Saudi-led coalition claims strike on UAE arms shipments intended for Yemen’s STC

A Saudi-led coalition has said it targeted a large quantity of weapons and combat vehicles destined for Southern Transitional Council forces that were being offloaded from ships at a port in Yemen. The military shipments had come from a UAE port.

Yemen has been engulfed in a years-long internal conflict in which different armed factions loosely grouped under the government and backed by the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia have turned on each other.

The STC, which seeks to revive the formerly independent state of South Yemen, has in recent weeks swept through swathes of the country, expelling government forces and their allies. The Yemeni government forces and the STC have together fought Iran-backed Houthis.

The Saudi-led coalition warned on Saturday that it would back Yemen's government in any military confrontation with separatist forces and has urged them to withdraw "peacefully" from recently seized provinces.

"Early morning, we received a call to evacuate the port of al-Mukalla a quarter of an hour before the strike," an official at the Yemeni port told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to speak to the media.

"The evacuation was completed, and the strike occurred a quarter of an hour later in a dirt area within the port. The fire is still burning," he said.

The coalition targeted two ships carrying "a large quantity of weapons and combat vehicles to support the Southern Transitional Council forces,” the Saudi state news agency SPA reported.

"Given the danger and escalation posed by these weapons, the Coalition air forces carried out a limited military operation this morning targeting weapons and combat vehicles that had been unloaded from the two ships at the port of al-Mukalla," it said.

The ships had arrived from the port of Fujairah, on the east coast of the United Arab Emirates, the SPA said, adding that the operation was conducted in accordance with international humanitarian law and that no collateral damage occurred.

Aerial footage showing docked boats and a large number of vehicles driving through the port was shared by the SPA.

‘Sensitive moment’

The latest attack follows December 26 Saudi air strikes on STC positions in Yemen's Hadramawt province. Washington had then called for restraint in the rapidly escalating conflict.

Saudi Defence Minister Khalid bin Salman said on Saturday that troops from the separatist STC should "peacefully hand over" two regional governorates to the government.

"It's time," he posted on X, "at this sensitive moment, to let reason prevail by withdrawing from the two provinces and doing so peacefully."

But the STC had warned on Friday that they were undeterred after the Saudis hit their positions, which were in response to the STC seizure of large swathes of territory in the Hadramawt and Mahrah provinces.

Since the takeover, supporters of the STC have been gathering regularly in cities including Aden to demand they declare independence, with the largest rallies taking place every Friday.

On Saturday, hundreds of Yemeni tribesmen gathered in Aden to ask the STC's leaders to announce the independence of South Yemen, according to the STC-affiliated Aden Independent Channel.

The channel aired footage of a large crowd marching and waving the South Yemen independence flag alongside the UAE's flag.

A Yemeni military official said on Friday that around 15,000 Saudi-backed fighters were massed near the Saudi border but had not been given orders to advance on STC-held territory.

The areas where they were deployed are at the edges of territory seized in recent weeks by the STC.

The government is a patchwork of groups that includes the STC and is held together by shared opposition to the Houthis.

The Houthis pushed the government out of Yemen's capital, Sanaa, in 2014 and secured control over most of the north.