After an Emirati troop pullout, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates pledged on Monday to keep their floundering coalition war against Yemen's Houthi rebels.
The joint communique came as the Houthis launched at least six ballistic missiles and two drone attacks into Saudi Arabia, keeping up its pressure on the kingdom as online infighting between the Emirati and Saudi intelligentsia exposed growing cracks between the usual lockstep oil-rich nations.
The statement, carried by both the Emirati and Saudi state news agencies, said both nations' "political, military, relief and development efforts" would continue. Growing tensions between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates could harm America's pressure campaign on Iran and lead to southern secession in Yemen
The turn of events exposes tensions between Emirati and Saudi objectives in Yemen. This, in turn, has exposed a broader rift between the regional policy approaches of the two US security partners
The UAE has not publicly acknowledged how many troops it withdrew from Yemen. Yemeni officials have suggested Emirati troop strength has dropped by as much as 75% out of around 10,000 troops.
The Emirati withdrawal followed rising tensions between Iran and the U.S. over Tehran's collapsing nuclear deal with world powers.
Emirati troops organized local forces and handled intelligence operations in Yemen's south. The decision to withdraw Emirati troops has drawn derision from Saudi-allied intellectuals online.
In recent days, even the foreign minister of Bahrain, an island nation closely tied to Saudi Arabia, stepped into the fray to say on Twitter that the spilled blood of Emirati war dead "is not erased by statements that deny it."
