The eastern region of Hadramaut today reveals Yemen’s old fracture line, where the history of the socialist south collides with the new rivalry between Saudi Arabia and the UAE
Hadramaut rarely appears in the news, usually only in passing, as a name on a map far from the main battlefields, and in the Yemeni war most reports focus on Sana’a, Marib, Hodeidah, or Aden. Yet this eastern province of Yemen is not a periphery but a kind of axis—a vast space linking desert and sea, oil fields and ports, local tribal structures and the interests of regional powers. When something shifts there, as we shall see, it rarely concerns only Yemen.
That is precisely why the warning (in fact, threats) issued by the Saudi-led coalition to the Southern Transitional Council (STC) sounds like more than a routine message. The Saudi side says that any military move that “undermines de-escalation efforts” will be stopped, allegedly “to protect civilians” (and what about the civilians killed over the years in Saudi airstrikes?). At the same time, the head of Yemen’s Presidential Council (the pro-Saudi camp) is calling on the coalition to take urgent measures to protect the population from the actions of armed groups linked to the STC (which, as we have already followed in the Yemeni conflict, are linked to the UAE).
Hadramaut here is not merely a question of territory but of resources and corridors, of control over the coast and the interior—of who will manage key economic points in any future order. When the STC speaks of “securing” the eastern provinces, in practice that means wanting to be present where decisions are made about money, logistics, and the future sustainability of any political entity in the south. When Saudi Arabia reacts, it is essentially saying that eastern Yemen is not a space where a new reality can be built without Saudi consent, especially when that space touches Saudi security zones and sensitive desert borders.
A mistaken Western assumption: “allies” who no longer are
In Western political language, the war in Yemen has for years been reduced to a “neat scheme”—a Saudi-led coalition on one side, the Houthis and Iran on the other, with some humanitarian tragedy mentioned when protocol requires it. This picture forces everything into a single frame, a so-called regional conflict in which “allies” preserve stability. Yemen, however, has long since disproved such assumptions.
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates did formally stand under the same banner of intervention, but from the outset they viewed Yemen through different lenses. The Saudis entered the war driven by security depth, a stable border, and the weakening of the Houthis (and thus Iran) as a threat on the kingdom’s southwest. The Emiratis entered with their own calculations, focused on the coast, ports, islands, security networks, and suppressing Islamist structures they see as an existential problem (the familiar paradox—Gulf monarchies support fundamentalism, but only when it is far enough from their thrones).
The STC is today the most visible result of that divergence. A movement politically and militarily tied to the Emirates, after pushing the Saudi-backed government out of its Aden stronghold and refusing calls to withdraw from seized areas, now behaves like an actor betting that the regional balance has shifted. The Saudi defense minister publicly calls for “reason” and a return to mediation efforts—essentially a signal that Riyadh does not want a new front, especially not within the camp that is supposed to represent unity against the Houthis. At the same time, the STC says it will continue “securing” Hadramaut and al-Mahra.
The West often overlooks one crucial thing here. When it speaks of a “coalition,” it does so as if it were a unified state structure with a clear chain of command. In Yemen, it is more a transactional power arrangement, a temporary alignment of interests that lasts until the price becomes too high. Hadramaut now shows that the price has indeed risen.
The STC as a textbook example of a new type of actor
The STC cannot be understood if treated as a classic rebel group, nor if described merely as a separatist movement. It is прежде всего a hybrid—a political project born out of war, institutional vacuum, southern frustration with northern dominance, and the fact that regional sponsors in Yemen built parallel structures. In such an environment, the most successful are those who can combine three things: local legitimacy, force that is not merely symbolic, and external support that does not come with too many conditions.
Today, the STC has exactly that. It does not function only as a militia, but as a network that distributes loyalties, manages security apparatuses, controls key urban points, and presents itself as the political representative of the “southern agenda.” It is no coincidence that the STC appears in the south as a force capable of launching operations in provinces like Abyan while simultaneously presenting itself as an actor without whom there can be no stability. That is the logic of new regional politics.
So do we have three actors? Pro-Saudi (“internationally recognized government”), pro-Iranian (the Houthis), and pro-UAE (the STC)? To an extent, yes—but as is usually the case in the Middle East, it is more complicated.
The STC is both a tool and a problem for its patrons. It is useful to the Emirates because it enables influence without formal occupation, provides a partner on the coast, and offers leverage in negotiations over Yemen’s future distribution. But the STC is not a faceless extension; it has its own base and its own dynamics. Once it grows to the point where it can ignore public calls to withdraw, it becomes an actor that slips beyond full control. For Saudi Arabia, it is problematic because it undermines the idea of a single “legitimate” authority and in practice creates a situation in which Riyadh must choose between two bad options: accept the new reality and risk fragmentation, or confront it and risk conflict within its own camp.
Most interesting is what the STC reveals about a broader trend. States in the Middle East increasingly build power through networks of partners, security structures, and local centers of force that can be switched on and off as needed. In this logic, classic slogans about sovereignty sound increasingly hollow, while real politics is conducted at checkpoints, in ports, on oil fields, and through backroom deals. The STC is just one of the most striking examples of how new political subjects are born in war—ones that will not disappear when the first peace paper is signed, but will only then seek their place in a new order. In other words, all of them (the aforementioned trio) could one day “bite the hand that feeds them,” if conditions allow.
The return of history: Southern Yemen that never disappeared
The southern idea in Yemen predates the current conflict, and war merely gives it new tools. Southern Yemen was a concrete state with institutions, borders, foreign policy, and an ideological identity. Aden was for decades a colonial port, Britain’s window onto the Indian Ocean, and later the capital of the most radical political experiment the Arab world saw during the Cold War. For some it was a tragedy, for others a promise, but it left a deep imprint on southern memory.
To explain this, we need to step back into history.
After the British withdrawal in 1967, the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen emerged—the only openly Marxist state in the Arab world. While neighboring countries were built on monarchies, military rule, or mixtures of nationalism and religion, South Yemen took the path of secular socialism. Its ally became the Soviet Union, along with a range of non-aligned and socialist governments of the time, from Cuba to Ethiopia. Aden turned into a strategic Soviet point at the entrance to the Red Sea, a port where warships docked and where cadres of various revolutionary movements from Africa and Asia were trained. For Moscow it was a jewel on a maritime route; for the West, an uncomfortable reminder that the Cold War was being fought far from Europe.
What made South Yemen truly different was not only its external orientation but its deep social transformation. Land was nationalized, old tribal hierarchies dismantled, religion pushed out of politics, and women gained rights that were almost unimaginable in the region at the time. Education and healthcare expanded rapidly, often clumsily, but with a clear idea of creating a new society, not just a new ruling elite. For many southerners, this was the first time the state truly existed in their lives—not as a distant threat or tax collector, but as an organized project of modernization. At the same time, the experiment had a dark side: repression of political opponents, internal factional struggles, and ideological rigidity that gradually eroded the system from within.
A particularly traumatic moment was the internal conflict of 1986, when South Yemen nearly destroyed itself in a bloody clash of its own factions. Thousands were killed in Aden within weeks, and the political elite was decimated. That event still lives in southern collective memory as a warning of how fragile the project was—and how real.
What actually happened in 1986? The escalation began almost banally, as an internal showdown at the top of the Party, but within days it turned into urban warfare in Aden itself. Armed factions loyal to opposing currents within the leadership seized ministries, barracks, and radio stations, while tanks and artillery shelled neighborhoods that had until recently symbolized socialist modernization. Killings occurred in meetings, in government corridors, and on the streets, often without a clear front line. The city was paralyzed, civilians trapped between loyalties, fear, and chaos, and the violence had the character of political suicide, as it shattered trust within the system. January 1986 left a deep scar—not only because of the death toll, but because it showed how an ideological project could collapse from within, accelerating the end of a state that had seemed stronger than it truly was.
Why did it happen? Several reasons.
First, South Yemen was an extremely centralized system with a narrow political elite. Power was concentrated at the top of the Yemeni Socialist Party, without mechanisms to absorb conflict. When divisions emerged at the top, there was no institution to “soak up” the dispute. Everything immediately became a matter of survival, not just of office.
Second, the conflict was neither purely personal nor purely ideological. It involved two factions within the same party with different visions of the state’s direction after the initial revolutionary phase. One current, associated with Abdul Fattah Ismail, advocated a hard line—consistent Marxism, continued export of revolution, and close alignment with the Soviet bloc. The other, around Ali Nasser Muhammad, was more pragmatic, inclined toward détente with neighbors, less ideological rigidity, and attempts to stabilize the regime without constant mobilization. As the Cold War entered its later phase, this split grew sharper.
Third, the state was deeply fragmented regionally and tribally, despite official rhetoric about overcoming tribal identities. Behind ideological labels often stood regional loyalties, especially differences between Aden, Abyan, Lahij, and Hadramaut. When political conflict escalated, these loyalties quickly militarized, and security and military units aligned along personal and regional lines rather than formal chains of command.
Fourth, the external factor played a role, but more passively than actively. The Soviet Union did not instigate the conflict, but at the time it was already preoccupied with its own problems (internal and external, such as the invasion of Afghanistan) and lacked the will or capacity to mediate. The key stabilizing anchor that had previously prevented tensions from fully exploding disappeared. Without that external mediator, the conflict was left to resolve itself—and in such a system, that meant violence.
Finally, the crucial point: South Yemen was a revolutionary state without an exit strategy. The project was designed to overthrow the old order, not to manage long-term pluralism within its own elite. When the time came to decide whether the state would remain ideologically rigid or transform, the decision was made not politically but by force. January 1986 was the moment when it became clear that a revolution could defend itself against an external enemy, but not against its own internal contradictions.
Yet today, many years later, the memory of a period when the south was radically different—secular, socially progressive, and internationally relevant—has never disappeared.
That is why today’s southern politics is not mere nostalgia, but a reinterpretation of that experience. It is not about returning to old socialism (impossible with the UAE as sponsor!), but about the belief that the south was once capable of existing as a separate political subject, and that history gives it a legitimacy that cannot be erased by administrative decrees from Sana’a. When the STC speaks of the south’s right to self-determination, it does not rely only on wartime achievements or current territorial control, but also on that deep, often silenced legacy that sets South Yemen apart within the broader Middle Eastern story.
What happened after the bloody 1986 and the collapse of the USSR? The 1990 unification formally closed that chapter, but in reality only postponed it. The south entered unification at a moment when Soviet support was fading and its economy was vulnerable, while the north had demographic weight, stronger patronage networks, and political survival skills forged in harsh conditions. In such a marriage, equality was short-lived, and after the 1994 war the south suffered a defeat that was perceived locally not as national reconciliation but as subjugation. Long before southern streets again filled with flags of the former state, everyday life had entrenched the belief that unification brought loss of property, influence, and dignity, while the beneficiaries were mainly northern power centers and their satellites.
When the new major war broke out in 2015, history returned. The war shattered the formal state and opened space in which old identities became relevant again. The STC therefore acts not only as a military project, but as an attempt to turn war into confirmation of a long-held southern thesis: that the problem could not be solved by reforming a unified state, but only by separation. In this story, Hadramaut and al-Mahra are not mere peripheries; they are conditions of seriousness, because without the east the south becomes an emotional map rather than a sustainable political economy.
Saudi Arabia’s nightmare: an uncontrollable border
Saudi Arabia has a long history of trying to keep Yemen in a condition that suits it—stable enough to avoid shocks, weak enough not to slip out of control, dependent enough that negotiation is always possible. For decades, this policy functioned through tribal ties, subsidies, political intermediaries, and the belief that a kind of buffer zone could be maintained along the kingdom’s southern edge. The war with the Houthis shattered that illusion. The Saudis felt missiles and drones on their own territory.
Within that framework, Hadramaut and al-Mahra are particularly sensitive points because they are not only the geographical edge of Yemen, but also the edge of Saudi Arabia’s security architecture. A desert belt, difficult to monitor, with traditional movements of people and goods. When the STC appears there, Saudi fear comes with it. If eastern Yemen turns into a space run by a structure close to the Emirates, Saudi Arabia loses the ability to set the terms on its own most vulnerable periphery. Moreover, for years regional analyses have also mentioned Saudi ambitions for an alternative overland corridor to the Arabian Sea, which would reduce dependence on maritime chokepoints. In that calculation, al-Mahra is important—and it is also important because influence there has never been exclusively Saudi; Oman has long played its own quiet game.
Saudi Arabia’s biggest problem is that this is no longer a choice between victory and defeat, but between a bad and a worse scenario. Riyadh wants to exit the Yemen war with minimal damage, to reduce the cost, to stop being a (self-imposed) hostage to a conflict that brings it not security but exhaustion. Yet at the same time it can hardly watch as a new configuration of power takes shape in the south and east—one that could tomorrow push Saudi influence aside, or worse, turn the Saudi border into a zone of permanent leverage and pressure.
Conclusion: Hadramaut as a mirror of the new Middle Eastern order
Anyone who wants to understand today’s reshuffling in the region will not find it only in grand speeches and summits, but precisely in moments like this, when under a supposedly common banner two different power projects emerge.
That is why this conflict is at once a warning and a preview. A warning that wars rarely end with a signature; more often they merely change form. And a preview that in Yemen—and beyond—the future order will be built less as a single, unified architecture and more as a series of arrangements among networks, territories, and interests. If Hadramaut today looks like a distant shadow on the edge of Yemen, tomorrow it could become the name for a model spreading across the region. Even now, we can comfortably turn our gaze toward Syria, Iraq, and further still—to Libya and elsewhere.
About the Author
