UAE to pull forces out of Yemen as 24-hour deadline set amid crisis with Saudi Arabia

AL MUKALLA, Yemen: The UAE said Tuesday (Dec 30) it was pulling its remaining forces out of Yemen, following a Saudi demand to withdraw within 24 hours as tensions escalate over a sweeping offensive by Abu Dhabi-backed separatists.

The United Arab Emirates’ defence ministry said it was withdrawing “counter-terrorism teams … of its own volition”. Abu Dhabi had denied being behind the separatists’ advance.

Yemen’s presidential council and Saudi Arabia, the UAE’s rival powerbroker in the Arabian Peninsula’s poorest country, have both demanded Emirati troops pull out.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio also spoke with his Saudi and UAE counterparts, which are both key US partners, his department said.

Rubio and UAE foreign minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan discussed “the situation in Yemen and broader issues affecting Middle Eastern security and stability”, said Tommy Pigott, a State Department spokesman.

Before dawn, the Saudi-led coalition fighting Yemen’s Houthi rebels had struck an Emirati shipment at Mukalla port, saying it was carrying weapons for the separatists, a claim the UAE denied.

AFP footage of the port showed dozens of parked military vehicles and pick-ups, several of which were burnt out and smouldering as workers hosed them down.

Tuesday’s rapid-fire events come after forces from the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) marched across resource-rich Hadramawt and Mahra provinces this month, bringing fresh upheaval after a decade-long civil war.

The advance has raised the spectre of the return of South Yemen, a separate state from 1967 to 1990, while dealing a hammer-blow to slow-moving peace negotiations with Iran-backed Houthi rebels.

Emirati troops arrived in Yemen as part of the Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthis, who had forced the government from the capital Sanaa in 2014 and seized much of the country.

The UAE pulled out most of its forces in 2019, leaving only a limited number in the government-run south where a patchwork of militias hold sway.