Saudi Arabia deploys cash and clout in Yemen after ousting UAE

After pushing the United Arab Emirates out of Yemen late last year, Saudi Arabia is deploying political capital and billions of dollars in a bid to bring its

southern neighbor more firmly under its control, a sign of Riyadh reasserting itself regionally after years of prioritizing a domestic agenda, six officials told

Reuters.



It's a formidable challenge. The wealthy Gulf kingdom is trying to bring together fractious armed groups and tribes while also propping up a collapsed state through major cash injections, with an unresolved conflict with Houthi rebels in north Yemen held at bay by a fragile truce - just as Riyadh faces a budget

crunch at home.



The kingdom is budgeting nearly $3 billion this year to cover salaries for Yemeni forces and civil servants, according to four Yemeni and two Western officials, who said it included roughly $1 billion earmarked for salaries for southern fighters once paid by Abu Dhabi.



"Saudi Arabia has cooperated with us and expressed its readiness to pay all salaries in full," Yemeni Information Minister Muammar Eryani told Reuters in an interview, without providing a total figure. Eryani said the Saudi support would allow Yemen to reorganise the armed factions and bring them under state authority.



Riyadh wants a success story in the parts of Yemen controlled by the internationally recognized government that it backs, which is in exile from the Houthi-controlled capital Sanaa, the officials said.