UAE and Saudi Arabia agree to re-enter Yemen war

The United Arab Emirates has agreed to re-enter the Yemen conflict, resuming payments to government forces fighting the Iran-aligned Houthis in the south while Saudi Arabia provides air cover, according to sources in Yemen. It is the first tangible sign that the deep rift between the rival Gulf states over Yemen's future is starting to heal.

Abu Dhabi quit operations inside Yemen in January, cutting the funding line to southern forces — chiefly the Giant Brigades, trained and financed by the UAE and regarded as some of the most effective units in the disjointed anti-Houthi coalition. The rupture followed a failed bid by the Southern Transition Council to take charge across the south. Its leader, Aidarous al-Zubaidi, fled to Abu Dhabi, the Saudis bombed UAE arms shipments bound for STC forces, and the Saudi-backed government in Aden said it would seek to try him for treason.

What has changed is the Houthi advance. Daily drone and missile attacks have immobilised Saudi airports and energy infrastructure, and despite massive losses the movement remains determined to capture Taiz and Marib, the last two cities outside the boundaries of the old Southern Yemen. Yemen's UN-recognised government declared a counteroffensive last week to drive the Houthis from Sana'a; it has so far met with limited success around Majzar near Marib and the Bab al-Mandab strait.

The new arrangement has limits neither patron will name. Southern separatists demanded this week a referendum on secession restoring the 1967-1990 borders, when Yemen was two states. Neither Saudi Arabia nor the UAE has responded, and the STC has not agreed to let its troops fight outside the old south — a restriction an explicit Saudi promise of a referendum would likely lift. There is no direct contact between Zubaidi and Saudi officials.

The war is also widening beyond the peninsula. Egypt's president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, said he was convening an emergency session of parliament to grant the military powers to act in defence of Saudi Arabia, stressing Egypt would take no offensive action. On Friday, two Houthi missiles struck Aden's airport while a passenger plane prepared to take off, landing about 500 metres from the Yemenia Airways aircraft and roughly 100 metres from the midpoint of the runway, according to information minister Moammar Al-Eryani. No casualties were reported.

The palace attack a day earlier killed at least five people and injured 16, in the city where a government that wants Zubaidi tried for treason has declared a counteroffensive that depends on southern fighters and Saudi air cover.