Yemen separatist leader fled to UAE: Saudi-led coalition

ADEN

(FILES) Yemenis members of the Sabahiha tribes of Lahj, who live along the strip between the south and north of the country and who support the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC), hold an image of the STC leader Aidaros Alzubidi as they wave the old South Yemen flag, during a rally in Khormaksar Square, in the coastal port city of Aden, the temporary capital of the Republic of Yemen on Dec. 14, 2025.

Yemen's separatist leader Aidaros Alzubidi has fled to the United Arab Emirates, the Saudi-led coalition said on Thursday, after an attempt to seize swathes of territory and move towards independence.

Alzubidi was accused of high treason and removed from Yemen's Presidential Leadership Council on Wednesday, while the coalition bombed his home province after he failed to attend talks in Riyadh.

"Reliable intelligence indicates that Aidaros Alzubidi and others have escaped in the dead of night," a statement from the coalition said, detailing a boat-and-plane journey from Aden to Abu Dhabi via Somaliland and Somalia.

The leader of the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) sailed from Aden to Berbera in Somaliland, a breakaway region in the Horn of Africa, after midnight on Wednesday, the coalition said.

He then flew in a Russian-made Ilyushin plane to Mogadishu "under the supervision of UAE officers", before continuing to a military airport in Abu Dhabi, arriving on Wednesday evening, it added.