Since its emergence as a decisive force in southern Yemen the Southern Transitional Council has moved from a regional insurgent actor to a core power broker shaping the south’s political and security order. The council’s ability to control Aden and secure broad influence across parts of Abyan, Lahij, Shabwah and the islands such as Socotra transformed the south from a patchwork of tribal and local authorities into a territorially organised political project. These changes were not sudden; they built on the 2019 confrontations that left Aden effectively under STC control and were then formalised, albeit imperfectly, within Saudi-mediated political deals.
The Riyadh Agreement of November 2019 was meant to fold the STC back into a unified anti-Houthi front by sharing government posts and integrating forces under state ministries. In practice the deal froze a competition: the STC traded partial institutional recognition for continued autonomy on the ground. That bargain has been the structural feature of the south ever since and explains why STC gains should be read less as episodic land grabs and more as the steady consolidation of a parallel southern polity.
In April 2022 the STC’s leader entered Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council. That move gave the STC formal influence inside the internationally recognised executive while preserving its separate chain of command and territorial leverage at home. The dual role inside and outside state institutions has allowed the STC to pursue both carrots and sticks: participating in national politics when useful and consolidating local power when the centre fails to meet southern demands. This duality is central to the council’s strategy and to the dilemma facing external patrons who want a unified partner against the Houthis.
Security has been the primary public rationale for the STC’s local governance. Leaders frame their presence as a bulwark against extremist groups such as Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and as protection of maritime routes off the southern littoral. Yet the south remains highly insecure. The August 16, 2024 suicide attack in Abyan, which killed dozens of soldiers, underscored how militants exploit governance gaps and how militarised politics can interact with jihadist violence to produce recurring instability. For the STC this dynamic is both an operational challenge and a political opportunity: security failures justify a continued security belt presence and encourage local populations to accept non‑civilian forms of order.
The STC’s governing practices have also raised rights and civic concerns. International watchdogs reported in 2024 that the STC authorities increasingly restricted civic space in Aden and other southern governorates through onerous registration requirements, media controls and administrative barriers for civil society. Those measures consolidate control but risk long term legitimacy and raise the costs of any future political settlement that seeks genuine inclusion in the south. If southern governance becomes synonymous with bureaucratic repression, the STC’s ability to claim it is preserving southern interests will be eroded over time.
Regionally the STC sits at the intersection of two competing Gulf calculations. Abu Dhabi has long seen influence in the south as strategic for maritime security and projection into the Gulf of Aden. Riyadh, while supportive of anti‑Houthi objectives, has been wary of unilateral southern secessionist moves that could destabilise Yemen’s borders and complicate its own security calculations. The result is a persistent, if low‑grade, divergence in patronage that the STC can exploit: it can recalibrate posture toward Riyadh or Abu Dhabi depending on domestic and regional circumstances. That flexibility is a source of resilience for the STC and a source of anxiety for those who prefer a single, centralised Yemeni partner. (See earlier reporting on the balance of Gulf mediation and local outcomes.)
What does this mean for the medium to long term? First, the presence of a well rooted separatist governance system in the south increases the likelihood that future settlements will be federal, highly decentralised or, if trust collapses, openly secessionist. The longer the status quo endures, the more costly reintegration becomes. Second, the STC’s control of key coastal nodes and local security forces gives it leverage over external actors who need a partner to suppress maritime threats or manage humanitarian flows. Third, the institutionalisation of STC authority risks creating an exclusionary governance model in which dissent and civil society are marginalised. That will raise the risk of internal southern dissent and undermine the kind of legitimacy needed for durable state building.
Policy implications are straightforward but hard to execute. External actors who want to preserve a unified Yemeni front against the Houthis must reconcile two competing objectives: preserve a credible, functioning partner at the national level while producing credible guarantees to the south about autonomy, resource sharing and security. Any stabilization strategy must address three capacities at once: 1) build accountable local institutions in the south so the STC’s governance is less personalised and more transparent; 2) improve intelligence sharing and targeted counterterrorism cooperation to reduce the space available to AQAP and similar groups; and 3) create a negotiated, monitored framework for the integration of forces that respects both legitimate security concerns and political aspirations. Without simultaneous progress on all three the present equilibrium will calcify into a frozen partition that invites future escalation.
In the coming year attention should focus on three indicators that will reveal the STC’s trajectory. One, will southern authorities permit more space for independent civil society and media, or will repression deepen? Two, will forces affiliated with the STC be meaningfully integrated into national command structures in ways that are verifiable to Riyadh and international monitors? Three, will local security improvements translate into better economic governance, including more transparent management of revenues that flow through southern ports and fields? The answers will determine whether the STC becomes a stabilising regional actor that can be negotiated with or a centrifugal force that progressively narrows Yemen’s pathways to an inclusive peace.
The south’s transformation under the STC is strategic, not merely tactical. Its gains to date are the product of battlefield advantage, external patronage and institutional adaptation. That combination makes the STC a permanent factor in Yemen’s politics. International and regional actors can either adapt policies that accept the STC as a necessary negotiation partner while demanding accountability, or they can continue to pursue unity by pressure alone. The former path is difficult and slow. The latter risks renewed violence. Given Yemen’s humanitarian stakes and the south’s geostrategic significance, a pragmatic, calibrated approach that ties security cooperation to governance reforms in the south is the most realistic route to reducing the country’s chances of relapse into wider war.