Is the Separatist STC Washington and Tel Aviv’s Option to Counter Yemen’s Ansarullah?

As Ansarullah resistance movement of Yemen ramps up its attacks on the Israeli ships in the Red Sea in solidarity with Gaza, the Southern Transitional Council (STC), a separatist force in fight with Ansarullah for years now, has stretched a hand of friendship to Israeli regime to form an unholy alliance with Tel Aviv with the UAE support and realize their several-year dream of Yemen partition. 

Israeli media sources claimed that the UAE-aligned STC has proposed cooperation to Tel Aviv to confront Ansarullah in return for full Israeli support to the council. 

Roi Kais, a reporter and analyst of Arab affairs at Israel Broadcasting Authority, recently in a post on X said that “a source close to the head of the Transitional Council of South Yemen said that If Israel recognizes our right to self-determination in southern Yemen, then we will find an ally in Yemen to face the threats of the Houthis [Ansarullah].

Israel’s Kan news network reported on Monday, citing sources, that STC president Aidarus al-Zoubaidi expressed his willingness to coordinate with Tel Aviv and get international support to limit Ansarullah attacks, especially with exerting a military and security control over the southern regions of the country. 

The report comes as, according to Khaleej Online news outlet, recently al-Zoubaidi met a number of southern local leaders, as well as military officials from the UAE and the US, and discussed ways to check Ansarullah attacks. 

“Our naval forces have the competencies and capabilities that enable them to play a pivotal role in protecting our territorial waters and helping to strengthen maritime security and the protect international shipping,” an X post of him said. 

Also, earlier in December, Russian media reported Emirati and American efforts to arm UAE-backed groups to counter Ansarullah operations against Israeli ships in the Red Sea. 

It is noteworthy that Ansarullah has repeatedly warned that it will continue to block ships sailing to the Israeli ports in the Red Sea as long as attacks on Gaza continue. It has so far seized two ships and launched several attacks, triggering Israeli concerns. 

Now the STC is seizing the opportunity to realize its dreams for independence with help of Tel Aviv and Washington. Over the past years, it has worked hard for full control of southern provinces. 

Revelation on STC cooperation with the Israelis for the split from Yemen is not new, and previously, reports talked about behind-the-scenes agreement among regional actors over southern Yemen. An Israeli newspaper wrote in a report in June 2020 that behind closed doors, agreements have been made that Israel will announce the establishment of “a new country in the Middle East”, which will be its secret friend. This news was confirmed at the time by Intelligence Online website, which reported that the STC was in secret talks with Tel Aviv. 

In July, al-Zoubaidi in an interview with the Guardian called for Western support for division of Yemen and assured them that he will secure navigation, ports, and oilfields of the south. 

Due to the control of Aden and presence of allied UAE forces in Socotra Islam, the STC believes that in case of international support, it can undertake security of navigation in Bab-el-Mandeb and Red Sea. The council uses security of navigation as an excuse to win Western support for independence of the south. 

Saudi Arabia and the UAE agreed in 2019 to defuse the conflict in southern Yemen and establish greater coordination against Sana’a, but these talks remained words on the paper and the conflict between the mercenaries of two countries continued as Abu Dhabi sought to strengthen its foothold in southern Yemen to occupy this part. In order not to give an excuse to the UAE, Saudi Arabia agreed to remove the government of Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi and formed a seven-member presidential council, but this council has not shown any function in the past two years, and even its offices and buildings in Aden were closed down by the STC. 

Becoming aware of the Saudi weakness in Yemen, the UAE a few months ago formed a presidential council in Aden. The STC called for split from the north and return to pre-unification period of 1990. The Emirates strengthens the STC with funding and arms to instrumentalize it for its occupational agenda in the south. This council gets its direct orders from Abu Dhabi and does not cooperate with the Saudi-sponsored Saudi Arabia. 

This council that now knows itself as the unmatched power in the south is seizing the opportunity caused by Gaza war to advance its plans with the help of the UAE and the US. Abu Dhabi is Tel Aviv’s biggest ally in the Persian Gulf and has signed many economic and security agreements with this regime in the past three years, and some sources even recently said that the UAE is secretly helping the Israelis in the Gaza war so that they can destroy Hamas. 

STC incapability against Ansarullah 

Given the conditions in the region, new developments cannot be ruled out, but for them to take place, new grounds are needed that are impossible to take place in southern Yemen. 

One possibility is that the US and Israeli regime empower the STC to take on Ansarullah and undertake part of responsibility in the Red Sea as they are struggling with a set of challenges. Tel Aviv is currently heavily tied down in Gaza and on the northern front it has serious tensions with Hezbollah and is incapable of opening a front in Yemen. The US for its confrontation with Iraqi resistance groups and a couple of international cases is desperate to check Ansarullah. This was clear in the past few weeks. So, using proxy groups against Ansarullah can be one of the American and Israeli options. Still, there are serious questions about the council’s capability to secure the Red Sea. 

Despite the Emirati support, in the past 9 years the separatist council has not made mentionable achievement against Ansarullah despite dominating parts of the south, and is far from any gains even if equipped by the Americans. 

Ansarullah now is not a weak militia equipped with only light weapons that can be destroyed, rather, it is a movement that has gained a lot of missile and drone capabilities in recent years and is equipped with long-range ballistic missiles that can even target the occupied territories. Therefore, dealing with this movement that acts as a powerful army in the region is beyond the capacities of the southern separatists. 

To counter the threats of Ansarullah, powerful weapons are needed, which Washington and Tel Aviv will certainly not provide to a Yemeni group, and thus investing in the STC to beat Sana’a-based Ansarullah is waste of time. 

Additionally, since last year, the US has been plotting to plunder oil and gas of the south and deployed hundreds of its troops to Al-Mahra and Hadhramout provinces and would not easily lose them by accepting the separation of the south. Also, the STC is setting its hopes on the the Americans and Israelis to help them split while these actors are not qualified to decide for geopolitical changes in the region. Iran and some Persian Gulf Arab countries have repeatedly said that the foreign sides cannot bring security to the region and security should be protected by the neighbors themselves. 

The STC push for independence from Sana’a comes as Ansarullah has repeatedly said it disallows partition of the country and holds the necessary tools to publish the enemies. Actually, if Sana’a resumes its attacks on mercenaries of Abu Dhabi and Riyadh, it without any doubt, can liberate the occupied regions. 

Another issue is that the STC is the pawn of the UAE and with subservience to the Israelis, it wants to drive Saudi Arabia out of power game in Yemen, something poised to inflame the tensions between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi. Actually, despite enmity to Ansarullah, the Saudis do not tolerate power gain of the UAE puppets in the south and over the past two years years, they has taken measures to counter Emirati policies. In February, some Arab sources reported that after the capture of the Saudi-backed Presidential and Leadership Council buildings in Aden and the expulsion of its head Rashad al-Alimi by the the UAE proxies, a new Riyadh-supported militia called National Shield Forces and headed by al-Alimi was formed. These forces are distributed across the country, from the borders of Ansarullah bastion Sa’ada and Al-Jawf in the north to Shabwa and Hadhramut in the east, Aden, Lahij and Abyan in the south, and Hudaydah and Taiz in the west in order to protect Saudi interests in these regions.