Yemeni Separatist Leader Calls for Protests in Aden After Disappearance
UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council chief Aidarous Al-Zubaidi urges demonstrations to support independence and demand the release of detained members amid ongoing Gulf rivalries.
ERBIL (Kurdistan24) — Aidarous Al-Zubaidi, the UAE-backed leader of Yemen’s Southern Transitional Council (STC), on Thursday made his first public statement since disappearing over a week ago, calling for protests in the southern port city of Aden.
In a message to the pro-separatist Aden Independent Channel, Zubaidi urged “the people of South Arabia to rally in the capital Aden on Friday,” according to posts shared on X.
He also called for demonstrators to support a declaration for an independent state made by the separatists in January and to demand the release of STC members currently detained in Saudi Arabia.
Zubaidi, who has been accused of high treason in Yemen and removed from the Presidential Leadership Council—the country’s internationally recognized government—fled ahead of talks in Riyadh after his forces suffered a rapid defeat earlier this month.
His current whereabouts remain contested, with Saudi officials claiming he fled to the United Arab Emirates, while STC officials insist he remains in Yemen.
The STC, which seeks to re-establish the state of South Yemen that existed from 1967 to 1990, has been at the center of growing tensions within the Gulf-backed coalition in Yemen.
The UAE and Saudi Arabia, which lead the coalition fighting the Houthis, have increasingly clashed over the control of southern provinces.
A December offensive by STC forces into Hadramawt and Mahra provinces, bordering Saudi Arabia and Oman, was halted by Saudi airstrikes and a pro-Saudi ground counter-offensive.
In response, Yemen’s government has undergone a purge of UAE-aligned ministers, with a declaration issued that all southern factions would now operate under Saudi command.
The call for protests in Aden comes amid heightened uncertainty in Yemen’s south, where divisions between UAE and Saudi-backed factions threaten to further destabilize a country already fractured by years of civil war and Houthi control over much of the north.
Observers warn that renewed unrest in Aden could undermine ongoing efforts to consolidate southern provinces under a single authority and complicate the Gulf coalition’s broader objectives in Yemen.
Yemen’s southern separatist leader Aidaros al-Zubidi has fled to the United Arab Emirates after a failed bid to seize territory and push toward independence, the Saudi-led coalition said on Jan. 8, marking a dramatic escalation in internal divisions within the anti-Houthi alliance.
In a statement, the coalition said “reliable intelligence indicates that Aidaros al-Zubidi and others escaped in the dead of night,” outlining an elaborate route from Yemen to the UAE involving both sea and air travel.
According to the statement, al-Zubidi departed Aden by boat shortly after midnight on Wednesday, sailing to Berbera in Somaliland. From there, he boarded a Russian-made Ilyushin aircraft to Mogadishu “under the supervision of UAE officers,” before continuing on to a military airport in Abu Dhabi, where he arrived later that evening.