Yemen separatist leader flees with Emirati help, Saudi coalition says

The Saudi-led coalition in Yemen said Aidarous al-Zubaidi, the head of a group of southern separatists backed by the United Arab Emirates, fled Yemen by boat before boarding an aircraft to Mogadishu that landed at a military airport in Abu Dhabi.



The drama escalates a row between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the most powerful countries in the oil-rich Gulf. Zubaidi had failed to show up in Riyadh for crisis talks over turmoil in southern Yemen on Wednesday.



The separatists said he had been asked to go to Saudi Arabia under threat.



The Saudi claim that the UAE helped him escape raises the stakes in a crisis that erupted last month when the separatists swept through southern Yemen ‍and reached the border with Saudi Arabia. The fast-moving developments caused a rift between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, fracturing a coalition headed by Yemen's internationally recognised government which is battling the Iran-backed Houthis.



The close US allies have sharp differences over a wide range of volatile issues across the Middle East -- from geopolitics to oil output -- which burst out into the open with the crisis in Yemen.