Aidarous al-Zubaidi, leader of Yemen's Southern Transitional Council, fled to an undisclosed location on January 7, 2026, hours after refusing to board a flight to Riyadh for emergency talks brokered by Saudi Arabia. His disappearance follows the most serious rupture yet between the kingdom and the United Arab Emirates over Yemen's future, with Riyadh launching airstrikes against the UAE-backed separatist forces al-Zubaidi commands. The Presidential Leadership Council, Yemen's Saudi-recognized government, has formally charged him with high treason.
The crisis marks a pivotal moment in Yemen's nine-year conflict, revealing that the anti-Houthi coalition assembled by Saudi Arabia and the UAE in 2015 has effectively turned on itself. What began as a coordinated campaign against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels has devolved into a proxy confrontation between the two Gulf powers, each pursuing incompatible visions for Yemen's political future. Al-Zubaidi's flight is not merely the action of a cornered leader—it is the visible collapse of a partnership that could no longer reconcile Saudi demands for territorial integrity with Emirati ambitions for strategic port control.