Saudi-led coalition launches major air offensive against Houthis in Yemen

On Monday, a Saudi-led military coalition launched what it called Operation Dawn of Yemen, deploying 100 fighter jets in a coordinated assault against Houthi rebels across Yemen's Red Sea coast and inland toward the capital, Sana'a. The operation represented a significant escalation in a conflict that has ground on for years, with the coalition's spokesperson, Major General Turki al-Maliki, announcing that the air campaign had secured control over the Bab al-Mandab strait—one of the world's most critical shipping passages—and destroyed hundreds of targets belonging to the Iran-backed rebel group.

The air offensive did not occur in isolation. Ground forces aligned with Yemen's internationally recognized government, particularly a militia known as the Giants Brigades, launched a simultaneous push from the east, targeting coastal areas the Houthis had recently seized. Coalition officials claimed that hundreds of Houthi fighters had been trapped in the Dhubab district near the strait, with some reportedly fleeing across the Red Sea by boat. The government forces also said they had cut the road connecting the towns of Mocha and Dhubab, and that Houthis were abandoning Mocha, a city they had captured only weeks earlier. In Mocha itself, residents remained shuttered indoors as the fighting unfolded. Video footage appeared to corroborate some of these claims of Houthi withdrawal, though previous Saudi statements about territorial gains had often proved incomplete or overstated.

The timing of the offensive followed a public commitment from Rashad al-Alimi, president of the Saudi-backed government, who declared on Sunday that patience with the Houthis had exhausted itself. "Today we are embarking on a decisive phase in the history of our nation," he said. Beyond the coastal campaign, airstrikes also struck Sana'a and Saada, a Houthi stronghold in Yemen's north, targeting command centers, military camps, and weapons storage facilities.

What made this operation particularly significant was the coordination it required between two regional powers that had recently been at odds. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, both major players in Yemen's conflict, appeared to have reached a political understanding that allowed the UAE-backed Giants Brigades to work directly with Saudi air power. This represented a dramatic reversal. As recently as January, the Saudi air force had bombed UAE shipments of weapons intended for the same Southern Transitional Council forces now fighting alongside them. That bombing campaign had prompted the UAE to withdraw from Yemen entirely, triggered the sudden dissolution of the STC, and forced its leader, Aidarous al-Zubaidi, into exile. Now, just months later, the two countries were operating in tandem—a shift that almost certainly came with political concessions. The Giants Brigades, linked to the outlawed Southern Transitional Council, would almost certainly have demanded commitments about Yemen's future governance, particularly the status of the southern regions, in exchange for throwing their military weight behind the offensive.

The Houthis, who captured Sana'a in 2014 and have controlled much of Yemen's population centers since, rejected the coalition's account of events. Their officials denied reports of retreat and pointed instead to recent explosions at a Saudi Aramco oil facility in Riyadh as evidence that they retained the capacity to strike at Saudi infrastructure and, by extension, global energy supplies. They framed the offensive not as a turning point but as a continuation of a conflict in which they remained capable of inflicting damage.

The operation also reflected broader international involvement in Yemen's war. British fighter jets were providing aerial refueling support to the Saudi air force, a role the UK Ministry of Defence had already publicly acknowledged. Meanwhile, senior officials from Pakistan, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia were meeting in Riyadh to discuss what additional support Saudi Arabia might require to defend itself against Houthi attacks. The three nations had formed a joint defense pact, though the specifics of how it would function remained unclear.

The Bab al-Mandab strait, which the coalition claimed to have secured, sits at the southern entrance to the Red Sea and represents one of the world's most vital shipping chokepoints. Control over it carries enormous strategic weight, affecting global trade and energy flows. The coalition's assertion that it had established air protection over the strait suggested an attempt to prevent the Houthis from threatening commercial vessels passing through the waterway—a concern that had grown as the rebels expanded their territorial reach in recent weeks.