Saudi Arabia bombs Yemen over weapons shipment it claims UAE sent to separatists | Yemen
Saudi Arabia bombed the Yemeni port city of Mukalla on Tuesday over what it described as an arms shipment for a separatist force from the United Arab Emirates.
The UAE did not immediately acknowledge the strike.
The attack marks a new escalation in tensions between the kingdom and the separatist forces of the Southern Transitional Council, which is backed by the Emirates. It also further strains ties between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, which back rival sides in Yemen’s decade-long war against Iran-backed Houthi rebels, amid a moment of unrest in the Red Sea region.
A military statement by the state-run Saudi Press Agency said the attacks took place after ships arrived here from Fujairah, a port city on the UAE’s east coast.
The statement stated that “the ship’s crew had disabled tracking devices on board and unloaded a large amount of weapons and combat vehicles in support of the Southern Transitional Council forces.”
“Given that the weapons in question pose an imminent threat and constitute an escalation that threatens peace and stability, the Coalition Air Force conducted a limited airstrike this morning targeting weapons and military vehicles unloaded from two ships in Mukalla.”
It is not yet clear whether there were any casualties in the attack or whether any soldiers outside Saudi Arabia were involved in the incident. The Saudi military said it carried out the attack overnight to ensure “no collateral damage occurred”.
UAE did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The council’s AIC satellite news channel acknowledged the attacks, without providing details.
The attack was likely targeting a ship flying the St Kitts flag, identified by analysts as Greenland. Tracking data showed that the ship was in Fujairah on December 22 and arrived in Mukalla on Sunday. The second ship was not immediately identified.
Mohammed al-Basha, a Yemen expert and founder of risk consultancy firm Basha Report, referred to social media videos that purported to show new armored vehicles driving around Mukalla after the ship’s arrival. The ship’s owners, who are in Dubai, could not immediately be reached.
“I expect calibrated escalation from both sides. The UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council is likely to respond to this by consolidating control,” Al Basha said. he said. “At the same time, the flow of arms from the UAE to the STC following the port attack will also be restricted, especially as Saudi Arabia controls its airspace.”
In the images, which were later broadcast on Saudi state television and apparently shot by a surveillance plane, it is claimed that armored vehicles were moving towards a staging area from Mukalla. Vehicle types corresponded to social media images.
Mukalla is located in Yemen’s Hadramout province, which the council recently captured. The port city is located 480 kilometers northeast of Aden, the center of power for anti-Houthi forces in Yemen after the rebels captured the capital Sana’a in 2014.
The attack in Mukalla came after Saudi Arabia targeted the council with airstrikes on Friday; Analysts described this as a warning for the separatists to halt their advance and abandon the governorates of Hadramout and Mahra.
The council had pushed forces there from the Saudi-backed National Shield Forces, another faction of the coalition fighting the Houthis.
Council loyalists increasingly fly the flag of South Yemen, which was a separate country from 1967 to 1990. Demonstrators have been demonstrating for days in support of political forces calling for the re-separation of South Yemen from Yemen.
The separatists’ actions have put pressure on relations between Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which maintain close ties and are members of the OPEC oil cartel but have also competed for influence and international trade in recent years.
