Yemen anti-Houthi council expels separatist leader and says he faces treason charges

A council fighting against Yemen’s Houthi rebels says it has expelled the leader of a separatist movement and charged him with treason after he reportedly declined to travel to Saudi Arabia for talks

Yemen anti-Houthi council expels separatist leader and says he faces treason chargesBy FATMA KHALEDAssociated PressThe Associated PressCAIRO

CAIRO (AP) — A council fighting against Yemen’s Houthi rebels said Wednesday it had expelled the leader of a separatist movement and charged him with treason after he reportedly declined to travel to Saudi Arabia for talks.

The statement carried by SABA news agency controlled by anti-Houthi forces is the latest escalation between Saudi-backed forces and the Southern Transitional Council, which had been backed by the United Arab Emirates. It also further complicates the future of Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest country riven by one of the Mideast’s worst conflicts for over a decade.

The STC said leader Aidarous al-Zubaidi remained in Aden. It also accused Saudi Arabia of launched airstrikes in Yemen’s al-Dhale governorate, causing casualties.

“While a senior STC delegation is in Saudi Arabia pursuing negotiations, the President remains in Aden to ensure security and stability,” wrote Amr al-Bidh, an STC official focused on foreign affairs. “He will not abandon his people, and he will engage directly when conditions allow.”

The statement from SABA accused al-Zubaidi of “damaging the republic’s military, political and economic standing,” as well as “forming an armed gang and committing the murder of officers and soldiers of the armed forces.”

The anti-Houthi leadership group is known as the Presidential Leadership Council. That council formed in April 2022 after President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi of Yemen’s internationally recognized government stepped down.

But its members all had competing interests and backers, with their forces never taking the fight to the Houthis even after both the United States and Israel launched massive bombing campaigns targeting the rebels. An uneasy ceasefire between the combatants on the ground in Yemen has held for years.

In late December, tensions began over the STC’s advances in the governorates of Hadramout and Mahra, which were once held by Saudi-backed forces.

An earlier statement Wednesday from Maj. Gen, Turki al-Malki, a spokesperson for a Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, said al-Zubaidi, had been due to take a flight to Saudi Arabia but did not take the flight with other council officials.

“The legitimate government and the coalition received intelligence indicating that al-Zubaidi had moved a large force —including armored vehicles, combat vehicles, heavy and light weapons, and ammunition,” al-Malki said. Al-Zubaidi “fled to an unknown location.”

Saudi Arabia in recent weeks has bombed STC positions and struck what is said was a shipment of Emirati weapons. After Saudi pressure and an ultimatum from anti-Houthi forces to withdraw from Yemen, the UAE said Saturday it had withdrawn its forces.

The tensions in Yemen have further strained ties between Saudi Arabia and the UAE, neighbors on the Arabian Peninsula that have competed over economic issues and regional politics.

Ostensibly, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have shared the coalition’s professed goal of fighting against the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, who have held Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, since 2014.

Yemen, on the southern edge of the Arabian Peninsula off East Africa, borders the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. The war there has killed more than 150,000 people, including fighters and civilians, and created one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters.

The Houthis, meanwhile, have launched attacks on hundreds of ships in the Red Sea corridor over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, disrupting regional shipping. The U.S., which earlier praised Saudi-Emirati efforts to end the crisis over the separatists, has launched airstrikes against the rebels under Presidents Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

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Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report.