Who is Aidarous al-Zubaidi, Yemen’s southern separatist leader?

Aidarous al-Zubaidi is one of Yemen’s most divisive political figures and the head of the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC), a separatist movement that controls large parts of the country’s south.

His political career reached a dramatic turning point on Wednesday when Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council (PLC) accused him of high treason and stripped him of his position within the body.

The PLC, a coalition of Yemeni factions that functions as the country’s internationally recognised governing authority, said the move targeted Zubaidi personally rather than the STC as a whole.

Speaking to Middle East Eye in 2023, Zubaidi described the PLC as “a coalition of different agendas”, and said the executive body could hold together only as long as the southern issue was addressed as a priority.

“We think that independence of the south is the solution,” he said at the time, referring to Yemen's future.

But he also said that exiting the PLC altogether would be disastrous. “Everything would be destroyed. So we are not pulling out, especially because the STC is on the ground and so pulling out would affect us,” he said in 2023.

Zubaidi was due to travel to Riyadh for talks on Tuesday, but according to a Saudi official has “fled” to an unknown location. 

The accusations levelled against the STC's head include damaging Yemen’s political and military standing, forming an armed group, committing serious violations against civilians, killing officers and soldiers, and sabotaging military facilities.

Early life

Born in 1967, Zubaidi rose through Yemen’s military ranks after studying in his home village of al-Zubaid and graduating from aviation college as a second lieutenant.

From the year of his birth, Yemen was divided between two states, until the socialist south was conquered by the north in 1990. 

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When Yemen’s latest war broke out in 2014, pitting the Iran-aligned Houthi movement against a coalition backed by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, support for southern independence began to grow again.

Zubaidi, who has served in the air force, rescue forces and special forces, keeping a foot in the military and political world, has long opposed the unification and has consistently called for the restoration of an independent southern state.

After the 1994 civil war, he led an armed group known as Hatm, which he said sought to “defend the south since its occupation”.

In 2013, southern fighters under his leadership clashed with forces loyal to then-president Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Rise to power

Zubaidi’s influence expanded sharply after he became governor of Aden. In 2016, he survived two alleged assassination attempts while in office, including a car bomb and an armed attack on his convoy.

That same year, he proposed the creation of a political body to govern the south. The Southern Transitional Council formally emerged in 2017, with Zubaidi as its leader.

The STC later became a central pillar of Yemen’s political order which also entrenched division in the country.

When the Presidential Leadership Council was formed in April 2022, the STC secured three of its eight seats, and Zubaidi was appointed vice president - a role he has now lost.

Speaking to MEE in 2023 about whether it was possible to find common ground with the Houthis, Zubaidi said: “The Houthis' ideology is a theological system that believes authority comes from God. While we in the STC and the south, and now in the PLC, believe that authority comes from the people - not from up, from down.” 

“And this is a big difference that makes it very difficult to share something together and to form a system together,” he said.

In recent years, Zubaidi has courted international controversy.

In an interview with The National in September 2025, he said he would support joining the Abraham Accords if southern independence were achieved.

“Before the events in Gaza, we were advancing towards joining the Abraham Accords,” he said. “If Gaza and [the rest of] Palestine regain their rights, the accords will be essential for stability in the region.”

He also outlined plans for a federal “State of South Arabia”, arguing that the “peace process is frozen” and that a two-state solution was the only viable option in Yemen.

On 2 January, Zubaidi issued a “constitutional declaration” proposing a two-year transition towards a referendum on independence - a move that appears to have precipitated his removal from Yemen’s ruling council.

Fall from power?

Saudi Arabia’s coalition spokesman, Major General Turki al-Maliki, said on Wednesday that coalition leaders instructed Zubaidi on Sunday to travel to the kingdom within 48 hours to discuss escalating violence and attacks by STC forces in Hadhramaut and al-Mahra.

On 16 December, following weeks of escalating tensions in Yemen's eastern regions, the STC claimed control over Hadhramaut and al-Mahra governorates as Saudi-backed forces withdrew from their military bases in Aden. 

Maliki said Zubaidi informed Saudi officials he would arrive on Tuesday, but when a Yemenia Airways flight eventually departed after a delay of more than three hours, it carried senior STC figures without him.

Zubaidi, however, “fled to an unknown location... after he had distributed weapons and ammunition to dozens of elements inside Aden”, Maliki said in a statement.