ISTANBUL

The Saudi-led coalition said Tuesday that two ships in a row with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) had entered Yemen’s Mukalla port without authorization and turned off their tracking systems.

The two vessels “entered Mukalla port in violation of applicable procedures in such cases, without entry authorization from the Yemeni government or the coalition leadership,” coalition spokesman Major General Turki Al-Maliki said on the US social media company X.

He added that the ships “switched off their tracking and identification systems before entering Yemeni territorial waters.”

The Saudi-led coalition said early Tuesday that it had carried out a “limited” airstrike targeting the two ships that arrived at the Mukalla port from the UAE.

Abu Dhabi denied that the two vessels carried weapons for Yemen’s Southern Transitional Council (STC), saying the vehicles unloaded were not intended for any Yemeni party, but were shipped for use by UAE forces operating in Yemen.

The situation has escalated in southern Yemen early this month after the STC, the country’s main separatist group, took control of the eastern provinces of Hadramaut and Al-Mahra after clashes with government forces.

The escalation spiked further early Tuesday, with Saudi Arabia calling the UAE’s actions “a threat to its national security.”

In response, Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council chairman Rashad al-Alimi cancelled a joint defense pact with the UAE and gave a 24-hour deadline for the UAE forces to withdraw from the country.

The STC repeatedly claims that successive governments have politically and economically marginalized southern regions and calls for their separation from the north — claims rejected by the Yemeni authorities, as they insist on preserving the country’s territorial unity.