Fighting Breaks Out On Saudi Border In Oil-Rich Yemen Region

Yemen continues to be a major headache and security risk for the Saudis, and rare fighting has emerged just on the kingdom’s border. Looming over the crisis is the deepening rift between Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Saudi warplanes carried out fresh airstrikes on sites near the Saudi-Yemeni border in Yemen’s Hadramout province on Friday, as clashes erupted between forces loyal to the Saudi-backed provincial governor and fighters affiliated with the separatist Southern Transitional Council (STC).

The STC has for years called the secession of a proposed federal “State of South Arabia” from the rest of the country, and is backed in this current conflict by the UAE.

At lease seven air raids along the border occurred Friday, according to local officials. The STC’s leader in Wadi Hadramout, Mohammed Abdulmalik, has said that the strikes killed seven people and injured more than 20 others.

Saudi-backed authorities have this week moved to reassert control over military installations in the province. Hadramout borders Saudi Arabia and thus whichever group controls the area gains great influence and strategic importance, also given it is an area rich with crude.

Earlier on Friday, Yemen’s Saudi-backed government formally announced the launch of a military operation targeting the STC in Hadramout. Speaking in a televised address from Riyadh, the province’s governor said the campaign was intended to reassert state authority and secure key institutions in the oil-producing region.

In response, STC forces said they were fully prepared to confront any military escalation following the governor’s announcement.

Al Jazeera’s Ali Hashem has explained of the geopolitical pressures which led to the new escalation:

The opportunity here for the Southern Transitional Council (STC) is to go towards separation, to have a southern state, which has been its dream for decades.

It’s a different moment and it’s instrumental in recalibrating the region. Israel’s war on Gaza war has changed everything – it changed the perception of national security within major states in the region. It changed also the way small players are regarding the possibilities and potential they can build on.

The UAE-backed STC has long rivaled Yemen’s internationally recognized government for influence in the south. However, both sides have at times coordinated against the Iran-aligned Houthi movement in an “enemy of my enemy is my friend” kind of way.

While media cameras have for years focused on the dominant Houthis in Yemen, friction between Saudi-supported and Emirati-aligned forces has increasingly flared into armed confrontations.