🚨🚨🚨 Let Me Try to Explain What's Happening in Yemen Today (It's HUGE) and Why It Should Matter to You

Airstrikes, ultimatums, separatists, and a 24-hour deadline — after years of atrocities, they still treat Yemen like a chessboard.

The Gulf is cracking open in Yemen again — and Yemenis are the ones who will pay for it. The UAE is now publicly saying it is withdrawing its remaining forces from Yemen, even as Saudi Arabia is bombing and issuing ultimatums, and Yemen’s leadership is demanding Emirati forces leave within 24 hours. They never should’ve been there in the first place.

This is what happens when powerful countries treat a nation like Yemen as a project instead of a people: they bring catastrophe, then fight each other over the pieces.

Before I break down what’s happening, I want to ask you from the heart to become a member today. I keep this work free for the world — for readers in Gaza, for students in public schools, for families living in deep poverty, for elders on fixed incomes — because a smaller circle of people who can afford it chooses to carry the cost. Please click here to become a member and please click here to join as a monthly, annual, or founding member. Your support keeps this work free for them, and even for you when you can’t afford to pay.

Now let me tell you what the public statements and reporting say, in plain language.

According to the UAE’s own Ministry of Defense statement, the UAE is claiming it participated in the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen since 2015, and that its military presence “concluded” in 2019, with only specialized “counterterrorism”teams remaining after that — and that the UAE is now terminating even those teams.

But the timing tells a different story.

Reporting today describes a Saudi-led coalition airstrike on Mukalla port in southern Yemen, with Saudi officials framing it as targeting weapons linked to the UAE and allied southern separatists. That’s not a minor dispute. That’s coalition partners striking near each other’s interests inside Yemen.

Then the political rupture widens. Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council moved to cancel a joint defense deal with the UAE and demanded Emirati forces leave Yemen within 24 hours. Saudi Arabia has publicly backed Yemen’s demand and has framed the UAE’s alleged support for southern separatists as unacceptable. Meanwhile, the UAE is insisting it is committed to Saudi security and rejecting accusations that it supports separatists — even as multiple actors inside Yemen describe the UAE’s influence on the ground as obvious.

And the group sitting in the middle of all of this is the Southern Transitional Council — the STC — which is now openly refusing to withdraw from areas it has seized.

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And here’s the part that should shame the entire region: Yemen—broken, bombed, starved, and abused for years—has still been one of the boldest voices and actors standing for Gaza. While richer nations cut deals and issue polished statements, Yemen has taken real risks to pressure the siege and to say, out loud, that starving Gaza is a crime. Whatever you think about every tactic, the moral contrast is undeniable. The poorest people in the room have shown more spine than the richest.

That’s why this moment is so infuriating. The UAE and Saudi Arabia helped turn Yemen into a humanitarian catastrophe—then they turn around and speak the language of “security” and “stability” like they’re the victims of disorder. They helped create the disorder. They helped normalize the idea that Muslim lives can be managed with airstrikes, blockades, and proxies. And now, as Gaza bleeds and Yemen continues to suffer, they’re fighting over ports and influence while pretending it’s all about legitimacy. It’s not legitimacy. It’s leverage.

And understand what this does to the soul of the Ummah. When Yemen stands up for Gaza, it reminds the world that conscience still exists in our region. When powerful Gulf states treat Yemen like a chessboard and treat Gaza like a public-relations problem, it teaches the opposite lesson: that money can purchase silence, and that suffering Muslims are expendable as long as trade routes and alliances stay profitable. That spiritual cost is real. It’s not just politics—it’s a betrayal of what Islam demands when oppression is happening in plain sight.

So zoom out and see what this really is.

This isn’t about “counterterrorism.” This is about control. It’s about territory, ports, oil and gas fields, border leverage, and regional dominance — all while Yemen, one of the most devastated countries on earth, is treated like a board game.

Now let me break this down in a way a young student can understand, without insulting anyone who studies Yemen for a living.

Back in 2015, Saudi Arabia and the UAE entered Yemen as part of a coalition claiming it was restoring Yemen’s internationally recognized government after the Houthis took major territory, including the capital, Sanaa. Over time, the coalition’s actions helped rip Yemen apart. Yemen didn’t become “unstable” by itself — Yemen was made unstable by war, bombing, siege dynamics, proxy forces, and power struggles layered on top of existing problems.

In that chaos, the UAE built influence in the south through local forces and militias. And the STC became the most powerful political-military vehicle for the idea that the south should break away from the north — which has historical roots, because Yemen used to be two countries before unification in 1990. So when the STC talks about “the south,” it’s not just geography. It’s a political project: a separate southern Yemen, with its own armed forces and its own control over ports and resources.

Now here’s where the historian and the student meet: Hadramout and al-Mahra matter. These aren’t random provinces. They are oil and gas regions, and they sit in a sensitive place on the map — near borders and trade routes. Saudi Arabia sees these eastern regions as integral to its own security because Yemen shares a long border with Saudi Arabia. The UAE, meanwhile, has long been associated with a strategy of port influence and maritime leverage. So if a UAE-aligned force expands into oil-rich eastern Yemen and controls key territory and ports, Riyadh reads that as a direct threat to its interests.

That helps explain why this blew up now.

Reports say UAE-aligned forces have made major territorial gains in recent weeks, and that Saudi Arabia has reportedly positioned up to 20,000 allied troops near Yemen’s border. That’s not symbolic. That’s preparation. That’s pressure. That’s Saudi Arabia saying: we will not allow a new reality to be forced on the ground in Yemen’s east that weakens our border security and rewrites the regional map.

So what is the UAE doing with this “withdrawal” announcement?

It looks like a political move designed to achieve two things at once: to de-escalate on paper while preserving influence through proxies and aligned forces in reality. The UAE is saying, “We’re not there; we’re leaving; we’re committed to Saudi security.” But if the UAE’s aligned partners on the ground refuse to withdraw and continue to consolidate territory, then the UAE gets a neat advantage: influence without liability. That is a familiar play in regional proxy conflicts.

And Yemen is once again the victim.

Because Yemenis don’t get to live inside press releases. Yemenis live inside the consequences — airstrikes, port disruptions, rising prices, fear, displacement, crumbling institutions, and the constant anxiety of new escalation.

One quote from the reporting hit me hard: residents near Mukalla describing fear, children terrified, women frightened. That’s what it looks like when powerful states treat a port like a chess square. A strike isn’t a “message” to ordinary people. It’s glass blown out of windows. It’s bodies shaking. It’s families wondering what tomorrow brings.

Now add the darkest layer: after years of atrocities in Yemen, these governments are still speaking like they are the guardians of “legitimacy” and “stability.” The UAE says it has made “significant sacrifices” for “brotherly Yemen.” Saudi Arabia says it is committed to Yemen’s “security, stability, and sovereignty.” The Arab League calls for “Arab solidarity.”

But solidarity without justice is a slogan. And Yemen has been subjected to years of policies and military actions that helped collapse daily life. A nation doesn’t recover from that because the same actors who helped break it start fighting each other.

And yes, international law matters here too — and I’ll keep it simple. Yemen has been under a UN Security Council arms framework for years. When human rights monitors and local groups accuse outside powers of supplying weapons to non-state armed groups, that isn’t just political complaining — it’s a claim about the fuel that keeps conflict burning. And when ports are struck and embargo logic shows up, we’re back in the same territory that keeps appearing in this region: blockades, sieges, coercion, collective punishment dynamics — the very tools that have devastated civilians in Yemen for years.

So what do we call this moment?

We call it the coalition finally saying out loud what was true for a long time: this was never a clean alliance. It was competing agendas. Competing visions. Competing projects — all carried out on Yemeni soil.

And I need to say something plainly in the language of faith.

There is no Islamic guidance in starving Yemen, bombing Yemen, carving Yemen into pieces, and then posturing about “brotherhood” when your own policies helped break the nation. There is no barakah in power built on the suffering of Muslims. There is no righteousness in treating a nation of believers like a bargaining chip.

If the UAE is truly withdrawing, then let the withdrawal be real — not a PR rebrand. If Saudi Arabia is truly committed to Yemen’s sovereignty, then that commitment must look like ending escalation, not multiplying ultimatums. And if the world is serious about peace, it must stop treating Yemen as a place where violence can be managed from conference rooms.

Because Yemen is not a chessboard. Yemen is a people.

If you want me to keep doing the work of translating these power games into plain moral language — and keeping it free for people who need it — please stand with me. Please click here to become a member and please click here to join as a monthly, annual, or founding member.

Love and appreciate each of you.
Your friend and brother,
Shaun

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