Saudi-Backed Yemen Government Opens a New Offensive
Yemen’s Saudi-backed, internationally recognized government has launched a major military campaign against Houthi forces, escalating a conflict that had remained at a lower intensity since the 2022 UN-brokered truce. Presidential Leadership Council chief Rashad al-Alimi said the operation aims to retake Houthi-held territory after recent advances around Taiz and the Bab el-Mandeb strait.
Reuters reported that the campaign follows a Saudi-backed plan involving air support for Yemeni government forces and U.S. intelligence assistance. The Houthis, aligned with Iran, have meanwhile claimed missile and drone attacks on Saudi targets, including oil infrastructure. The fighting is therefore not an isolated Yemeni battle: it is tied directly to the wider regional confrontation over the Red Sea, Saudi security and the U.S.-Iran conflict.
Bab el-Mandeb is central to that struggle. The narrow strait links the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and sits on a major trade route between Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Europe. Houthi gains around the passage have increased their leverage over shipping, while Saudi-backed forces are trying to reverse those gains and restore control of the coast.
The humanitarian cost is already severe. The World Food Programme said on October 2 that nearly three out of four households in the government-held areas where it can monitor conditions are unable to meet their basic food needs. More than 152,000 people have been displaced in recent weeks, and Yemen remains exceptionally vulnerable because it imports around 90 percent of the food it consumes.
WFP also said fighting has cut humanitarian access to parts of Taiz and Hodeidah, preventing aid agencies from reaching about 350,000 people they previously served. Families arriving around Aden and Taiz have in some cases walked for days without enough food or water, many after being displaced repeatedly during more than a decade of war.
Al-Alimi has framed the offensive as an attempt to restore state control, while Houthi authorities describe Saudi-backed forces as foreign proxies. Those rival political claims do not alter the immediate reality: Yemen’s war is again being internationalized through Saudi military support, U.S. intelligence assistance and Iranian backing for the Houthis, while civilians carry the consequences.
A prolonged battle around Bab el-Mandeb would also extend the effects well beyond Yemen. Disruption around the chokepoint can raise shipping costs and compound pressure on food and fuel prices at the same time that Yemen’s own aid system is running short of money and stocks.
The offensive may change the military map quickly. It does not resolve the conditions produced by years of war: mass displacement, hunger, shattered infrastructure and a political order divided among armed forces with powerful external patrons. For Yemenis, another campaign presented as a route to reunification risks reproducing the destruction that made the country one of the world’s most severe humanitarian emergencies.
Comments