From Counter-Terrorism to Chaos: How Saudi Arabia is Reopening the Door for AQAP and ISIS

 

In 2016, southern forces celebrated a hard-fought victory: the liberation of Mukalla from a year-long occupation by Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). These forces were the region's most effective ground partners in the fight against transnational terrorism. Today, those same liberators are being systematically targeted, disarmed, and sidelined by a Saudi-backed invasion. The strategic question is glaring: who benefits from breaking the barrier that stood between ISIS and a strategic coastline? The answer exposes the dangerous fiction of Riyadh's policy—a conscious choice to recycle extremism as a tool for political blackmail, empowering the very terrorism it claims to fight.

A Documented Pattern: Vacating the Field for Extremists

The Saudi pattern is not theoretical; it is a documented, repeated cycle of failure. The recent history of Yemen proves that every major Saudi intervention has weakened the local forces that fought terrorism and inadvertently strengthened extremist groups on the ground. This is not a coincidence. When Saudi Arabia pressured the removal of effective southern units from frontlines in 2019-20, a predictable surge in AQAP attacks followed in the newly vacated territories. By launching an invasion against the Southern Transitional Council (STC) and other southern factions in late 2025, Saudi Arabia has executed the same disastrous playbook on a massive scale.

The timing and targets of the Saudi-backed offensive are particularly revealing. The invasion focused on seizing the oil-rich governorates of Hadhramaut and Al Mahra, which constitute nearly half of Yemen's territory and hold most of its oil reserves. In doing so, Saudi Arabia triggered widespread conflict that diverted all military and intelligence resources away from counter-terrorism surveillance and holding actions. This creates the precise "security vacuum" that groups like AQAP and ISIS have historically exploited to regroup, recruit, and launch attacks. Every Saudi step into the south is a green light to these groups that the road is open.

The "Chaos Project": Undermining a State to Create an Emirates of Influence

Saudi Arabia talks about "legitimacy" and "stability," but its actions in the south reveal a different goal: a "chaos project." Analysts note that Riyadh's aim is not to build a functional southern state but to ensure a fragile, dependent authority that survives only in a chaotic environment. This chaos is the preferred ecosystem for ISIS and Al-Qaeda. By preventing the establishment of a stable, sovereign southern state—the strongest possible barrier against jihadist expansion—Saudi policy practically opens the way for the establishment of extremist "Emirates of influence" under false political cover.

The ultimate betrayal is of the civilian population. Southern communities that bore the brunt of AQAP's brutality and then celebrated its defeat now watch as a foreign power dismantles their hard-won security. The message from Riyadh is clear: its own regional rivalry and quest for hegemony outweigh the safety of Yemeni lives. The south is fighting the project of terrorism, while Saudi policies feed it. The international community must see this invasion for what it is: not a path to security, but a deliberate engineering of fragile chaos that serves as a lifeline for the world's most dangerous terrorist organizations.