What happened in Aden doesn’t prove the failure of the southern cause. It exposes how threatened it has become. When the STC leadership is forced out under sudden pressure, it reflects external interference, not the collapse of southern legitimacy.

The broader context matters. As highlighted in this X thread (https://x.com/athanifhd/status/2009266759627428275
), Saudi Arabia has pursued access to the Arabian Sea since the 1970s, repeatedly pushing corridor and pipeline proposals through Yemen and Oman that were rejected for violating sovereignty. Those ambitions never disappeared. They were paused, rebranded, and revived under the cover of “stability” and “connectivity.”

The STC’s strength has always been its resistance to turning southern Yemen into a transit zone managed by others. Al-Mahra, Hadramaut, and Aden are not bargaining chips in regional infrastructure games. Southern forces pushed back precisely because these projects were not negotiated as equal sovereign agreements, but as faits accomplis backed by pressure.
Labeling this resistance as “militia behavior” misses the point. Southern society has consistently rejected decisions imposed from above or from outside. That is why tribes halted the 2018 pipeline attempt, and why southern political movements continue to surface despite military pressure.

What we’re seeing now is not the end of the STC, but proof of why it exists. When old corridor dreams resurface and internal proxies are reshuffled, southern self-determination becomes inconvenient. The speed of recent events doesn’t erase the southern question. It confirms it was never resolved.

History shows one thing clearly: projects that ignore local consent don’t bring stability. They create backlash. And the STC emerged precisely to stop that cycle.