Yemen launches major offensive against Houthis as regional tensions escalate

Yemen's government and its Saudi-led military partners launched a major offensive against Houthi-controlled territory on Monday, marking a sharp escalation in a conflict that had been frozen for four years. The operation came one day after Rashad al-Alimi, chief of Yemen's Presidential Council, declared an ambitious goal: to reclaim every area held by the Iran-backed rebel group. Government forces moved into Sanaa, the capital city long controlled by the Houthis, while the Saudi-led coalition struck targets in Hodeida on the Red Sea coast. Coalition officials announced they had destroyed weapons storage facilities, dismantled caches of booby-trapped boats and naval mines, and prevented what they described as a planned attack on shipping lanes in the southern Red Sea. Yemeni officials reported that allied forces had retaken Dhubab, a town positioned just north of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, one of the world's most critical shipping chokepoints.

The timing of the offensive followed a significant Houthi tactical gain. The day before the military push began, rebel fighters had seized a crucial road connecting Taiz, a major southwestern city, to Aden, which remains in government hands. The move effectively cut off Taiz from the south, deepening a siege that has strangled the city for more than a decade. Fighting around Taiz in the preceding hours had left more than seventy people dead, according to reporting from the Agence France-Presse news agency.

The Houthis responded to the government offensive with their own strikes. A military spokesman for the rebel group claimed that ballistic missiles and drones had hit King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia's capital, as well as an Aramco oil refinery in Rabigh on the Red Sea coast. The spokesman also said targets included military installations and smaller airports in the southern part of the country. Saudi authorities offered no immediate confirmation of the reported attacks.

The escalation has drawn in regional powers beyond the immediate combatants. Turkey and Pakistan announced on Monday that they would deploy military forces to Saudi Arabia under the terms of the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement, a collective defense pact the three nations had signed in August. The decision came after an emergency meeting in Riyadh. In a joint statement, the three countries condemned Houthi attacks on Mecca and Medina, Islam's two holiest cities, and pledged to provide "agreed military forces and capabilities" to be stationed in Saudi Arabia. The statement did not specify what form this deployment would take or what operational role the troops would assume.

The current fighting represents a return to open warfare after a period of relative quiet. A ceasefire agreement between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia, reached in 2022, collapsed in July when the rebels allowed an Iranian aircraft to land in Sanaa—a move that directly challenged Saudi control over Yemen's airspace. In response, the Houthis announced a maritime blockade against Saudi Arabia. Last month, they seized control of Yemen's Red Sea coastline and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait from government forces, even as al-Alimi appealed to the international community for support.

The Houthis have held Sanaa and much of Yemen's densely populated western regions since Yemen's civil war began in 2014. The current offensive represents the most serious attempt by the internationally recognized government to dislodge them in years. Whether the military push can achieve al-Alimi's stated objective of reclaiming all Houthi-held territory remains uncertain, but the involvement of Turkish and Pakistani forces signals that the conflict is drawing in actors well beyond Yemen's borders.