Rapid changes across the southern Red Sea and the Horn of Africa are reopening questions of influence and maritime security, as developments in Yemen coincide with a diplomatic confrontation over Somalia. On December 30, 2025, Rashad al-Alimi, chairman of Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council, announced the termination of a joint defence agreement with the United Arab Emirates. The decision came amid disputes within the coalition and Saudi accusations that Abu Dhabi was supporting military advances in eastern Yemen. The UAE announced the withdrawal of its remaining counterterrorism teams. On January 2, 2026, the Southern Transitional Council proposed a two-year transitional period leading towards a ‘South Arabian state’. That announcement did not establish an independent country, but it brought the risks of fragmentation and the internationalisation of Yemen’s conflict back into focus, with consequences for vital shipping routes.
These developments reveal the depth of the Saudi-Emirati disagreement after years of military cooperation against the Houthis. Forces of the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council, or STC, expanded into Hadramawt and al-Mahrah during December, before government-aligned forces launched a counteroffensive with Saudi support. On January 4, al-Alimi announced that both governorates had been recovered. Riyadh also agreed to host a conference bringing together southern Yemeni factions, seeking to contain the escalation and open a political process addressing the southern question.
The UAE offered a different account. In its December 30 statement, the Foreign Ministry denied directing any Yemeni party to threaten Saudi security or inflame the conflict. It said the shipment targeted at Mukalla port contained no weapons and that the vehicles were intended for Emirati forces rather than a Yemeni faction. It also said their arrival had been coordinated in advance. This directly conflicts with the Saudi-led coalition’s account. The cargo and the accusations surrounding it therefore remain disputed between the parties; they are not presented here as facts settled by an independent investigation.
The escalation in Yemen followed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s announcement on December 26, 2025, recognising Somaliland as an independent state. Egypt and other Arab governments reacted angrily. Reports and analysis linked the decision to an Israeli effort to expand its presence across from Bab al-Mandeb and in the Horn of Africa, strengthen its influence over international shipping, and secure strategic access overlooking the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.
These developments intersect with the consequences of Israel’s war on Gaza since October 7, 2023, and fears of Palestinian displacement. In February 2025, Israeli media circulated reports identifying Somaliland, Puntland and Morocco as possible destinations under proposals to move Gaza’s population. Other reports suggested a willingness in Somaliland to discuss receiving Palestinians in return for international recognition. Such reporting does not establish that any agreement was concluded. In a December 27 interview with Israel’s Channel 12, Somaliland Foreign Minister Abdirahman Dahir Adan denied that Israeli recognition included an agreement concerning Gaza or the reception of its residents.
Yemen and the Red Sea in regional security calculations
Dina Mohsen, a researcher in political media at the Egyptian Center for Strategic Studies, argues that developments in Yemen and the tensions between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi cannot be separated from the wider Red Sea and Horn of Africa context. In her reading, these events are connected by tactical and strategic objectives involving control of crucial sea lanes. The Red Sea is an especially sensitive international shipping corridor, while Bab al-Mandeb is a major chokepoint. Securing global trade intersects there with the growing risks of militarisation and foreign military or intelligence facilities in unstable settings such as Yemen, Somalia and Sudan. She considers those risks a direct national security concern for coastal states, particularly Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
Mohsen points to the joint Red Wave 8 naval exercise, held in Saudi territorial waters in the Red Sea in November 2025. Naval personnel from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Sudan, Yemen and Djibouti participated as part of cooperation among countries bordering the sea. The waterway connects the Suez Canal in the north to Bab al-Mandeb in the south. She estimates that, under normal conditions, more than 10% of global trade passes through it, including major oil and energy flows.
Speaking to Zawia3, she says the joint Egyptian-Saudi exercises reflected an understanding of the scale of the risks and a shared assessment of threats to Arab national security. Oman, she adds, was not a direct participant in those exercises, but remained an important diplomatic and political actor within a wider framework of regional coordination.
On the Saudi-Emirati disagreement over Yemen, Mohsen describes Saudi motivations as consistent with the position of most Arab states: preserving Yemen’s territorial unity and preventing fragmentation are direct national security priorities for Riyadh. The UAE’s stated approach, she says, centres on confronting political Islamist movements. In her assessment, the principal problem was a lack of advance coordination with Saudi Arabia, the coalition’s leading partner, which disrupted the political, military and diplomatic management of the crisis.
She considers the prospect of forcibly separating the south a shock to Riyadh, particularly at a sensitive moment when efforts were focused on reviving a political process in Yemen. She characterises the subsequent Emirati withdrawal as tactical, driven by a belated recognition of the predicament created by misjudged political and military moves. Saudi countermeasures, she argues, constrained the STC, engaged some of its leaders and established contact with local actors in Hadramawt and Mukalla.
Mohsen regards the STC’s proposed southern state after the Emirati withdrawal as its last remaining source of leverage, while arguing that it lacks the foundations of statehood and international recognition. She cites Somaliland’s solitary Israeli recognition in the face of broad Somali and regional opposition. In her view, the scenario requires caution and Egyptian-Saudi coordination because it directly affects Egypt through Bab al-Mandeb and the Suez Canal. She also rejects attempts to militarise the Red Sea outside a framework of regional agreement.
She describes reports that the STC sought Israeli support as ‘political begging’, reflecting military and political weakness and an attempt to obtain an external sponsor at any price. She considers such moves unrealistic and inseparable from what she views as rash handling of the crisis. At the same time, she argues that a settlement cannot exclude a party controlling a substantial part of Yemen. The Houthis remain a major force that cannot be ignored, she says, and a solution requires negotiations in which Saudi Arabia is a principal participant.
For Dina Mohsen, a settlement in Yemen requires negotiations rather than the exclusion of forces controlling territory.
Israeli media had reported that southern Yemeni separatist forces affiliated with the UAE-backed STC opened channels to Israeli actors, seeking support around purported shared interests that included protecting Red Sea and Bab al-Mandeb shipping routes. Those accounts referred to contacts between STC representatives and Israeli circles. They do not provide evidence of an operative defence agreement. They are included as media allegations discussed by the interviewees, rather than as established military relations.
Rakha Ahmed Hassan, a member of the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs and the Egyptian United Nations Association, says developments in Yemen should not yet be described as an actual separation. He characterises them as a separatist tendency led by southern groups, foremost the STC, which had taken Hadramawt and al-Mahrah in December before the government announced their recovery on January 4. Both governorates matter strategically because of their Arabian Sea coastlines and their connections to the Saudi and Omani borders. Hassan links the earlier advances to Emirati support that he considers uncoordinated with coalition partners. Saudi Arabia then intervened militarily at the recognised Yemeni government’s request, including striking what the coalition described as military supplies in Mukalla, an account the UAE denied.
The diplomat says Gulf states and Egypt share support for Yemen’s internationally recognised government. In his view, moves outside that framework depart from the Arab consensus and threaten political settlement efforts, particularly amid the truce and attempts to end the conflict. He says Egypt rejects the division of states because its policy emphasises territorial integrity and national institutions. He argues that Saudi Arabia shares that position and regarded the southern advances as a serious danger that could trigger another Yemeni civil war, this time within the south itself.
Hassan tells Zawia3 that efforts to contain the tension, particularly the proposed conference of southern forces, enjoy clear Egyptian support as an attempt to narrow differences and find compromises that prevent renewed conflict. Yemen’s importance, he explains, extends beyond its internal complexities to its strategic position on Bab al-Mandeb and its direct effect on Red Sea security and Suez Canal navigation. Any fresh escalation would threaten Saudi Arabia and Oman, as well as producing wider regional consequences.
He links Israel’s interest in Bab al-Mandeb to the passage’s importance for Red Sea and Suez navigation, particularly following Houthi attacks on vessels connected to Israel during its war on Gaza. Hassan interprets recognition of Somaliland as potentially opening the way to a base or military facilities offering access to the Arabian Sea. He also suggests that such a foothold could be used in a future confrontation with Iran. This is his assessment of a possible long-term strategy, which he believes would seriously threaten regional stability if realised.
On Egypt’s side, Hassan describes cooperation with Djibouti as focused on maritime facilities and a commercial centre serving regional distribution. Djibouti is especially important as the principal trade outlet for landlocked Ethiopia. Egyptian-Somali cooperation, meanwhile, includes training, military assistance and preparations for Egypt’s participation in the African Union Support and Stabilization Mission in Somalia, or AUSSOM. This is not a completed replacement of Ethiopian troops by Egyptian forces. The African Union Peace and Security Council’s December 15, 2025 communiqué still referred to finalising preparations for Egyptian deployment and requested that Burundi’s troops remain temporarily until the Egyptians arrived.
Egypt and Somalia signed a military cooperation protocol in August 2024, intended to strengthen Somali state institutions and their ability to maintain security and combat terrorist and extremist organisations. A shipment of Egyptian military assistance for the Somali army arrived in Mogadishu in September 2024.
Hassan stresses that instability around the Horn of Africa and the entrance to the Red Sea is a direct Egyptian concern. He estimates the share of world trade connected to the route at approximately 14% under normal conditions, although such estimates vary by period and the measure of trade used. He describes an exceptionally tense regional environment, with wars and crises in Sudan, Yemen, Libya, Syria, Lebanon and Palestine forming what he calls a ‘ring of fire’ around Egypt. He hopes the next Arab summit will produce a serious commitment to unity, which he considers essential to resolving conflicts and achieving stability and development.
Saudi Arabia is preparing to host the 35th Arab summit in 2026, as announced in May 2025. The overlapping crises form the backdrop to the interviewees’ calls for broader Arab coordination.
Rejecting imposed outcomes
Ali Hefny, Egypt’s former deputy foreign minister, argues that the ties binding Saudi Arabia and the UAE are much stronger than occasional differences arising from their policies or positions. He credits the Arab coalition’s support for Yemen’s recognised government with helping prevent further deterioration and creating the conditions for calls for a broad political dialogue. Such a process, he says, should bring northern and southern national forces together to address the roots of their disagreements and seek a comprehensive settlement.
In Cairo’s first official response to the latest developments, Egypt’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement on December 30, 2025, saying it was following Yemen closely and maintaining round-the-clock contact with the relevant parties. It pledged continued engagement with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Yemen and other regional and international actors to reduce tensions and prepare the ground for a comprehensive political settlement. The stated aim was a secure and prosperous future for Yemenis and greater regional stability.
Addressing the disagreement between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, the ministry expressed confidence that both countries would handle the situation wisely. It emphasised their concern for Yemen’s stability, sovereignty and the interests of its people.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty met Hans Grundberg, the UN secretary-general’s special envoy for Yemen, on January 6, 2026. The Egyptian ministry said the meeting concerned developments in Yemen and support for UN efforts to achieve a comprehensive and lasting political settlement.
Hefny says Egypt’s position reflects its responsibilities as an Arab state and an active member of the Arab League, whose headquarters are in Cairo. He describes Egyptian policy as supporting national institutions, political solutions and negotiated settlements, while rejecting violence or attempts to impose outcomes on the ground. Cairo, he notes, intensified contacts with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, other concerned states and UN envoys.
Egypt strongly supported the proposed Riyadh conference as a route towards a comprehensive solution preserving Yemen’s unity, territory and institutions, Hefny tells Zawia3. He extends this position to the Horn of Africa, where Egypt opposes imposed arrangements and Somaliland’s separation. He considers attempts by Ethiopia or Israel to recognise the territory inconsistent with the UN Charter, the Arab League Charter and the African Union’s Constitutive Act.
Hefny describes Israeli moves as adding fuel to the fire by seeking a foothold around the Horn of Africa, Bab al-Mandeb and the Gulf of Aden, including what he sees as ambitions for military bases. He believes that would intensify disputes and increase tension. Red Sea security and freedom of navigation, he argues, are closely tied to stability in Yemen and the Horn. He says Cairo rejects new bases or military alignments that could destabilise the region. He also points to preparations for Egypt’s participation in the African Union mission in Somalia, which operates under a UN Security Council mandate but is not a UN peacekeeping force. Stronger ties with federal Somalia, Djibouti and Eritrea, in his assessment, aim to support regional stability and discourage the militarisation of disputes.
Gamal Bayoumi, a former assistant foreign minister, argues that Netanyahu’s government faces legal and political crises and has an interest in prolonging a state of war. He nevertheless believes it lacks the capacity or willingness to take direct hostile action against Egypt, given the peace arrangements and stability along the border. He sees Palestinian resilience as a source of reassurance because the war has not forced Palestinians to abandon their land. Conversely, he points to reports of Israelis leaving the country during the war, interpreting them as evidence of internal pressures.
Bayoumi regards Egypt’s engagement with Eritrea and Djibouti as an effort to protect freedom of navigation and Egyptian national security without targeting another country. In his reading, these partnerships seek regional stability through shared interests.
Gamal Bayoumi distinguishes protecting navigation from targeting other countries, seeing regional partnerships as a route to stability.
Egypt’s strategic engagement in the Horn of Africa
As attention focused on Israeli moves in Somaliland, Egyptian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Industry and Transport Kamel al-Wazir visited Djibouti from December 26 to 28, 2025. He attended the opening of a solar power station in Omar Jagaa village in the Arta region and inspected Doraleh port facilities, the free zone and the Egyptian logistics facility. Talks with Djiboutian officials covered ports, energy, infrastructure, roads and transport. Agreements were also signed to strengthen trade and encourage Egyptian investment in Djibouti.
Cooperation agreements covered port development, logistics infrastructure and renewable energy projects at Doraleh. The port’s position at the entrance to the Gulf of Tadjoura, connected to the Gulf of Aden and close to Bab al-Mandeb, gives it strategic significance. These initiatives strengthen Egyptian engagement along important shipping routes through economic and logistical partnerships. Press reports interpret the intensified Egyptian activity from Djibouti as an effort to expand Cairo’s influence and counter what they describe as growing Israeli and Ethiopian influence in the Red Sea and Horn of Africa.
In a report published on December 31, 2025, The National cited sources in Cairo describing agreements to upgrade Eritrea’s Assab port and Djibouti’s Doraleh, including berths capable of receiving warships and the potential deployment of small units. These are details attributed to the newspaper’s sources, rather than an official Egyptian announcement of military bases. The official account of al-Wazir’s visit emphasised ports, energy and logistics cooperation. Distinguishing publicly announced economic projects from military facilities described by unnamed sources is essential to understanding the limits of what has been confirmed.
Sara Kira, an international relations specialist and director of the European North African Center for Research, interprets Egypt’s Red Sea and Horn of Africa activity as an early strategic response to what she describes as attempts to encircle the country and constrain it at the southern entrance to the Suez Canal. She considers securing Bab al-Mandeb and the Arabian Sea a fundamental Egyptian responsibility, describing the area as the canal’s vulnerable flank and vital artery.
Kira regards Djibouti and Eritrea, positioned on the Red Sea and its southern approaches, as a direct component of Egypt’s strategic depth. She gives Eritrea particular weight because of its longstanding relationship with Cairo. She points to Egyptian support for Eritrean independence from Ethiopia and argues that the legacy still affects Addis Ababa’s outlook. In her assessment, Egypt possesses an especially strong network of ties with Eritrea within the Horn, limiting the influence that Emirati or Israeli initiatives could gain there.
Speaking to Zawia3, Kira links Ethiopia’s Nile policies with its pursuit of access to the Red Sea. She interprets them as a combined attempt to put Egypt under water-related and strategic pressure. She also invokes what she describes as intelligence information about Israeli encouragement of Ethiopia, including ideas for selling water and using the dam as a long-term instrument of political pressure. No intelligence documents independently substantiating this claim were provided with the reporting. The connection is therefore Kira’s attributed assessment, rather than a documented finding about an Israeli role in decisions concerning the dam.
Kira says Egypt approached Djibouti through economic and development cooperation, responding to its need for energy and port improvements. She estimates that around 90% of Ethiopian trade passes through Djibouti’s ports. A substantial Egyptian presence there, she argues, could provide economic leverage over Addis Ababa. She characterises this as a proportionate strategic response to what she calls attempts at water-related strangulation.
She regards Israeli recognition of Somaliland as a particularly serious development because, in her view, it may strengthen Ethiopia’s efforts to obtain maritime access while giving Israel a foothold in an area highly sensitive to Egypt. She draws a comparison with Kosovo, suggesting that limited recognition can gradually broaden. Israeli recognition alone, however, grants Ethiopia no maritime access rights and cannot substitute for separate arrangements and the consent of the parties concerned.
Kira also connects developments in the Red Sea and Horn of Africa with the Gaza war and displacement proposals. She characterises the confrontation between Egypt and Israel as increasingly direct but geographically concentrated in arenas away from their conventional border. In her assessment, Egypt will not wait for wider recognition of Somaliland or a consolidated Israeli Red Sea presence. She interprets current Egyptian initiatives as efforts to prevent threats to the Suez Canal and pressures on national security before they become entrenched.
Kira links military cooperation between Israel, Greece and Cyprus to competition with Turkey and eastern Mediterranean gas resources. Her analysis extends to the claim that this cooperation targets interests connected to Syrian gas. The reporting provides no independent evidence of an objective to seize Syria’s gas. She does not consider the cooperation a direct threat to Egypt, which she says relies on maritime boundary agreements, the East Mediterranean Gas Forum and gas liquefaction capacity. She also points to financial and geological obstacles facing ideas circulated about a ‘Ben Gurion Canal’ as an alternative to Suez. Those concepts do not amount to an announced, funded construction project.
Kira sees an increasingly clear division of regional positions. Saudi Arabia, she argues, is moving closer to Egypt because of the importance of Red Sea security and wider geostrategic considerations. She interprets the UAE’s role as an attempt to divide regional influence through Yemen and support for southern separation, alongside developments in Somaliland. In her assessment, these trends serve an Israeli agenda aimed at controlling the approaches to Bab al-Mandeb. This is her interpretation of regional alignments, alongside the Emirati position set out earlier in the report.
She describes new regional alignments emerging through Egyptian, Saudi and Turkish rapprochement, governed by reciprocal moves. She warns that the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea could become the next arena for international competition. Control of maritime routes, in her view, is central to the balance of power across the Middle East.
Ports, energy and trade are instruments of regional competition, alongside military and diplomatic calculations.
Competition over sea lanes and chokepoints
Ahmed Sultan, a researcher on regional security and terrorism, considers the region to be at a decisive stage in the redistribution of influence and power. He believes the confrontation is unfinished and expects further intelligence and security struggles whose details may not yet be visible but could shape the region’s future. He regards developments in Yemen as inseparable from the wider competition in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandeb. At the centre, he argues, is a geostrategic contest over maritime chokepoints and access routes, including Bab al-Mandeb and the Arabian Sea.
Sultan tells Zawia3 that competition over these passages is international as well as regional. He cites US President Donald Trump’s earlier remarks about the Suez Canal, interpreting them as evidence of an American tendency to dominate global trade routes. Washington’s interest in strategic waterways, he argues, directly affects regional security calculations.
He views Sudan, Yemen and Somalia as closely connected and believes they cannot be approached in isolation. Control of ports in Yemen and Somaliland, he says, provides an ability to influence Bab al-Mandeb and maritime traffic. Events in 2023 and 2024, when the Houthis intervened in connection with the Gaza war, demonstrated how strongly these conflicts can affect international shipping.
For Sultan, the struggle in Yemen, especially the south and Hadramawt, extends beyond oil resources to access to the Arabian Sea and Bab al-Mandeb. He sees it as part of competition over one of the world’s most sensitive maritime corridors. Hadramawt matters not only for its resources but also as a potential gateway to alternative outlets if tensions around the Strait of Hormuz intensify.
Sultan discusses Arabian Sea access as a potential alternative in the event of a Hormuz closure, a scenario he considers possible amid continuing tensions with Iran. He identifies Iran’s nuclear programme, missile capabilities and the strait as three principal sources of leverage, and argues that a direct threat to the Iranian state could prompt Tehran to threaten closure. That makes Arabian Sea security especially important to Saudi Arabia in his assessment. Geographically, however, sailing in the Arabian Sea alone does not allow vessels inside the Gulf to bypass Hormuz. Alternative outlets would require land transport or pipelines and ports outside the strait. The discussion therefore concerns possible logistical options, rather than a ready-made sea route that eliminates Hormuz’s role.
Sultan argues that Saudi Arabia cannot accept losing influence in Hadramawt because it affects national security and its long land border with Yemen. He also sees the risk of a future Israeli intelligence or military presence, drawing a connection with recognition of Somaliland. Recognition alone, however, does not establish that a base exists. He acknowledges genuine historical grievances behind Yemen’s southern question, while arguing that separation cannot resolve them amid complex regional and international competition.
He likewise interprets Israeli recognition of Somaliland through the Gaza war, viewing October 7 as an accelerator of strategic change. In his assessment, Israel seeks an intelligence and military presence in the Horn of Africa and influence over ports, which would give it significant maritime leverage around Bab al-Mandeb.
Sultan does not see Egyptian activity in Eritrea and Djibouti simply as anticipatory action. He regards it as a continuation of an existing confrontation between competing regional projects: one that he considers a threat to Egyptian and Arab national security, and another intended to reinforce stability and regional influence. Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other Arab states have overlapping interests in the latter, he says. He describes the contest as one of comprehensive power, involving economic, intelligence and political tools alongside military capabilities.
He also connects the trilateral military cooperation plan signed by Israel, Greece and Cyprus on December 22 and 23, 2025, for 2026 with broader eastern Mediterranean arrangements and competition with Turkey. Sultan argues that Israel is seeking regional dominance in what he describes as a mood of heightened confidence in its power following October 7.
The interviews offer a reading of the crises stretching from southern Yemen to Somaliland, the Nile and Sudan as interconnected arenas of regional and international competition. The speakers believe these developments could threaten Egypt’s position in maritime security and global trade, from the Gulf of Aden to the southern Red Sea and Suez. Describing them as components of a single overarching plan nevertheless remains their political interpretation, rather than a conclusion established by the available documents. Each arena has its own actors, developments and conflicting interests.
Egyptian partnerships with Somalia, Djibouti and Eritrea, alongside Cairo’s support for the Sudanese army against the Rapid Support Forces, reflect an effort to strengthen regional engagement and protect Egyptian interests. The interviewees consider shared concerns over navigation an opening for wider coordination with Saudi Arabia and other regional states. The test is whether such coordination can reduce escalation and uphold sovereignty, rather than turn ports and sea lanes into new arenas of conflict.
