On July 20, the Houthis announced a naval blockade of Saudi Arabia. They called it retaliation for years of Saudi military action. Ten days later, Al Jazeera reported that Riyadh was assembling a coalition of its own to guard Red Sea shipping, and 43 of the 51 invited nations had sent representatives to the founding meeting.
The two sides in that confrontation have been at war, on and off, since 2015.
How it started
Houthi fighters took Sanaa in 2014. They stormed the presidential palace in January 2015, and President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi resigned and fled. In March 2015 Saudi Arabia answered with air strikes and economic isolation, backed by US logistics and intelligence, and in June it added a naval blockade meant to choke off Iranian weapons. The Council on Foreign Relations counts more than twenty-five thousand coalition air strikes and over nineteen thousand civilian casualties.
The Houthis, formally Ansar Allah, grew out of a Zaydi Shiite revival movement in northern Yemen in the late 1980s. They fought six uprisings against the government of Ali Abdullah Saleh between 2004 and 2010. Iran is their main foreign backer, though specialists doubt Tehran holds as much sway as the label implies.
A UN-brokered truce lapsed in October 2022, yet violence stayed low afterward. In April 2023, China mediated talks that led Saudi Arabia and Iran to restore diplomatic relations. Houthi officials visited Saudi Arabia that September. Nothing concrete came of it.
The Saudi side
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman began 2026 in a strong position after meeting President Donald Trump. By October 12, according to the Wall Street Journal, he was spending much of his time in fortified palaces. The Journal reported that the war was widening the kingdom’s budget deficit and could push the economy into contraction, putting the NEOM city project and tourism plans at risk.
He had pledged roughly $1 trillion in American investment. Washington still turned down his request for military help against the Houthis, though it sent military advisers. Riyadh went looking for air defense systems in Pakistan.
Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman met US officials around the time of the July announcement and reportedly told them the kingdom could “manage the situation with the Houthis in Yemen and does not need the US to get involved.”
What the Houthis showed
The AP reported on October 17 that Houthi missiles had repeatedly hit King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, with at least 19 people killed. A United Nations report estimated that the Houthis had recruited up to 350,000 fighters by 2024, up from 30,000 in 2015. Saudi Arabia owns advanced US-supplied missile defenses but is short of interceptors.
The Irish Times described the damage on October 12: a parked Airbus A320 destroyed, at least five other aircraft damaged, flights suspended. One strike on a Saturday killed 13 people. A Houthi political official said the group had turned down offers of a one-month truce and then a two-week truce.
The Red Sea itself emptied. Al Jazeera counted 11 vessels over one weekend in late July, compared with more than 70 ships a day before 2023. Brent crude hit $88.09 a barrel.
In Yemen, the toll was heavier. Al Jazeera reported on September 22 that the World Health Organization had recorded 674 people killed since August 6, and more than 18 million people, roughly half the population, already faced acute food shortages.
Sources
- Conflict in Yemen and the Red Sea / Yemen's Tragedy (Council on Foreign Relations, Global Conflict Tracker and backgrounder)
- Why is Saudi Arabia forming a coalition to protect the Red Sea? (Al Jazeera)
- Houthi strikes on Saudi Arabia show the Yemeni rebels' growing strength (AP via WTOP)
- Houthi attacks force Saudi Arabia to extend suspension of flights at Riyadh airport (Irish Times)
- Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman faces mounting pressure over Houthi conflict (reporting of The Wall Street Journal, carried by BGNES)
- Houthis battle for strategic heights in Yemen as thousands more flee homes (Al Jazeera)
