Oman’s Role In Preventing Escalation In Yemen

December 2025 saw events occur in Yemen that threatened to explode into wider instability. The Yemeni Civil War’s Sunni side, broadly speaking, had gone to war against one another. Saudi airstrikes on UAE-backed elements under the banner of the Southern Transition Council (STC) and Emirati military assets began after the STC launched a major military offensive, effectively opening a third front in the long-running Yemeni Civil War. This development emerged after the STC had previously been aligned with the Presidential Leadership Council, which was formed as a successor to the Sunni-led government of the Republic of Yemen. Yet, Omani diplomacy played a major role in pulling the rug on it all.

The STC’s pursuit of separatism based on ideals with historic Marxist-Leninist and Arab nationalist roots appeared to have been a problem to more than just Saudi Arabia, which has a vested interest in keeping the Presidential Leadership Council together. Soon enough, the movement petered out in January 2026, almost as quickly as it had begun. The event has come to be seen as an abrupt end for the UAE’s strategic adventures in Yemen, which is likely to have an outsized effect on its operations in Africa in the near future due to the situation in the Strait of Hormuz.

Neutral Oman has had much to do with ending the STC’s campaign as quickly as it had begun. The Sultanate has decisively proven that it will not tolerate any instability along its borders, particularly those that threaten its domestic security situation. This was all done without being under the global media spotlight. Understanding it is key to understanding Omani foreign policy in light of what many are calling the Third Gulf War.

Trouble for paradise

Omani foreign policy has long preferred stability and maintenance of the status quo in its immediate neighborhood. Its foreign policy is not isolationist and non-participatory in nature, as evidenced by its engagement in global forums. Geographically, Oman is exposed on almost all fronts; shallow strategic depth, near-total dependence on the sea, and a featureless border that may be as hard to defend as it may be hard to cross. One look at the border between Oman and Yemen will show mostly straight lines, which is typically the case in terrain without natural defensive features in this part of the world. The towns of Sarfayt and Mazyunah are the only two crossing points that can be reliably defended from border incursions with border garrisons that can be constantly supplied. The problem is further compounded by the fact that settlement along the border is extremely sparse due to its inhospitability.

Therefore, engagement and cooperation with neighbors, and cooperating with those neighbors’ objectives for territorial integrity and stability, is key. Surrounding itself with friends is the way to ensure that Oman stays on track with its national development goals and preserves its economic set-up. Simultaneously, keeping neighbors satisfied does not mean giving in to each and every one of their whims, ensuring the principled neutrality that earns Oman the moniker “Switzerland of the Middle East”. A reputation for reliability in this regard earns Oman significant diplomatic capital as a mediator of conflicts, particularly between the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states and Iran.

When Saudi Arabia assembled a coalition to intervene in the Yemeni Civil War, Oman was the only GCC member not to participate militarily, citing its neutrality principle. Later on, Oman would host Houthi and Iranian delegations to facilitate indirect communication to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. In relation to Iran in particular, this choice enabled Oman to maintain pragmatic links to it concerning the Strait of Hormuz and maritime trade. Since 2015, military intervention in Yemen has slowed to a crawl without legible results in favor of Saudi Arabian designs. Now, the resilience of the Houthi rebellion and the extension of Iranian influence networks continue to make both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Thus, Yemen has been the ultimate stress test for Muscat, which shares a rather porous border with it through the Dhofar region. And any development threatening to spiral the Yemeni Civil War beyond all control has every reason to make the Sultanate’s leadership nervous.

The core Omani objective in Yemen has encompassed indirect influence strategies intended to prevent the consolidation of any power in Yemeni territory next to Oman, which has the potential to radically alter Yemeni territorial integrity. In Oman’s calculations, there is no guarantee that such a force would not be hostile to its security requirements. Oman’s geography, while offering excellent maritime access that has historically been exploited by the region’s rulers, also presented vulnerabilities. The ruling House of Al Bu Said’s original and still existing power center remains on the Omani coast. Urban centers such as Salalah, Sohar, Muscat, and Duqm essentially serve as prisons in case of any threat originating from the Omani interior or the wider inlands of the Arabian Peninsula. Throughout much of its existence, Al Bu Said rulers had to deal with a much older and much stronger center of power focused on the Omani interior: The Imamate.

The Imamate of Oman emerged in its defensible inner mountainous core with sparse habitation supporting a primarily tribal social structure. Its necessity was felt in the structural failures of early caliphates such as the Umayyads and Abbasids, who frequently fell into infighting and costly civil wars before being reduced in stature by rivals. Ibadi Islam in Oman emerged out of these conflicts, many of which were rooted in or related to disagreements over theology and jurisprudence. These dynamics led to the rise of the Ibadi power structure in the Omani interior, and it continued to survive until the 20th century thanks to the often permissive policies of later regional powers.

To summarize deep history in a concise manner, the House of Al Bu Said won its power struggle against the much more deeply entrenched Imamate via two weapons at its disposal: The ability to promise economic stability, which kept the coast loyal to the Sultanate in the pre-modern era. Its strategic position in a post-Suez Canal era, coinciding with the intensification of shipping in the Arabian Sea, transformed the Sultanate’s territories into sites of vital economic importance. British interests in Oman became highly relevant in the 1950s and 1960s based on its previous experience with the Sultanate. The House of Al Bu Said represented itself as a trustworthy faction in a vital region that could engage with the British on the basis of treaties, enabled by its strong core power structure on the Omani coast.

Stability on the Omani coast was viewed as crucial since the 18th and 19th centuries during the height of Britain’s imperial power. Of course, this settlement helped the United Kingdom maintain its possessions in the Indian subcontinent. In the 20th century, British interests in South East Asia focused around assistance at first to anti-Japanese forces in World War II and then to the newly emerging polities such as Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, and Thailand alongside old allies Australia and New Zealand against communist bloc influence. British support for the Sultanate can be further explained by the fact that the centuries-old Imamate had been an elective monarchy. The decision to select the Imam rested upon Ibadi ulema and tribal consensus. The predictability of the Sultanate’s hereditary system of succession appealed to the European understanding of state-to-state relations. At the same time, the Imamate’s constituents had been suspicious and highly distrustful of foreign powers in broad strokes, owing to their insular lifestyle.

Thus, military support to the Sultanate was granted during the Jebel Akhdar War between itself and the Imamate. The war itself emerged after the Sultanate granted oil exploration rights to the British-linked Petroleum Development Oman company in the Omani interior. This was challenged by the Imamate, leading to open warfare. Superior firepower on the Sultanate’s side, including the battle-hardened Special Air Service (SAS), which had accumulated much experience in desert warfare during World War II, defeated the staunch Imamate forces by 1959. Imam Ghalib bin Ali Al-Hinai’s flight out of Oman and the destruction of his force structure led tribal allegiances to shift to Sultan Said bin Taimur.

Any chances of a return of the Imamate were crushed by the actual discovery of oil in the Omani interior formerly governed by it, the extension of roads and government services in phases into the interior, and ultimately any real backing by Saudi Arabia, which previously assisted the Imamate in the Jebel Akhdar War. However, Sultan Said bin Taimur’s failures in state formation and the extension of services would have problems in Dhofar Governorate, bordering Yemen.

Memories of Dhofar

Now we come to the event that has consistently served as the experiential cornerstone of Omani security and diplomatic strategy: The Dhofar Rebellion.

It was a 13-year-long armed insurgency that sought to break away the Dhofar Governorate at first, and later morphed into a struggle to establish a socialist state encompassing all of Oman and possibly joining the then People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen, or South Yemen. The events of the Dhofar rebellion have burned themselves into the minds of Omani security planners. Dhofar Governorate is historically remote and mountainous, and most importantly, quite far from the northern Omani coastline, where the Sultanate’s power structure is focused around.

Numerous Arab tribes with unique subcultural and religious identities, including Sunni and Ibadi affinities, make up its population. Thus, cultural differences from the Omani coast also played a role in creating distance between itself and Muscat. The Sultanate’s repression at the time and the existence of neighboring South Yemen made it a prime location for uprisings in the 20th century. Critics accused the administration of Muscat of having neglected the region, causing inequality, underdevelopment, and public infrastructure deficiencies. Prior to 1970, Sultan Said bin Taimur’s administration was isolationist in nature, restricting modernization, trade, and education in Dhofar while its neighbors advanced.

Observers argue that the policy of isolation was adopted as a means of attempting to deal with the transition of the regions formerly governed by the Imamate, but repressive policies in dealing with opposition worsened matters. The shock of the 20th century Arab life template that was emerging in the period was judged to be chaotic. It was an anxiety that was understandable in its essence, as the Sultanate had by then spent the entire century dealing with challenges to its authority and competing power centers. Critically, however, a large part of the insurgency’s grievances dealt with oil extraction in the Omani interior, from which reinvestment in Dhofar was low compared to coastal Oman.

Despite such efforts, Said bin Taimur’s rule as Sultan in general however, was marked by unrest, inefficient management, and critical errors attempting to integrate the Omani interior’s tribal societies via repressive measures. Within such a climate, a Marxist-Leninist rebellion soon emerged in Dhofar, composed of former military personnel and USSR-trained political agitators who rallied Dhofari tribesmen with promises of self-rule and freedom from Said bin Taimur’s rule. This movement overtook the initial regionalist focus of the insurgency. These forces would eventually morph from a regionalist or Arab nationalist core into a radical Marixst core vanguard forming the Popular Front for the Liberation of Oman and the Arabian Gulf (PFLOAG). It soon became a serious threat to the stability of the Sultanate.

Its left-leaning political tint gave it an internationalist focus, on top of being influenced by ideals of pan-Arabism popular in the region at the time. Omani state intervention was weak on top of economic inequality, allowing the rebellion to fester and leaving local villages with little choice but to comply with the rebels. After Qaboos bin Said assumed power in 1970, the Sultanate took a complex set of sociopolitical and military actions, including the provision of jobs and economic access, with the support of the United Kingdom and Iran in order to definitively defeat the Dhofar Rebellion using military force by 1976. Final resistance completely petered out by 1979.

The last Oman had by then benefitted by a great extent from the events of the 1973 oil embargo, thus it could spend resources to improve the governing capacity of the Sultanate. Many of these resources were spent towards developing Omani intelligence services into institutions capable of expert usage of HUMINT techniques to map out allegiance networks. The very same tribal allegiances that had been the backbone of support for the PFLOAG were turned against them, as the Sultanate offered them stable wages, extended government services into Dhofar gradually, and appealed against the secular Marxist ideology of the PFLOAG.

And this is where we are led directly to the Dhofar region, which is directly bordered by the Al-Mahrah Governorate of Yemen, and this is how the-then socialist South Yemen was able to support the Dhofar Rebellion in the form of advisory work, ideological support, arms, and ammunition. The cross-border dynamic forced the growth of Omani intelligence services into an institution capable of detecting multi-dimensional threats since the Dhofar Rebellion.

Because of its proximity to Al-Mahrah, when the Southern Transitional Council fighters moved all the way to Yemen’s international border in December 2025, Oman became concerned for the security of Dhofar. The region’s people still live within the same tribal structures and also still maintain their distinct identities. The sight of STC fighters just across the border from Dhofar instantly brought back its ghosts in a manner of speaking, as the STC’s push for South Yemeni autonomy is rooted in leftist political thought. Its political ancestry can be traced back to the same People’s Democratic Republic of South Yemen, the sole Marxist-Leninist state in the Arab world during its time. It is the same South Yemen that extended material and ideological support to the Dhofar Rebellion, amounting to an existential threat to the Sultanate of Oman itself.

For Oman’s safety, the equilibrium had to be set right, even though the problem this time around was not existential.

Peaceful, but not a pushover

The Southern Transitional Council (STC) emerged on the basis of factions that had opposed the unification of South and North Yemen in 1990. Leftover grievances led to the first Yemeni Civil War in 1994, launched by the Yemeni Socialist Party in an attempt to reclaim South Yemeni independence. The idea of an independent South Yemen refused to go away as the regions comprised by the former People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen consist of political outlooks and social structures distinct from those in the then North Yemen. An added dimension of differing colonial legacies also played a major role in the division; Ottoman rule in the north and British rule in the south.

While the second Yemeni Civil War, which started in 2015, was and is still being fought along sectarian lines, subsumption of the remnants of South Yemen under the Sunni faction was not complete. The Southern Transitional Council as we know it was formed during this time. Disputes led to the rise of parallel command structures and paramilitary forces backed by the United Arab Emirates, which were deployed to seize Aden from the internationally recognized government of Iran i.e., the Sunni faction. Tensions were only partly resolved by the formation of the Presidential Leadership Council before the STC gathered themselves to decisively make the push for secessions. This three-way phase of the Yemeni Civil War was covered by Bangladesh Defence Journal.

Operation Promising Future was launched by the reformed, re-armed, and reorganized Southern Transitional Council on the 2nd of December, 2025. By the 7th of December, Aden, the old capital of the PDRY, was captured. By the end of the month, the STC had carved out a zone of control almost contiguous with the territory of the former PDRY. This sent shockwaves regionally, and Oman was keeping a close eye. What particularly sent alarm bells ringing in Muscat was STC chief Aidarous al-Zubaidi’s declaration regarding Sarfayt (sometimes spelled Sirfit). This is a critical Omani border town guarding inhabited coastal regions between Yemen and Oman. During the Dhofar Rebellion, it served as a critical supply route for the campaign against the Sultanate, and it had to be captured in Operation Simba, a daring air assault operation consisting of a helicopter raid by Omani forces.

Khalid bin Salem Al-Ghassani, a former advisor at the Omani Ministry of Heritage and Culture and former GCC Assistant Secretary General wrote for Al Roya: “When Aidarus al-Zubaidi, the head of the so-called “Southern Transitional Council in Yemen,” comes out and says clearly, “From the Red Sea to the Arabian Sea in the east, to Sarfit,” the matter goes beyond the limits of political rhetoric and mobilization of his members and supporters, and turns into an explicit transgression against Omani land with full sovereignty, which does not accept interpretation, metaphor, or leniency in response.”

Oman today is not the fragile Oman of the early to mid-20th century that required direct military assistance from the United Kingdom and Iran to deal with an armed uprising in its own territory. Unlike Saudi or Emirati services, Oman’s intelligence architecture is modest, focused, and disciplined. Oman’s intelligence services, which are highly centralized under the Sultan, rely on strong discipline, minimum public footprint, and close civil-military-intelligence coordination. Oman does not use intelligence as a weapon to support public claims, launch media campaigns, or weaken competitors, in contrast to how certain GCC states and others in the wider world operate.

The Sultanate has spent the years since the Dhofar Rebellion sharpening the edge that allowed it to survive the most significant existential threat it had ever faced. All this expertise worked towards informing Omani diplomatic strategies and policies. In an event in 2025, Omani foreign minister Sayyid Badr Albusaidi explained it in the following terms: “Diplomacy, to us, is not just an instrument of foreign policy. It is woven into the fabric of our DNA. Omani diplomacy has long been guided by principles of openness, neutrality and mutual respect.”

Diplomacy in every sense of the word is a critical tool for the Sultanate of Oman’s security, and belligerence is a path that is never taken. Even as the Southern Transitional Council rapidly advanced through Hadhramaut and Al-Mahrah, Oman did not issue any public statements that could even remotely be considered belligerent. While information relating to it has not been revealed publicly, STC leadership may have failed to adequately assure Oman that its interests for de-escalation in Yemen would be kept. Besides, Aidarous al-Zubaidi’s talk regarding Sarfayt may have caused damage that they could not have reversed.

The Sultanate was then able to draw upon its diplomatic capital built by its stance to assist Saudi Arabia, whose strategy for Yemen was put in a precarious situation by the STC’s sudden advances. Ever since al-Zubaidi made his statements about Sarfayt, Omani intelligence services were alerted. Over the vast plains of Al-Mahrah and northern Hadhramaut, STC infantry units then became easy targets for the Royal Saudi Air Force. Precision strikes targeting the port of Aden destroyed military equipment gathered there, sent as aid from the United Arab Emirates. Combined with a PLC counter-offensive, the integrity of STC troops rapidly faded, and senior commanders were soon switching sides. By the 7th of January, Aidarous al-Zubaidi had fled to the United Arab Emirates.

On Oman’s part, further involvement in bloc politics would undermine Omani principles and diplomatic capital built across multiple decades. Oman assisted Saudi Arabia as much as required in order to soothe security anxieties focused around the Houthis’ Supreme Political Council (SPC) government. Of course, the Yemeni Civil War spiraling out into a three-way war could have enabled the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to assist in boosting the military capabilities of the Houthis, especially after Operation Rough Rider in 2025. Salem al-Ismaily, a former Omani Foreign Ministry advisor, stated succinctly that “Muscat will try to avoid alienating either the UAE or Saudi Arabia; this will require careful, sometimes quiet diplomacy.”

This statement ought to remind observers that no Omani official has made critical remarks about the United Arab Emirates. Cooperation with Oman is critical for preserving the UAE’s export flows, due to the one determinant that cannot be overcome: Geography. And even as it was the UAE that ultimately could be stated as the cause behind Oman’s latest security threat, the Sultanate does not lose sight of the long game. A long game in which the UAE cannot afford to antagonize Oman for fear of repeating the situation that arose during the Saudi-Qatari diplomatic crisis that started in 2017. That event fractured unity in the Gulf Cooperation Council before it was resolved in 2021. Therefore, continued good relations with Muscat beget good relations in turn, and the GCC remains as a united bloc.

With all of this context, the security logic for Oman inspiring the actions that it took must be clarified. The best-case scenario for Oman is a unified and calm Yemen. Barring that, the Presidential Leadership Council must serve as a buffer between itself and the Houthis. This delicate balance allows the Sultanate to check security threats, maintain its cohesion with the rest of the Gulf Cooperation Council, and also maintain its relations with Iran.

But a critical question may arise here. If Oman still insists on maintaining good relations with the United Arab Emirates, why take steps that have, in effect, completely erased their foothold in Yemen? The answer is Israel. STC chief Aidarous al-Zubaidi had made it clear that in the event of complete secession, South Yemen would join the Abraham Accords. This was the red line for Oman, as not only was the STC’s outlook rooted in the history of the PDRY, but normalization with PDRY would have constituted another security threat and reputational damage because of Israel. Suppose the STC succeeded in the re-establishment of South Yemen, and Israeli operatives were granted. Iranian pressure on Oman to either act themselves or allow assets to be positioned from their territory would have been great. It would have been an unacceptable state of affairs for Oman’s neutrality policy.

While Oman’s willingness to work with Iran is also rooted in the events of the Dhofar Rebellion, the Sultanate refused to follow the lead of its Gulf neighbors and instead maintained friendly relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran. It was Pahlavi-era Iran after all that lent direct assistance to Oman in those years, something that is at odds with the Islamic Republic’s policy against maintaining regular armed forces for interventionism. Recent events surrounding the Omani role in facilitating negotiations between the United States and Iran have drawn attention. More importantly for Oman, it has drawn projectiles away from Oman. Despite Oman still being struck by Shahed drones on occasion for providing supplies to the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier group, the numbers do not compare to the projectiles fired at the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia.

Did the move to decisively deny Israel any Yemeni launching pad pay off in the long run? So far, the anti-Houthi camp’s maintenance of a united front has been keeping them engaged. Elements of the former Yemeni Republic Guard, organized into the National Resistance Forces loyal to the Sunni camp had ramped up interdiction of Iranian arms supplies to the Houthis. A concentrated anti-smuggling drive was launched in conjunction with Operation Rough Rider, ostensibly preventing rearmament on a wider scale. While the Houthis have launched projectiles at Israel, their effect on the Red Sea crossing remains negligible at the time of writing. Above all, the Yemeni Civil War itself remains manageable.

Verification Note: Information sourced from and corroborated from government websites, documents, and news sources. Sources are carefully weighed for authenticity, and sources making superfluous claims without evidence are discarded. Information is then analyzed and interpreted to come to conclusions.