STC says it has taken Yemen’s Mahrah governorate

*Event date: 2025-12-04*

The Southern Transitional Council says it has taken control of Yemen’s Mahrah governorate, a border region on the country’s eastern edge, in a move that widens the separatist group’s reach and further complicates the anti-Houthi alliance.

Al-Araby Al-Jadeed reports in Arabic that STC forces took the province overnight without fighting after local military commanders handed over key sites. The report says the group assumed responsibility for guarding the presidential palace in Al-Ghaydah, the governorate capital, and the Nishtun port, as well as military headquarters and security checkpoints.

Mahrah matters because it is strategically positioned on the border with Oman and contains important roads, ports and crossings. The province has long been comparatively quiet compared with front-line areas in Yemen, so a takeover there represents a significant shift in the country’s military geography.

According to the report, the handover followed an agreement with local commanders, including the head of the Al-Ghaydah axis and the military police chief. The sources cited by the paper said the transfer of checkpoints and bases included the removal of soldiers from northern provinces, suggesting an explicitly political as well as military realignment.

The STC is formally part of the anti-Houthi bloc, but it wants an independent southern state. That makes any expansion of its control more than a battlefield story. It is also a statement about the future shape of Yemen. By taking Mahrah, the group would extend its influence beyond the south-western areas where it has usually been strongest.

The report says the local military leadership ordered that the STC’s incoming forces not be obstructed as they arrived from Hadhramaut. If accurate, that would indicate either acquiescence or a negotiated transfer rather than a conventional assault. It would also suggest that control over the province changed hands faster than many observers would have expected.

The article excerpt does not provide a reaction from the Yemeni government, Oman or the Houthis. It does, however, make clear that the move alters a border governorate with long coastlines and two crossings into Oman, giving the STC a stronger hold over a sensitive corridor.

For Yemen, the significance is cumulative. Another province changing hands shows that the conflict is still producing new internal boundaries even as the country remains divided between the Houthis, the recognised government and other armed actors. The STC’s statement is therefore not just about a province. It is about who gets to define the map of southern Yemen next.