By Mostafa Salem, CNN
(CNN) — A decade after Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates led a joint military campaign to curb Iran’s influence in Yemen, the two allies now find themselves pitted against each other there.
The Arab world’s most powerful nations have entered an unprecedented public spat over Yemen, a strategically located and impoverished nation with a history of unresolved conflicts. This week, Saudi Arabia struck a UAE shipment carrying combat vehicles bound for Yemen in an unprecedented military escalation before accusing Abu Dhabi of “highly dangerous” actions and endangering the kingdom’s national security.
The civil war in Yemen began in 2014 after the Iran-backed Houthi movement overran the north of the country and took over the capital Sana’a. Saudi Arabia and the UAE intervened the following year, propping up the local government and militias under a unified vision of destroying the Houthis.
But over the years, disagreements surfaced between rival Yemeni factions whose competing agendas unintendedly exposed a rift between the two Middle Eastern allies, Riyadh and Abu Dhabi.
Here’s how Yemen’s war has morphed into a proxy conflict involving erstwhile allies:
Who are the warring parties in Yemen and who backs them?
Since the Houthis seized Yemen’s capital, the country has fragmented into multiple spheres of influence, giving Iran expanded leverage on the southern flank of the Arabian Peninsula through its support for the group.
The Houthis, formally known as Ansar Allah, are a Shiite Islamist movement in the northwest of the country. In 2014, they orchestrated a swift takeover of Sana’a, with some popular backing, seizing control of the government. With sustained Iranian arms supplies and support, they emerged as Yemen’s most cohesive military and political entity, controlling most of the country’s northwestern border with Saudi Arabia, and holding critical Red Sea coastline, including access to vital maritime corridors. Over time, the Houthis evolved into one of Tehran’s most disruptive regional proxies, launching missile strikes on Saudi Arabia and as far as Israel. They endured a prolonged Saudi-led military campaign, which ultimately failed and led to the Houthis securing a de facto truce in 2022.
Yemen’s internationally recognized government, operating under the Saudi-backed Presidential Leadership Council (PLC), was established in 2022 to unify fragmented factions against the Houthis; it commands a loose coalition of regular military remnants, tribal militias, and Sunni Islamist groups in the center and south of the country. These forces hold a patchwork of strongholds, primarily in the central province of Marib, parts of Taiz, and Aden in the south. Since 2015, Saudi Arabia has conducted extensive air and naval operations, with limited ground troop deployments to prop up the government and counter the growing threat on its southern border.
The Southern Transitional Council (STC) is a UAE-backed separatist body in southern Yemen founded in 2017 to advocate for the restoration of the southern Yemeni state which ceased to exist in 1990 after the country unified. Militias aligned to the group are backed by Abu Dhabi and have played a crucial role in battles over the course of the war, including in recent weeks.
Why are Saudi Arabia and the UAE clashing over Yemen?
The two countries led the milita