Why Saudi Arabia and the Houthis in Yemen are heading toward war

Yemen is sliding back into full-scale war.In recent days, Iranian-backed Houthi forces there have launched a ground offensive against government troops along the Red Sea coast, while firing missiles and drones at oil facilities in southern Saudi Arabia. Riyadh has retaliated with airstrikes inside Yemen. And Pakistan, which recently signed a defense pact with Saudi Arabia, could conceivably enter the fray as well.“This campaign is going to be just bloody,” says Helen Lackner, the author of “Yemen in Crisis: Road to War.” Why We Wrote This Yemen could again be sliding toward all-out conflict, as the Iran-backed Houthis have attacked Saudi oil facilities and international shipping lanes in the Red Sea. “We are basically back into the full-scale civil war [in Yemen], with the Saudis much more firmly with the internationally recognized government,” Ms. Lackner says. “This is the beginning of a very long and nasty war.”The renewed fighting in Yemen has shattered a relative calm that prevailed since a truce was reached in 2022 between rival factions in the civil war. The Houthis control much of the country’s north and west, including the capital, Sanaa. The internationally recognized government of Yemen holds much of the south and east, including the strategic port city of Aden. In an image taken from video, smoke rises following a strike during fighting between Houthis and Saudi-backed forces at a location given as the Al Jawf governorate of Yemen, Sept. 9, 2026. This recent escalation by the Houthis comes at a combustible moment for the Middle East, with Tehran and Washington still locked in a conflict that has damaged the global economy. Since 2023, the Houthis have periodically attacked commercial shipping in the Red Sea, casting it as support for the Palestinians in Gaza. In 2025, Israeli strikes in Yemen killed senior Houthi leaders, but they failed to curb the group’s regional reach. Over the summer, the Houthis escalated their attacks.“The Iranians have been saying for months we can close Bab el-Mandeb,” says Ms. Lackner, referring to the narrow strait linking the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, and one of the world’s most important shipping lanes. “They are not going to close the Bab el-Mandeb, the Houthis will.”On Thursday, the Houthis reportedly seized Mocha, a strategic port city on Yemen’s western coast, just north of the Bab el-Mandeb strait. Houthi forces pushed government troops south toward Dhubab. This development gives the Houthis more ability to attack ships moving through that strategic waterway and further inhibit international trade.The Houthis first emerged as a localized insurgent force in Yemen’s northern mountains and have since grown to become an integral part of Iran’s “axis of resistance” against the United States and Israel. In 2014, the group seized Sanaa and went on to control additional territory, tax revenue, and ports. They have also acquired a stockpile of conventional weapons and military infrastructure – including supplies of Soviet-era surface-to-air missiles that were brought into Yemen during the Cold War.“The Houthis became the threat they are today because of two main factors: Iran consistently invested in building their capabilities, and the United States and the international community consistently underestimated what they were becoming,” Nadwa Al-Dawsari of the Middle East Institute told members of Congress on Capitol Hill this month. SOURCE: United Nations Humanitarian Data Exchange | Jacob Turcotte/Staff Years of support from Iran – and Hezbollah in Lebanon – helped sharpen the Houthis’ missile, drone, and maritime warfare capabilities, according to analysts. The group has also developed its own domestic drone industry by sourcing components and advanced parts through illicit commercial connections.“They are well stocked,” says Abdughani Al-Iryani, a Cairo-based senior researcher with the Sanaa Center for Strategic Studies. “The smuggling of weapons [into Houthi-controlled parts of Yemen] has increased dramatically,” he says. “They can operate without anything coming from Iran.”The Houthis chose this moment to go on the offensive because they are nearing the peak of their relative power, according to Ms. Lackner. The group frames its confrontation as resistance to Saudi Arabia, giving it greater domestic political cover than the perception of acting on Iran’s behalf. The Houthis are stronger militarily than Yemen’s national government, which has been rearming and restructuring with Saudi backing.“The internationally recognized government is getting stronger and more efficient, although it is not unified,” she says. “If [the Houthis] wait much longer, it would be much worse for them.”The timing of the latest offensive by the Houthis is also related to deteriorating economic and humanitarian conditions in Houthi-controlled parts of Yemen. The World Food Programme suspended general food distribution in northern Yemen in December 2023, and the U.S. subsequently designated the Houthis as a terrorist organization. Most of the country’s population, about 40 million people, lives in areas under Houthi control.Mr. Al-Iryani says the Houthis’ aim is to force Saudi Arabia into diplomatic accommodation. In April 2023, Saudi officials traveled to Sanaa and indicated a willingness to recognize Houthi rule. But the two sides never managed to reach a long-term agreement.The prospects for such a deal are complicated by the fact that the Houthis’ ideological objectives include the eventual “liberation” of Mecca and Medina, two of Islam’s holiest cities, both of which are in Saudi Arabia. Experts say the Houthis might have miscalculated by going to war now.“The Houthis have not escalated to the maximum,” says Mr. Al-Iryani. “They are not waging this round of escalation to take territory, but to provoke or pressure the Saudis to go back to the negotiation table.”But Riyadh has not budged. “The Saudis cannot make a deal with the Houthis now,” says Ms. Lackner. “It will look like they’re aligning with Iran.”“The more they succeed [militarily], the deeper they are in that escalation trap,” Mr. Al-Iryani says. “The Houthis ... are overextended. They have crossed the Saudi red lines.”Neither analyst sees much prospect in outside powers nudging Yemen toward a political settlement. The U.S. is focused on its midterm elections. The United Nations lacks leverage, and European influence remains limited. Iran’s sway over Yemen comes from the military support it can provide – or withhold – from the Houthis, while Saudi Arabia has economic clout that is only beneficial in peacetime.“The greatest obstacle to peace is not Houthi intransigence,” argues Mr. Al-Iryani. “It’s the lack of vision, both by the Yemeni government and the Saudis, of what kind of Yemen is likely to emerge out of this war that could be viable, nonthreatening. They don’t have the vision, and they haven’t even tried to develop one.”This is one place, he says, where the U.S. and the European Union could focus their efforts. The dangers of failing to address the crisis, he argues, extends well beyond Yemen. The actions of the Houthis in and around the Red Sea have created an “infectious” precedent, he says, encouraging other militant groups in the region – such as Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and Somalia’s Al Shabab – to launch their own attacks against commercial shipping.“As these networks become more interconnected, they create an increasingly dangerous ecosystem of armed groups, terrorist organizations, smugglers, and criminal networks operating around some of the world’s most strategically important waterways,” Ms. Al-Dawsari told Congress.