Amid War, Yemen’s New Government Faces Challenges at Home and Abroad

Amid War, Yemen’s New Government Faces Challenges at Home and Abroad

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Tue, 03/17/2026 - 17:27

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Yemeni Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Shaya Al-Zindani in Moscow, Russia. August 27, 2024. REUTERS / Evgenia Novozhenina / Pool

Q&A

/ Middle East & North Africa 17 March 2026 10 minutes

Yemen has a new government, formed after elements of the old one clashed on the battlefield. In this Q&A, Crisis Group expert Ahmed Nagi looks at its makeup and its prospects against the backdrop of Middle East war that may draw in the Houthi rebels. 

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Ahmed Nagi

https://twitter.com/AhmedNagiYE

Related Tags Yemen Iran Saudi Arabia United Arab Emirates What happened? As the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran enters its third week, Yemen’s internationally recognised government faces enormous challenges at home and abroad. The new government must try to assert control of Yemen’s factious politics amid mounting worries that Iran-allied Houthi rebels, who control the capital Sanaa and much of Yemen’s north, will enter the growing regional fray.  The new government emerged from a tumultuous two months beginning in late 2025. Rival Yemeni forces aligned respectively with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, erstwhile partners in the fight with the Houthi rebels, squared off on the battlefield, fracturing the government coalition that had ruled since 2022. These main combatants were forces of the internationally recognised government, backed by Riyadh, and the Southern Transitional Council (STC), a secessionist group supported by Abu Dhabi.  In early December 2025, the STC, despite sitting on the Presidential Leadership Council (PLC), which oversees the government, moved to seize large parts of Hadramawt, Yemen’s largest province. A month later, and after failed negotiations, Saudi Arabia helped organise a campaign by PLC-allied forces that expelled the STC not just from these newly captured areas but also from most of its positions in Yemen’s south. Saudi airstrikes on STC positions in Hadramawt hastened the southerners’ defeat. The outcome triggered a political reshuffle: the cabinet was dissolved; two PLC members, including STC head Aidrous al-Zubaidi and his deputy, were replaced; and a new government led by Prime Minister Shaye’ al-Zindani was formed under Riyadh’s tutelage.  These events unfolded against the backdrop of more than a decade of civil war that has split the country between the Houthi rebels and government-linked forces controlling the south and east, as well as parts of the west. Since 2017, the anti-Houthi camp has been divided, with the STC advocating southern secession while formally participating in the national governing framework underwritten by the Saudi-led coalition that intervened to help beat back the Houthis. The PLC was created in 2022 to unify the anti-Houthi factions under a single executive authority, but tensions between the STC and PLC heads persisted, undermining coherent governance. Meanwhile, though the UAE is part of the Saudi-led coalition, its agenda came to diverge from Saudi Arabia’s – in particular on the southern cause – fuelling the disagreements both between the Gulf partners and among the Houthis’ Yemeni opponents. The confrontation in Hadramawt deepened these fissures. Saudi Arabia moved to consolidate control of the anti-Houthi front, supporting the forces that rolled back the STC’s gains and reasserted central authority in non-Houthi-held areas. The UAE responded by withdrawing its military assets from southern Yemen. At the same time, divisions within the STC widened, with key leaders voting to dissolve the council while in Riyadh awaiting a Saudi-brokered south-south dialogue, but others (including Zubaidi) opposing that decision. The new government’s formation thus marks both an attempt to reunify the anti-Houthi camp and a reset of the balance of influence between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi in Yemen. Upon its formation, cabinet members were sworn in at the Yemeni embassy in Riyadh. They remained in the Saudi capital for several days, as the security situation in Yemen’s interim capital, Aden, was not deemed conducive to their immediate return. This delay coincided with protests by STC supporters opposing the new government’s formation. All eyes are on the Houthis, with the world watching for whether they will enter the Middle East war alongside Iran by firing on Red Sea shipping and thus blocking the primary alternative route for cargo vessels that Tehran is preventing from passing through the Strait of Hormuz. But these are also important days for Yemen’s government in Aden, which must find its footing in this perilous domestic and geopolitical climate. How is Yemen’s new government set up, and can it hold together? The new cabinet, formed in early February under Prime Minister Zindani, is the largest one since 2015, with 35 ministers, including a number of ministers of state without portfolio. It is heir to the internationally recognised government of Abed Rabbo Mansour al-Hadi, which fled Sanaa when the Houthis took it in 2014, and its successors, including the PLC. Officials present its composition as moving beyond the rigid quotas that characterised past cabinets, but it still reflects an effort at political, social and geographical balancing. Three women were appointed as ministers, a first in recent years. The line-up highlights the continued use of cabinet positions as tools of political accommodation, but at the same time, several areas – including four northern governorates – remain underrepresented.  The balance of power inside the PLC has shifted markedly after the events in Hadramawt. The STC, at first emboldened by its territorial push, emerged far weaker militarily and politically. The UAE’s troop withdrawal further reduced the STC’s leverage while, as noted, divisions among its leadership widened. As a result of its intervention, Riyadh now holds greater sway over the PLC’s political direction, and the new government reflects this reordering of Yemeni power politics.  Whether the cabinet can hold together will depend first and foremost on whether it unites behind a single agenda. Previous governments struggled because ministers often answered first to their political blocs rather than to a shared government program, adding to the fragmentation created by disputes between advocates of southern secession and government leadership. To avoid repeating that pattern, the new leadership will need to translate its inclusive line-up into coherent decision-making, limit the use of ministries as instruments of patronage, and deliver early, visible gains in service provision and economic management. Without such steps, the same structural divisions that weakened earlier cabinets could quickly resurface. What challenges will Yemen’s new leadership face? Yemen’s new leadership has a narrow window of opportunity to overcome institutional division and begin addressing the public services issue, but it begins with a significant credibility deficit and it seems less than formidable to its constituents. To be sure, the Saudi-backed campaign against the STC enabled the government to assert control of all non-Houthi-held territory in the country for the first time in years, but it needed a foreign helping hand to do so. Many Yemenis view the government reshuffle as less a reform measure than a reconfiguration of elite power under Saudi sponsorship. That perception – that the government was engineered from outside Yemen – risks undermining its legitimacy from the outset. Countering this idea will be difficult: most of Zindani’s ministers, like most of the PLC’s members before them, had been living abroad for some time when the new cabinet was announced. Instability in parts of the south further complicates the picture. While the STC was defeated militarily, it retains fighters under arms and grassroots social networks, and protests by its supporters signal that the secessionist cause has not disappeared. In areas such as Aden and al-Dhale, a south-central province, security remains precarious and the atmosphere politically charged. A heavy-handed response to dissent could reinforce the narrative that the new government represents victory over, rather than accommodation with, southern constituencies. Managing these tensions without reopening military confrontation will test the leadership’s political skills. Economic constraints pose an even sharper challenge. Since 2022, oil exports have been suspended due to Houthi attacks on port facilities in Hadramawt and Shebwa, the province to its south west. State revenues have been severely reduced, limiting the government’s ability to pay salaries, stabilise the national currency, the riyal, and restore basic services. The current war in the region can only aggravate economic conditions, thus increasing pressure on the government to deliver services and humanitarian aid. The government’s credibility will hinge on its performance. Though most ministers in the new cabinet have returned to Yemen, many Yemenis believe they will continue to spend most of their time abroad, at a remove from the daily hardships of ordinary citizens. The longer the leadership appears distant from conditions on the ground, the more its authority risks being seen as symbolic rather than functional. On the other hand, if Prime Minister Zindani and his cabinet can demonstrate unified decision-making, maintain security coordination among rival factions and secure external financial support that translates into tangible improvements in service delivery, they may be able to win over the doubters. If internal divisions resurface, however, or if protests intensify or economic conditions deteriorate further, public scepticism will harden quickly. How will the new government handle the conflict with the Houthis? Much depends on what happens with the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran. Until that war began on 28 February, the conflict between the government and Houthi rebels was, in effect, a stalemate. Since 2022, the parties had settled into a tense, informal truce interrupted by sporadic skirmishes. Between October 2023 and October 2025, the rebels holding the northern highlands sometimes trained their guns on shipping in the Red Sea, as well as occasionally on Israel, in a stated effort to aid Hamas and the Palestinians in Gaza. Their motives were partly political: they positioned themselves in the public eye as champions of the Palestinian cause, while portraying their adversaries as subservient not just to Saudi Arabia but also to Israeli-U.S. hegemony in the Middle East. Meanwhile, talks between the Houthis and Saudis quietly continued, helping maintain the informal truce but producing no outcome beyond that. Thus, while the prospect of renewed fighting hovered, the front remained static, for the most part. That remained true even after developments in Hadramawt reshaped the anti-Houthi camp by ending the government coalition with the STC and prompting the UAE’s withdrawal.  Now, the trajectory of Yemen’s conflict could depend on whether the Houthis enter the new Middle East war. Why they have refrained from doing so until now is a topic of much speculation. It may be that their sponsor, Iran, is pacing itself, planning to respond to the U.S.-Israeli assault by incrementally increasing retaliatory pressure and keeping sources of leverage in reserve. To date, Tehran has attacked targets in Gulf Arab states and off their shores, in effect closing the Strait of Hormuz to most tanker and other commercial traffic, but it has not tried to bring the Houthis into the fight. If pushed further, however, it might encourage its Houthi allies to fire on international shipping in the Red Sea or at targets in the Gulf states. The aim would be to shut down maritime, land and air corridors and pipelines that are being used to uncork the Strait of Hormuz bottleneck, as well as to inflict additional pain on U.S. security partners. An assault on sea lanes could have debilitating costs for Yemen’s already devastated economy. It could also reignite a civil war if, for example, ports on the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden become inaccessible and the government determines it must take up arms to defend its interests. The Houthis also could launch pre-emptive attacks on government troops around Bab al-Mandab to prevent coordination between these forces and the U.S. Still, the government is unlikely to pursue large-scale military engagement with the Houthis if it can avoid it. Oil export disruptions since 2022 have weakened the government’s fiscal base. Given its relative weakness, the government’s immediate priority may be consolidating its authority within the PLC and stabilising the areas its forces hold, rather than trying to retake territory claimed by the Houthis. Barring a Houthi assault, Riyadh is also likely to favour de-escalation with the rebels and a managed political track over being dragged into another uncertain military adventure in Yemen. With these factors in mind, Yemen’s new leadership will probably focus on strengthening security coordination and aligning closely with Saudi diplomatic efforts (which will almost surely remain on hold until the situation with Iran has settled) rather than testing the battlefield balance.  But even if the new government does not seek to cross swords with the Houthis, it will likely press them in other ways that could, if not carefully calibrated, see a return to hostilities. For example, the government has been aligning with U.S. sanctions on the Houthis through tighter Central Bank scrutiny of financial transactions, as well as reinforcing maritime security cooperation with Western and regional partners. It is expected to continue seeking to position itself as the only viable national authority in a future political settlement, though its success will be contingent on demonstrating that it can govern effectively where it holds ground. This combination of economic, maritime and political pressure could yield leverage in negotiations with the Houthis, but it will also ratchet up tensions. As the Houthis struggle economically, they are likely to be increasingly sensitive to this pressure. They may be more apt to end the de facto truce and go on the offensive. How can outside actors help guide the parties toward peace? External actors retain leverage over Yemen’s trajectory, which they should use to stabilise rather than fragment the political landscape. Saudi Arabia, as the government’s principal backer, is especially well placed to discourage fresh intra-Yemeni rivalries. The UAE, despite its military withdrawal, still holds influence with southern factions and could help prevent further polarisation among non-Houthi factions.  While their immediate priorities are all linked to defending their interests in the regional war, in the long term, Riyadh and Abu Dhabi also share a strong interest in containing Yemen’s internal conflict, so that it does not spread even more instability across the Arabian Peninsula. Part of the solution lies in supporting the internationally recognised government so that it is seen as effective and legitimate in the areas it controls. Backing the new government as it seeks to improve governance and deliver basic public services could help knit the country together by defusing local grievances, while offering Yemeni citizens a measure of confidence that the authorities are moving in the right direction. At the same time, when the Middle East war is over and Saudi Arabia recovers bandwidth, diplomacy will need to resume to bring the civil war to a genuine end. One way forward could be to revive the roadmap talks between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia that began in 2023. The roadmap is envisaged to unfold in three phases, which would address humanitarian relief efforts, military arrangements and, eventually, intra-Yemeni political talks. This combination of efforts offers the most promising path toward cementing the de facto truce and putting Yemen back on a path toward stability. Related Tags More for you Commentary /

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