Saudi Arabian media steps up attacks on United Arab Emirates as Gulf rift deepens Accusations by state channels reignite tensions after the UAE withdrew forces from Yemen.
Reports on Saudi channel al-Ekhbariya in recent days have accused Abu Dhabi of committing human rights abuses and paying Yemeni separatists to campaign against the kingdom. Some pro-government social media accounts floated closing Saudi airspace and the land border with the UAE.
The reports came a day after Hadhramaut governor Salem al-Khanbashi accused the UAE of being behind detention sites. The UAE denied running secret prisons. Its defense ministry said that the facilities were ‘‘military accommodation, operations rooms and fortified shelters’’.
The sharp war of words is unusual among Gulf states, where ruling families follow Arab norms of honour and propriety even in disagreement. Such tactics are reminiscent of the Gulf crisis in 2017, when Saudi Arabia and the UAE imposed an embargo against Qatar, which they accused of supporting the Islamist groups. Qatar has always denied the allegations.
The divergence between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi has widened since then, with the two sides also disagreeing over foreign policy in Sudan and east Africa as well as Yemen.
The latest crisis began in December after the UAE-backed separatist Southern Transitional Council launched an offensive to take control of Yemen’s Hadhramaut and al-Mahra provinces, which border Saudi Arabia. Riyadh said the STC’s advances threatened its national security and accused the UAE of approving the attack.
In 2015 Saudi Arabia and the UAE intervened as coalition partners in Yemen’s civil war against Iran-backed Houthi rebels. But the two Gulf neighbors backed different groups within the loose alliance fighting the Houthis, and those groups often competed with each other.
Saudi journalist Jassir al-Jassir on Monday told Al Arabiya channel that the UAE “betrayed the partnership with the kingdom in Yemen”. Saudi analyst Salman al-Oqeily said the tension between the kingdom and the UAE should be seen as differences over how the region’s complex crises should be resolved, rather than a battle for hegemony in the Middle East. But Emirati pundits and influencers responded strongly on social networks. Hadi al-Mansouri, an Emirati poet with 20,000 followers on Instagram, mocked how anti-UAE posts from Saudi Arabia share almost identical language, calling them a “herd ready for copy and paste” who receive instructions from one source, an apparent reference to the royal court.