by the UAE and are considered among the most capable units within the fragmented anti-Houthi coalition. However, the UAE withdrew from operations inside Yemen in January, severing its funding pipeline.

So far, neither Saudi Arabia nor the UAE has responded to this week’s demand from southern Yemeni separatists for a secession referendum, a move that would reinstate the 1967-1990 borders from when Yemen existed as two separate states. The separatist Southern Transition Council has likewise not committed to deploying its troops beyond the former borders of South Yemen, though an explicit Saudi agreement to permit the referendum would likely prompt it to lift that restriction.

Meanwhile, UAE authorities are deeply concerned by the state of the conflict as the Houthis are determined to capture Taiz and Marib despite massive losses. On Friday, two missiles launched by the Houthis struck the airport of Aden while a passenger plane was scheduled to take off. However, no casualties were found after the attack.

The launched missiles landed about 500 metres from the Yemenia Airways aircraft, and nearly 100 metres from the midpoint of the runway, Yemen’s information minister, Moammar Al-Eryani, confirmed. They launched the strike a day after at least five people were killed and 16 injured in a Houthi attack on a presidential palace in Aden.