Saudi-led coalition says UAE helped smuggle separatist leaders out of Yemen

The Saudi-led coalition in Yemen claims the United Arab Emirates helped smuggle a separatist leader out of the country after he was expelled from Yemen’s presidential council and charged with treason.

The chairman of the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC), Aidaros Zubaidi, fled Aden by boat for Somaliland on Tuesday night, a coalition spokesman said. He added that he then flew on a cargo plane to Abu Dhabi via Mogadishu under the supervision of Emirati officials.

There was no immediate comment from the UAE or STC.

The STC insisted Zubaidi was still working in Aden on Wednesday after the league said he failed to fly to Riyadh for talks and fled to an unknown location.

The alliance also accused Zubaidi of moving STC troops from their base in Aden to his home province of Dahle and said it had carried out airstrikes against them in response.

The STC said the attack, which reportedly killed four people, was “unjustified” and “inconsistent” with calls for dialogue by Yemen’s internationally recognized government, which is overseen by a presidential council and backed by Saudi Arabia.

On Thursday, coalition spokesman Maj. Gen. Turki Malki said they had “credible intelligence” that Zubaidi and his associates fled the port of Aden on a St. Kitts and Nevis-flagged passenger ship in the early hours of Wednesday.

He added that the ship was crossing the Gulf of Aden to Berbera in the breakaway region of Somaliland, where an IL-76 cargo plane was waiting.

Malki said Zubaidi and his associates “boarded a plane under the supervision of Emirati officials” and flew first to the Somali capital Mogadishu and then to the Arabian Sea “without an announced destination.”

“The aircraft disabled its identification system over the Gulf of Oman and reactivated it 10 minutes before landing at the Al-Reef military air base in Abu Dhabi,” he added, without directly revealing whether Zubaidi was still on board.

Southern Yemen has been on the brink of a new conflict in the past few weeks, pitting factions of the country’s decade-long civil war against each other against the Iran-backed Houthi movement and deepening a rift between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Forces allied with the STC have controlled much of the south in recent years and hope to make it an independent country again by driving out forces loyal to the government.

However, Saudi Arabia warned last week that developments near its borders posed a threat to its national security and the security and stability of Yemen.

It also accused the UAE of “pressuring” its separatist allies into eastern Yemen and expressed support for a presidential council’s demand for the withdrawal of all Emirati troops.

Meanwhile, after Houthi rebels took control of northwestern Yemen, a Saudi-led coalition of Arab states including the United Arab Emirates in 2015 attacked a shipment of weapons and military vehicles from the UAE that it said was for the STC.

The UAE expressed “deep regret” over the Saudi accusations and denied possessing any weapons but agreed to withdraw its remaining troops from the country.

Since then, forces loyal to the government have regained control of Hadramaut and Mahra with the help of coalition airstrikes.

Aden is also now under the control of Saudi-backed forces, witnesses and government officials told Reuters on Thursday.