00:00Let's get some more analysis on this with Samuel Romani, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, RUSI, a defense and security think tank in London.
00:08Thank you, Samuel. Welcome back to the program.
00:11It's a very complex situation, of course, in Yemen.
00:14Perhaps, first of all, you can just tell us what the overall situation in the country is right now.
00:19Who is in charge where?
00:22So basically, the Houthis are the dominant force in northern Yemen, and they have control over the capital, Sanaa,
00:29and they've controlled that area since 2014.
00:32Most of the southern Yemen now, all of the core governors are under the control of the Southern Transitional Council,
00:38a South Yemeni separatist organization that's aligned with the United Arab Emirates.
00:42And there are also pockets of areas that are under the control of the Presidential Leadership Council, the PLC, which is linked to Saudi Arabia.
00:50Okay, and where these, well, this operation, what's been called a peaceful operation, has been launched in the south.
00:55This is Hadramaut's province.
00:58Is it strategically important to both sides?
01:02Well, Hadramaut is very centrically important for all sides because it is geographically very large, right?
01:08It has a key area right near the border of Saudi Arabia.
01:12It's got longstanding cultural ties to the Saudis.
01:15It's got Mukala nearby, which is important for Arabian sea shipping.
01:18And also, it's economically significant because it's got 80% of Yemen's estimated oil reserves.
01:23We've got the Masilo oil fields, for example, that produce 250,000 barrels a day if there was no war.
01:30So I think it's something that's economically and also geographically valuable.
01:34Saudi Arabia sees the stability there and influence there as vital for its security.
01:38The UAE sees it as a critical plank in its efforts to emerge as a dominant Red Sea power.
01:45And how serious is the risk that the fighting could spiral into a broader war?
01:51And is Yemen essentially a proxy arena now for Saudi-UAE competition?
01:57Well, the Saudis and the Emiratis have actually had very different views on the Yemen conflict going back for some time.
02:04We saw the Saudis and the Emiratis in general both be against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and also against the Houthis.
02:11But they have really started diverging even as early as 2016 and 2017,
02:16when the UAE managed to establish links to some remnants of Ali Abdullah Saleh, the former president's coalition,
02:22whereas the Saudis are backing Abdur-Maghrahan Sir al-Hadi.
02:26And then we saw the UAE push more vocally for Southern separatism after 2017,
02:32engage in a clash with the Saudis and the island of Sakatra a year later.
02:35The things seem to have cooled down with the Riyadh agreement in 2019,
02:39which eventually led to the South Yemeni separatists and the northern Saudi-backed government co-existing together.
02:45But that was always fragile.
02:47And now we're seeing with the SDC taking over Hajar Mughat and Mara a new escalation of this conflict.
02:52So even though the UAE has claimed to have withdrawn from the territory,
02:56the SDC is holding its ground.
02:58I suspect that the Saudis are going to continue to bomb SDC positions for some time.
03:03And Yemen's government has described this as a peaceful operation,
03:06yet the SDC is claiming that the airstrikes followed almost immediately by Saudi Arabia.
03:12I mean, how credible are each side's account?
03:14And is there any realistic diplomatic pathway to de-escalation?
03:17Well, I think that obviously it does seem to be more than just kind of a nonviolent attack.
03:25It does seem as if there are strikes that are occurring against the SDC positions,
03:29because even though the SDC argument is that they are driving the Houthis out of southern Yemen,
03:35and they are the surest counterterrorism partner,
03:37Saudi Arabia is convinced that a united Yemen is the only way to contain the Houthis in the long term
03:42and also contain the spread of cross-border terrorism.
03:46So the UAE and Saudi Arabia have two different paradigms and two different views of this conflict.
03:50Saudi Arabia wants to unite Yemen.
03:52The UAE thinks a separate south is the best way to deal with counterterrorism.
03:56And because of that, that's likely to lead to more conflicts and pretty much irreconcilable differences.
04:02But we are seeing some movement from regional actors to destabilize, to bring an end to the instability.
04:08For example, Oman has been holding talks with both sides.
04:12Oman is traditionally a mediator also between the U.S. and the Houthis.
04:15And we're also seeing Qatar holding talks with the leaderships of Saudi Arabia and the UAE,
04:20including a rare call between the emir and crown prince Mohammed bin Salman.
04:24The United States, however, is not taking a kind of leadership role in terms of bringing this to an end.
04:28We're really seeing statements from Marco Rubio and from the Trump administration
04:31basically saying that, you know, we want some kind of stability and resolution of this,
04:36but not really taking either the Saudi or the Emirati position,
04:39probably because the United States wants to preserve its strategic relationships with both sides.
04:43So if diplomacy is going to take hold, it's going to have to be the regional actors,
04:47most likely the Omanis, facilitating some kind of an understanding between the Saudis and the Emiratis,
04:52as well as their local allies and proxies.
04:55We'll leave it there. Samuel, thank you so much for joining us.
04:58Samuel Romani, Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute Think Tank.
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