Saudi coalition says separatist leader fled Yemen with UAE help, advances in Aden

(Reuters)

ADEN, Jan 8 – The Saudi-led coalition in Yemen said on Thursday that the United Arab Emirates had spirited a separatist leader out of the country in a dramatic twist to a row between the Gulf powers, as witnesses said Saudi-backed forces advanced to the port of Aden after losing ground there.

The Saudi-led coalition said Aidarous al-Zubaidi, head of a UAE-backed southern separatist group, had left Yemen by boat for Somaliland, before boarding an aircraft to Mogadishu that was later tracked to a military airport in Abu Dhabi.

The move escalates tensions between Saudi Arabia and the UAE, major global oil heavyweights and close allies of the United States. Zubaidi had failed to show up in Riyadh for crisis talks over turmoil in southern Yemen on Wednesday.

Zubaidi’s separatist group, the Southern Transitional Council (STC), said he had been asked to go to Saudi Arabia under threat.

The Saudi claim that the UAE helped him escape raises the stakes in a crisis that erupted last month when the separatists swept through southern Yemen and reached the border with Saudi Arabia, which declared the move a threat to its national security.