Saudi Arabia says it bombed Yemen’s port city of Mukalla over a shipment of weapons for a separatist force there that arrived from the United Arab Emirates. The attack signals a new escalation in tensions between the kingdom and the Southern Transitional Council, which is backed by the Emirates. .
Arab Emirates Saudi Arabia bombed Yemen’s port city of Mukalla on Tuesday over what it described as a shipment of weapons for a separatist force there that arrived from the United Arab Emirates. The kingdom later directly linked the UAE to the separatists’ recent advances in Yemen and warned Abu Dhabi its actions were “extremely dangerous.”
The attack signals a new escalation in tensions between the kingdom and the separatist forces of the Southern Transitional Council, which is backed by the Emirates.
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It also further strains ties between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, which had been backing competing sides in Yemen’s decadelong war against the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels amid a moment of unease across the wider Red Sea region. The two nations, while closely aligned on many issues in the wider Mideast, increasingly have competed with each other over economic issues and the region’s politics.
Yemen’s anti-Houthi forces later declared a state of emergency Tuesday. It issued a 72-hour ban on all border crossings in territory they hold, as well as entries to airports and seaports, except those allowed by Saudi Arabia.
A military statement carried by the state-run Saudi Press Agency announced the strikes, which it said came after ships arrived there from Fujairah, a port city on the UAE’s eastern coast.
“The ships’ crew had the disabled tracking devices aboard the vessels, and unloaded a large amount of weapons and combat vehicles in support of the Southern Transitional Council’s forces,” it said.
“Considering that the aforementioned weapons constitute an imminent threat, and an escalation that threatens peace and stability, the Coalition Air Force has conducted this morning a limited airstrike that targeted weapons and military vehicles offloaded from the two vessels in Mukalla,” it added.
