Yemen News Agency (SABA)

The Yemen News Agency, known as SABA, is Yemen’s official state news agency and, like Yemen TV, now exists in two rival versions produced by the country’s competing administrations. SABA traces its roots to 1970. After Yemeni unification on 22 May 1990, the unified Yemen News Agency was formed through the merger of the northern Saba News Agency and the southern Aden News Agency, and was headquartered in Sana’a.

After Houthi forces seized the Sana’a headquarters and state-media apparatus in January 2015, the agency split. One version operates from Sana’a under the Houthi authorities, while a parallel version operates under the internationally recognised government. Both maintain active websites and digital channels, publish in Arabic and foreign-language editions, and present competing accounts of the same events.

Media assets

News agency: SABA, Houthi and Sana’a version, operated from Sana’a under the Supreme Political Council and Houthi-controlled state apparatus; SABA, internationally recognised government version, operating under the Presidential Leadership Council from government-held and exile or diplomatic locations

Context: a divided state and a duplicated agency

Yemen’s civil war, which escalated in 2014-2015, fractured the country’s institutions, including its state media. The conflict is principally between the internationally recognised government, formerly led by President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi and since April 2022 represented by the Presidential Leadership Council, and the Houthi movement, Ansar Allah. In the absence of a single central authority, Yemen is governed by parallel administrations, and state institutions have been duplicated. SABA is one of the most emblematic cases: two agencies each claim to be the official national news service.

The Presidential Leadership Council, chaired by Rashad al-Alimi since 7 April 2022, is the internationally recognised government, based in the temporary capital Aden and backed by Saudi Arabia. During the cycle, it changed prime minister, with Shaya Mohsen Zindani appointed in January 2026, succeeding Salem bin Buraik, and a new government formed the following month. The change took place against the backdrop of a severe southern crisis involving the Southern Transitional Council and renewed tensions within the anti-Houthi camp.

The Houthi authorities, who control Sana’a and much of the densely populated north and west, govern through a Supreme Political Council under Mahdi al-Mashat, without international recognition. The United States redesignated Ansar Allah as a Foreign Terrorist Organization in March 2025, following a January 2025 executive order, while the broader regional confrontation further destabilised the environment.

Ownership and governance

Both versions of SABA are state news agencies, each owned and controlled by its respective administration. The Houthi authorities seized the original Sana’a headquarters and have since operated the agency from Sana’a as an institution embedded within the Supreme Political Council and Houthi governance framework. Its website and dispatches carry the language and priorities of the Sana’a authorities, including references to the Houthi “Revolution Leader,” the Supreme Political Council and the “US-Saudi-Emirati aggression.”

The internationally recognised government operates its parallel SABA through its own information apparatus, with dispatches carrying the official acts, diplomatic coverage and political positions of the Presidential Leadership Council and the government. During the cycle, the government-side SABA carried official coverage of the new prime minister, cabinet activity, foreign relations and economic recovery measures.

Each agency is governed and editorially directed by its controlling authority. Neither functions with editorial independence, and there is no independent regulator or statutory safeguard for editorial autonomy on either side of the divide.

Source of funding and budget

Neither version of SABA publishes financial statements, and precise figures are unavailable amid the collapse of unified state institutions and Yemen’s severe economic fragmentation. Each agency is sustained by its patron administration: the Sana’a version through the Houthi authorities’ control of state institutions, revenues and mobilisation structures, and the government-side version through the resources and external-support networks of the internationally recognised government. Both operate amid acute humanitarian, institutional and fiscal crisis.

Editorial independence

Neither version of SABA exercises editorial independence. Each functions as the official wire of its controlling authority, carrying that side’s account of the war, casualty figures, political developments and foreign relations while contesting the rival administration’s version.

The Sana’a agency aligns with the Houthi authorities, emphasising resistance against what it describes as foreign aggression, reinforcing the Supreme Political Council’s legitimacy and reflecting Houthi positions on the United States, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Palestine and Iran. Houthi-linked media and social accounts have also faced platform action during the conflict, reflecting the wider digital-information confrontation around the movement.

The government-side agency aligns with the internationally recognised government, carrying official communiques, cabinet and presidential coverage, diplomatic statements, development and economic-recovery material, and condemnations of Houthi actions.

The result is two parallel national wires producing competing headlines and contradictory interpretations of the same events, a function of Yemen’s institutional fragmentation. Yemen’s wider media environment remains severely damaged, with the shutdown, looting or repurposing of outlets, intimidation and detention of journalists, an extensive media brain drain and no independent oversight over either agency.

AI and digital policy

SMM found no evidence that either version of SABA has published a dedicated public AI governance or editorial-use policy as of mid-2026.

Both operate active websites and social or digital distribution as part of the competing information campaigns. The Houthi and Sana’a version publishes in Arabic and multiple foreign-language editions, while the government-side version maintains Arabic, English and French-language web services. However, SMM identified no public framework on either side governing the use of AI in editorial production, verification, attribution, synthetic-media labelling, content disclosure or human editorial oversight. This is consistent with the breakdown of institutional media governance across the country.

Classification rationale

Both versions of SABA are classified State-Controlled (SC), a classification maintained from prior SMM cycles. Each is owned, sustained and editorially directed by a governing authority: the Supreme Political Council and Houthi authorities on the Sana’a side, and the Presidential Leadership Council and internationally recognised government on the government side. Neither has an independent safeguard for editorial autonomy.

The existence of two rival agencies under the same name reflects the partition of Yemen’s state-media inheritance rather than any divergence in type. Both are direct instruments of their respective administrations, and both remain firmly within the SC category for the 2026 cycle.

June 2026