Yemen has been led to the dire situation it faces today due to the conflict of local and regional powers which have sought to control strategic areas in Yemen, thereby dismantling the country’s territorial integrity. Yemen’s strategic location holds high geopolitical value for regional and global powers. This has led to attempts to exploit its geopolitical value by dismantling its unity and subjugating parts of the territory to hegemonic projects. Yemen’s primary challenges are territorial division, societal fragmentation, economic structural destruction, and a governance vacuum, the combined effect of which has been state failure. Yemen is also passing through a dangerous phase that threatens the country’s territorial integrity.

Locally, the Southern Transitional Council (STC) seeks to establish an independent state in Southern Yemen, while the Shiite Houthi group in the North seeks to reshape Yemen’s map on sectarian grounds. Moreover, regional actors, namely the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), Iran, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) actively support local proxies in the conflict to pursue their own objectives. Consequently, local actors are engaged in hybrid warfare and are consumed in multiple conflicts in desperate attempts to redraw Yemen’s geopolitics.

This study demonstrates the complexity of the ongoing conflict in Yemen and examines how local and foreign rivals seek to dominate strategic areas of the country in their quest for influence and control. Such a conflict can affect the geopolitical significance of post-war Yemen. The study uses the descriptive-analytical method, as well as visual aids and maps to demonstrate the geography of the conflict.