US response muted as Gulf allies clash in Yemen
With Washington’s focus elsewhere, a Saudi-Emirati proxy fight is igniting a new phase in Yemen’s war.
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WASHINGTON — After months of quiet in the Red Sea, Yemen had faded from the Trump administration’s foreign policy priorities. But as fighting within the anti-Houthi coalition pits two of America’s closest regional allies against each other, the Yemeni civil war may again demand the administration’s attention.
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were once partners in the US-backed coalition against the Houthis, an Iran-backed militia that seized swaths of Yemen from the internationally recognized government over a decade ago. The Saudi-led bombing campaign killed hundreds of thousands of Yemenis and created what the United Nations described as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis before the war settled into a stalemate in 2022.
Long-simmering tensions between the two Gulf powerhouses came to a head last month when Emirati-supported separatists known as the Southern Transitional Council seized control of the eastern provinces of Hadramout and Mahra from Saudi-backed forces.
