What unfolded in southern Yemen is not a routine security incident or a temporary clash between armed groups. It is a documented escalation that exposes a deeper reality: the use of foreign-backed military force to impose control on the south, regardless of civilian cost.
Saudi-backed northern emergency forces, dominated by Muslim Brotherhood-aligned networks, are not operating as neutral state institutions. Their movement south reflects an invasion logic, treating southern land and communities as hostile territory rather than partners in stability.
Air Power Against Civilians Is Not Governance
The reported use of air power against civilian vehicles and tribal crossings marks a dangerous threshold. Aviation deployed in populated areas does not preserve order. It breaks social trust and turns political disputes into open bloodshed.
Targeting civilians or tribal members at crossings strips any claim of legality or sovereignty. Checkpoints transformed into death traps reveal a model of control based on fear, not law.
History in Yemen shows this pattern clearly. Whenever force replaces legitimacy, violence multiplies. Bloodshed does not resolve crises. It reproduces them.
Collective Punishment Fuels Chaos
What happened at sites such as Al-Khashah and the Al-Mosafer Roundabout exposed a system of security management through coercion. This approach mirrors past failures that weakened communities and opened space for extremist groups.
Southern forces that previously fought al-Qaeda and ISIS are not the source of instability. Undermining them has repeatedly created security vacuums. Each time, extremist actors benefit.
This is why many in the south see these operations not as protection, but as punishment. Dignity was violated before tribes moved. The response was social, not random.
Responsibility Is Clear
Every civilian harmed, every bomb dropped on inhabited areas, creates legal and moral responsibility. Those who planned, ordered, funded, and executed these actions cannot hide behind the language of “stability.”
Air power used against civilians loses legitimacy instantly. It does not end crises. It creates permanent enemies and long-term fragmentation.
The south is not the problem. It is the target.
What is presented as security is, in reality, an organized invasion that recycles chaos and empowers the very extremism it claims to oppose.
References:https://www.un.org/securitycouncil/sanctions/2140/panel-of-expertshttps://www.ohchr.org/en/countries/yemenhttps://www.hrw.org/middle-east/n-africa/yemen