By Yomna Ehab, Nayera Abdallah and Maha El Dahan
Dec 30 (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia said on Tuesday its national security was a red line and backed a call for UAE forces to leave Yemen within 24 hours, hours after a Saudi-led coalition carried out an airstrike on the southern Yemeni port of Mukalla.
The warning represented Riyadh’s strongest language against Abu Dhabi yet, as the coalition struck what it described as foreign military support to UAE-backed southern separatists, and the head of Yemen’s Saudi-backed presidential council set the deadline for Emirati forces to leave.
Yemen’s presidential council head, Rashad al-Alimi, also cancelled a defence pact with the UAE, the Yemeni state news agency said, and accused the UAE in a televised speech of fuelling internal strife in Yemen with its support to the Southern Transitional Council (STC).
“Unfortunately, it has been definitively confirmed that the United Arab Emirates pressured and directed the STC to undermine and rebel against the authority of the state through military escalation,” he added.
Saudi Arabia urged the Emiratis to comply with the demand. The UAE’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Major stock indexes in the Gulf were trading down on Tuesday after the flare-up in tensions.
OFFENSIVE BROUGHT ALLIES CLOSER TO CONFRONTATION
The UAE was a member of the Saudi-led coalition battling the Iran-aligned Houthi movement in Yemen from 2015. In 2019 it started a drawdown of its troops in the country but remained committed to the Saudi-backed internationally recognised government.
The STC later decided to seek self-rule in the south and this month advanced in a sudden offensive against Saudi-supported Yemeni government troops, bringing the Gulf allies UAE and Saudi Arabia closer than ever to confrontation in Yemen, which has been mired in civil war since 2014.
The advance broke years of stalemate, with the STC claiming broad control of the south. Saudi Arabia had warned the STC against military moves in the eastern border province of Hadramout and sought withdrawal of its forces.
The STC dismissed the Saudi call.
The limited airstrike followed the weekend arrival of two ships from the UAE port of Fujairah on Saturday and Sunday without its authorisation, the coalition said.
After arriving in Mukalla, the vessels disabled their tracking systems and unloaded large quantities of weapons and combat vehicles to support the STC, it added.
STRIKE CAUSED NO CASUALTIES, SAUDI STATE MEDIA SAY
The coalition said the Mukalla port strike caused no casualties or collateral damage, according to Saudi state media.
Two sources told Reuters that the strike targeted the dock where the cargo of the two ships was unloaded.
Footage on Yemen’s state TV showed what it said was black smoke rising from the port in the early morning after the strike, with burned vehicles at the port.
UAE-backed forces control large swathes of land in the south including the strategically key province of Hadramout.
Yemeni presidential council head Alimi imposed a no-fly zone, and a sea and ground blockade on all ports and crossings for 72 hours, except for exemptions authorised by the coalition.
Hadramout borders Saudi Arabia and has cultural and historical ties with it. Many prominent Saudis trace their origins to the area.
Since 2022 the STC has been part of an alliance that controls southern areas outside Houthi control, under a Saudi-backed power-sharing initiative.
The Houthis control the northern region, including Sanaa, the capital, after forcing the Saudi-backed government to flee south.
“We will continue to prevent any military support from any country to any Yemeni faction without coordination with the legitimate government,” the coalition added.
(Reporting by Yomna Ehab, Hatem Maher and Mohammed Ghobari in Cairo; Nayera Abdallah, Ahmed Elimam and Jana Choukeir in Dubai, writing by Maha El Dahan and Nayera Abdallah; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Aidan Lewis)
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