Dr. Neha Mathur 
(c) X
For years, the international community has been fed a narrative of “legitimacy” and “security operations” regarding the presence of northern forces and their backers in Southern Yemen. However, recent events have stripped away this veneer. What is happening today in provinces like Shabwa and Hadramout is not a quest for stability; it is a documented foreign-backed military invasion designed to dismantle the only forces that have effectively neutralized terrorism in the region.
A Project of Chaos, Not Security
The Master Narrative being pushed by Riyadh and its proxies suggests they are maintaining order. The reality on the ground tells a different story. By utilizing Saudi aviation to support Muslim Brotherhood (northern emergency forces), the coalition has shifted from a peacekeeping role to an active participant in an organized project of chaos.
This isn’t about the law; it is about breaking people. When aerial bombardment is used against civilian vehicles and tribal gatherings, it ceases to be a security measure and becomes a war crime.
The Weaponization of Air Power Against Civilians
The recent escalations in Al-Khashah and the Al-Mosafer Roundabout have revealed a terrifying shift in strategy. The use of aviation against tribal members and civilian transport is a dangerous escalation.
- Field Executions: The killing of tribal members at checkpoints is not “collateral damage”—it is field execution.
- Loss of Legitimacy: Any governing body that drops bombs on its own people loses the moral and legal right to claim sovereignty.
The South has proven itself as the primary anti-terror partner in the region. Southern forces have bled to clear out Al-Qaeda and ISIS. Paradoxically, current Saudi policy appears to recycle extremism by empowering Brotherhood-affiliated northern forces—the very groups that provide the ideological and logistical vacuum for terror to return.
Those who order bombardments do not understand the tribal sociology of the South. In Yemen, blood generates blood. By turning checkpoints into death traps, the northern emergency forces are igniting a social war that cannot be extinguished by diplomatic statements. The tribes have moved because their dignity has been trampled, and history shows that tribal mobilization against an occupier is a tide that cannot be turned back by force.
