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The internationally recognised authorities of Yemen, known arsenic the Presidential Leadership Council (PLC), says its forces person recaptured 2 strategical confederate provinces, reversing a month-long takeover by the separatist Southern Transitional Council (STC).
In aboriginal December 2025, the STC, a UAE-backed secessionist force, seized the 2 oil-rich provinces of Hadramout and al-Mahra, which borderline Saudi Arabia, successful a run that Riyadh described arsenic a reddish enactment for its nationalist security.
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Saudi Arabia, which backs the PLC, responded with a bid of aerial strikes connected STC positions, including an attack connected the confederate Mukalla port, targeting what it described arsenic United Arab Emirates (UAE) weapons shipments to the STC.
The PLC and STC person agelong been allies successful the combat against the Iran-aligned Houthi rebels, who captured Yemen’s superior Sanaa successful 2014. Recent clashes person intensified instability successful the war-ravaged federation and heightened tensions betwixt Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
In this ocular explainer, Al Jazeera unpacks the assorted groups warring for power successful Yemen, detailing who controls what connected the crushed and what this means for the humanitarian concern of the country’s 42 cardinal people.
Who are the cardinal players successful Yemen?
There are 3 cardinal players successful Yemen: The Saudi-backed PLC, the Emirati-backed STC and the Iranian-backed Houthis.
(Al Jazeera)Presidential Leadership Council (PLC)
The PLC is Yemen’s internationally recognised, Saudi-backed governing body, based successful Aden.
The radical has been led by Rashad al-Alimi since 2022, aft erstwhile President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi formally transferred his powers to the caller eight-member body, which was established to unify the assorted factions warring the Houthis.
The assembly is composed of a premix of bluish and confederate governmental and subject leaders. While it included the STC astatine its founding successful 2022 to unite anti-Houthi forces, that confederation collapsed connected January 7, 2026, erstwhile the PLC expelled the STC enactment pursuing their effort to prehend the country’s eastbound lipid provinces.
The PLC’s mandate is to negociate Yemen’s political, information and subject affairs during a transitional play and to steer negotiations towards a imperishable ceasefire.
Rashad al-Alimi, president of the Presidential Leadership Council of Yemen, connected September 14, 2022 [File: Omer Messinger/Getty Images]Southern Transitional Council (STC)
The UAE-backed STC has undergone large changes implicit the past fewer weeks, leaving its aboriginal uncertain.
The group, which initially supported Yemen’s internationally recognised authorities against the Houthi rebels successful bluish Yemen, is seeking an autarkic authorities successful confederate Yemen, overmuch similar South Yemen earlier the unification of the state successful 1990, nether erstwhile President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
On January 7, Yemen’s internationally recognised authorities announced that the STC’s leader, Aidarous al-Zubaidi, had committed treason and was dismissed from the Presidential Leadership Council.
Instead of attending a gathering successful Riyadh, al-Zubaidi dramatically fled the state connected January 8, reportedly heading to the UAE done Somaliland.
On January 9, a delegation of STC members successful Riyadh announced the group’s disbandment. However, an STC authoritative successful Yemen rejected this announcement, telling Al Jazeera that the delegation members successful Riyadh were “coerced” into making the statement.
Saudi Arabia is readying to big a league of the main governmental factions from the southbound to signifier the aboriginal of Yemen.
The president of Yemen’s Southern Transitional Council, Aidarous al-Zubaidi, connected September 22, 2023 [File: Ted Shaffrey/AP Photo]Houthis
Ansar Allah, commonly referred to arsenic the Houthis, is an equipped radical trained and backed by Iran, and holds a sizeable country successful the northbound and westbound of the country, including the capital, Sanaa.
The Houthis emerged successful the 1990s but roseate to planetary prominence successful 2014, erstwhile the radical rebelled against Yemen’s government, forcing it to measurement down.
The radical past spent years, with Iran’s backing, warring a subject conjugation led by Saudi Arabia, which has mostly been frozen since a United Nations-brokered truce successful April 2022.
The Houthis power respective strategical locations on the Red Sea, including the cardinal larboard of Hodeidah, giving them leverage implicit the Bab al-Mandab Strait, which is captious to planetary shipping.
In November 2023, the Houthis began targeting civilian and subject vessels successful the Red Sea suspected of having Israeli ties, a run aimed astatine pressuring Israel to halt its genocidal warfare successful Gaza, which began connected October 7, 2023. They besides launched aggregate rocket and drone assaults against Israel, with respective strikes reportedly hitting their intended targets.
Who controls what connected the ground?
The Houthis power the northwestern regions of Yemen, including the superior Sanaa, portion the Yemeni authorities controls astir of the remainder of the country. The representation beneath highlights who controls what successful Yemen based connected information from the Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies, an autarkic deliberation vessel focused connected Yemen and its surrounding region.
The authorities claims to person power of Aden and different parts of confederate Yemen, but STC forces stay successful immoderate areas. The authorities has besides declared that each anti-Houthi subject forces, including the National Resistance Forces, volition present beryllium integrated into the Yemeni military, but that process has not yet begun.
(Al Jazeera)Yemen’s humanitarian situation
Yemen inactive suffers 1 of the worst humanitarian emergencies successful the world, with acute malnutrition, nutrient shortages, and infrastructure illness affecting millions.
A decennary of conflict, economical situation and deficiency of societal services and quality to enactment has pushed millions of children into acute malnutrition and scores of diseases, according to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
Despite the fragile truce successful 2022, which has reduced civilian deaths, entree to the astir susceptible has been limited.
According to the United Nations, astatine slightest 17 cardinal people, astir fractional of Yemen’s colonisation of 42 million, look acute nutrient shortages.
In May 2025, the UN reported that 4.95 cardinal radical are facing Phase 3, crisis-level nutrient insecurity, which includes 1.5 cardinal radical facing emergency-level nutrient insecurity, Phase 4.
There are astir 11 cardinal children successful request of humanitarian assistance, and astir 20 cardinal radical successful hopeless request of help, on with astir 4.8 cardinal radical displaced from their homes since 2015.
(Al Jazeera)
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