Saudi Arabia seeks to oust UAE from wider region after Yemen rift

Riyadh (Somalia Today) — Saudi Arabia is moving to curb the United Arab Emirates’ influence across the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa after a sharp rupture in Yemen exposed a deeper rivalry between the two Gulf allies, The Washington Post reported.

The split flared in recent weeks in southern Yemen, where UAE-backed separatist forces seized territory, prompting Saudi intervention on behalf of Yemen’s internationally recognised government.

Riyadh struck the separatists and said it also targeted an Emirati shipment it alleged contained weapons for the group, according to the report.

The UAE then withdrew its troops, and the separatists’ leadership council dissolved, a sudden retreat that analysts said reshuffled control dynamics around the Bab el-Mandeb strait — a critical maritime chokepoint linking the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden.

Regional ‘red lines’

A Saudi diplomat told The Washington Post that Abu Dhabi’s growing footprint around the Red Sea clashes with Riyadh’s view of the area as part of its strategic security belt, and that the kingdom intends to signal clearer “red lines.”

For years, Saudi Arabia and the UAE worked largely in tandem, backing allied leaders after the Arab Spring and joining a coalition against Iran-aligned Houthi forces in Yemen.

But the Post said Riyadh has become increasingly alarmed by what it sees as assertive Emirati military and foreign-policy moves, including reliance on local armed partners and commercial footholds to expand influence.

The paper reported that Saudi Arabia has recently reinforced alternative alliances to constrain Abu Dhabi, including talks with Egypt and Somalia on broader security cooperation, citing a senior Somali security official.

Somalia’s federal government has also said it is cancelling defence arrangements with the UAE, which maintains commercial port interests and military facilities in at least three Somali regions — Somaliland, Puntland and Jubaland — where Mogadishu has limited authority.

The Post said the regional rift is forcing governments around the Red Sea to recalibrate, weighing how far to align with Riyadh’s pushback while avoiding deeper destabilisation in already fragile states.

Proxy networks

The Post also cited flight-tracking data indicating that some aircraft originating from the UAE have been rerouted to avoid Egyptian, Saudi and Somali airspace.

Analysts told the newspaper the flights may be linked to Emirati-aligned actors in conflicts elsewhere on the continent, including Chad, Libya and Sudan.

“The flip-flop here is huge,” Liam Karr, Africa team lead for the Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute, told the Post, describing the rapid reversal in Yemen after the UAE pullback.

Karr said that in late December, UAE-backed forces and partners in Yemen appeared positioned to control both the northern and southern approaches to Bab el-Mandeb, as well as the Gulf of Aden.

But after Saudi Arabia moved against the separatist advance, “now, it’s looking like the opposite could be true,” he told the newspaper.

Neither the Emirati foreign ministry nor Saudi officials responded directly to the Post’s requests for comment, the report said.

A deepening rivalry

The Post said disputes between the two states long predate the current Yemen clash, periodically flaring over issues from territory to oil policy.

In the mid-2010s, however, ties tightened as Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed forged a close partnership that seemed to reshape Gulf decision-making.

The Yemen war became the most visible arena of cooperation: Saudi Arabia backed the internationally recognised government and framed its objective as restoring state control, while the UAE joined the coalition but increasingly prioritised countering Islamist factions, the Post reported.

Those diverging aims produced competing local alliances. The newspaper said the UAE funded, armed and consolidated southern separatist forces, helping underwrite the formation of the Southern Transitional Council (STC) in 2017.

Emirati-backed units built airfields, outposts and other infrastructure in ports and on islands off Yemen’s coast, expanding a network along key maritime routes.

Analysts quoted by the Post said Abu Dhabi has pursued similar models elsewhere, building influence through commercial vehicles, logistics access, security assistance, and local armed partners — often at levels below formal state-to-state diplomacy.

Saudi officials, by contrast, have tended to favour working through recognised governments and preserving existing state structures, the report said.

The Post said the rupture accelerated when STC forces advanced into Mahra and Hadramawt provinces, putting them close to Yemen’s long border with Saudi Arabia.

Riyadh then moved openly to roll back the gains and publicly address the UAE’s role, according to the report. An Emirati official rejected accusations that Abu Dhabi directed the advance, describing them as false, the newspaper said.

A former Yemeni foreign minister, Khaled Alyemany, described what he called a “complete fracture” in the Yemen relationship, telling the Post that the Emirati pullback was abrupt and left Saudi Arabia facing the fallout.

Horn ripple effects

The Post said Saudi officials have become increasingly concerned about UAE-linked networks in the Horn of Africa, where Abu Dhabi has invested in ports and built facilities that analysts say support a wider regional logistics footprint.

In Somalia, the report highlighted the deepwater port and airfield in Berbera in Somaliland and investments in Puntland’s Bosaso port, alongside a military base that analysts say has supported drone operations against Islamic State militants in the region.

The newspaper also linked Bosaso to broader supply routes, citing researchers who alleged that some cargo movements could support Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the paramilitary fighting Sudan’s army.

The UAE has denied arming the RSF, the Post said, despite reported evidence of UAE-purchased weapons appearing in RSF-held stockpiles captured by the army.

The Post reported that the UAE has long-standing ties with RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo and had previously invested in Sudanese gold and agriculture projects, including a major port development deal struck before Sudan’s civil war.

Saudi Arabia, the paper said, is now weighing broader measures to counter Emirati leverage — not only in Yemen, but across a wider arc of contested states where both Gulf powers compete for security influence, ports and political alignment.

Some analysts told the Post that, while the rivalry risks further instability, clearer boundaries may eventually reduce uncertainty by forcing both sides to define what kinds of interference they will tolerate in areas they consider within their sphere of influence.

The post Saudi Arabia seeks to oust UAE from wider region after Yemen rift appeared first on Somalia Today.