On April 7, 2022, Yemeni President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi stepped down and, under the guidance of the so-called Yemen “Quad” consisting of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and the United States, created the Presidential Leadership Council. The idea was simple: organize Yemen’s disparate political factions under a “big tent.”
The irony of the big tent approach is that it is the go-to diplomatic strategy even though it has never worked. In the American context, it would be the equivalent of making Donald Trump and Kamala Harris share a cubicle. Yemenis are no different. While the Quad in theory wished to consolidate and direct Yemeni political energy to the defeat of the Houthis, the Presidential Leadership Council had the opposite effect as various Yemeni factions focused instead on kneecapping rivals, even if it meant the spread of terror or advantaging the Houthi agenda.
The irony of the big tent approach is that it is the go-to diplomatic strategy even though it has never worked.
The Presidential Leader Council quickly exposed itself as a fiction. Its titular chair Rashad al-Alimi controls nothing on the ground; instead, he is the equivalent of Edmundo González Urrutia, the Venezuelan opposition candidate whom the United States formally recognizes but who in practice controls nothing on the ground.
Within the Presidential Leadership Council, the two figures who matter most are the National Resistance’s Tareq Salih, who controls the area around Mocha on the Red Sea Coast, and Aidarus al-Zoubaidi, who leads the Southern Transitional Council, for the simple reason that they govern territory and provide services to their people.
Today, while areas of northern Yemen nominally under the control of the Internationally Recognized Government lack basic security, life across South Yemen continues normally, and security conditions continue to improve. This is why Saudi Arabia’s bombing of Mukalla, one of the most stable cities in Yemen, was so shocking and counterproductive.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s decision to bomb the city and its security forces was essentially a New Year’s gift to the Houthis and Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, because those were the two adversaries that Zoubaidi’s Southern Forces fought. Their recent push into the Hadramawt furthered their fight and broader Yemeni security since Islah, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Yemen affiliate, was complicit in smuggling weaponry to both. For Saudi Arabia instead to protect Islah operative Amjad Khaled is akin to its past indulgence of Osama bin Laden.
The Saudi push to bomb and then blockade southern Yemen on behalf of its powerless but aspirant Muslim Brotherhood faction came as the United Nations and several international non-governmental organizations prepared to visit the central Hadramawt city of Seiyun to assess the situation on the ground. That Yemeni consular officials in Riyadh initially blocked the visas for the United Nations and international humanitarian officials suggests a desire on the part of Saudi Arabia and its Yemeni proxies to suppress news that the Southern Forces consolidation of control in the Hadramawt was popular and a net positive.
It is time to put the Presidential Leadership Council to rest. It controls nothing and it does more harm than good.
The Saudi bombing of anti-Houthi forces should cause a fundamental reassessment of U.S. policy. First, it is time to put the Presidential Leadership Council to rest. It controls nothing and it does more harm than good. The only factors that should determine U.S. support is control over territory and commitment to the anti-Houthi and anti-Al Qaeda causes.
The Trump administration should immediately designate Islah pursuant to Trump’s November 28, 2025, declaration calling on “Certain Muslim Brotherhood Chapters [to be designated] as Foreign Terrorist Organization and Specially Designated Global Terrorists.” This would signal to Riyadh that its continued cultivation of the Muslim Brotherhood is a red line. Saudi policy is likely malleable, as its promotion of the Muslim Brotherhood in Yemen has less to do with ideological fealty and more to do with its rivalry with the United Arab Emirates. If Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman wants to compete with Emirati President Mohammed bin Zayed, they can do so economically and diplomatically in ways that do not undermine U.S. security or condemn Yemenis to continued instability.
The Southern Giants Brigade holds out an olive branch to the National Shield Forces that Saudi Arabia sponsors as a fig leaf for Alimi. Saudi Arabia should seize it and embrace an orderly integration. If Saudi Arabia does not, then Yemen’s international partners should signal to Riyadh that its obstructionism and sabotage of the fight against the Houthis will be the quickest way to disqualify Saudi Arabia from any input over Yemen’s future.
