The conflict in Yemen intensified on Sunday (September 13, 2026), as government forces launched attacks against Iran-backed Houthi rebels along the Red Sea and Houthis fired into neighbouring Saudi Arabia, which supports Yemen’s government.

The Yemeni government vowed to send more forces to the Red Sea coast after conceding a “painful” defeat last week when Houthis captured the port city of Mokha and an island on the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a crucial shipping alternative to the Strait of Hormuz.

The escalation — especially Houthi attacks on Saudi oil infrastructure and its shipping in the Red Sea — adds pressure on global oil supplies and prices, and that could give Iran leverage in its war with the United States.

As Yemen risks descending into another civil war, the United Nations estimated that more than 80,000 people in the impoverished country have been displaced by the fighting since the start of September.

One woman said a mortar shell fell nearby as she fled in the middle of the night from the town of Khawkha in Hodeida province along the Red Sea, shortly before it was captured by Houthis.

“I saw with my own eyes cars and buses burning, and bodies of children and women were lying on the road in a horrific scene,” said the woman, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of concern for her and her family’s safety.

Saudi authorities sounded sirens Sunday afternoon (September 13, 2026) in the southern city of Abha and Khamis Mushait province, warning residents to take shelter from potential incoming fire. Both areas were repeatedly attacked by the Houthi in recent weeks.

The Houthis claimed to have used drones and missiles to target Saudi Arabia, including a military base just over the border with Yemen. Houthi military spokesperson Brig Gen Yahya Saree didn’t provide evidence or say when the attack occurred.

The Saudi civil defence overnight said a projectile fell in a different area near the border with Yemen along the Red Sea, injuring two people and damaging a mosque and several other buildings. The statement blamed the Houthis.

Saudi Arabia did not announce any new attacks targeting the Houthis.

The Houthis are targeting Saudi oil infrastructure and shipping as part of a recently declared blockade. While the Houthis have said they do not intend to threaten other countries’ commercial shipping, markets remain wary and oil prices have risen again.

The National Resistance, a government-allied force that had controlled coastal areas, said more than 500 government fighters were killed on the west coast over the past four weeks — its first comprehensive toll. It said about 1,500 others had been wounded in the fighting since Aug 9.

Its statement said more than 1,000 Houthis had been killed in Hodeida and Taiz provinces. A spokesman for the Houthis didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Yemen is home to over 40 million people who fear a return to the civil war that killed 150,000 and brought many others to the brink of famine in one of the world’s most sprawling humanitarian crises.

Yemen’s internationally recognised government and Saudi Arabia have been battling the Houthis for 12 years. A ceasefire that began in 2022 had mostly halted the fighting.

A senior government official in Yemen said its forces will return to the Red Sea coast and fight back. People fleeing the Houthi advance told The Associated Press they saw forces withdrawing and urging people to run.

Sultan al-Arada, a member of the ruling presidential council, described the collapse of government forces in the port city of Mokha and elsewhere on Yemen’s west coast as “painful and regrettable”.

Mr. Al-Arada said in the televised interview aired late Saturday (September 12, 2026) that forces “are currently regrouping and will return to the battle in one form or another.”

On Sunday (September 13, 2026), the Yemeni military said it launched airstrikes on Houthi positions in Mokha and the coastal town of Dhubab, and elsewhere in Taiz province.

The rebels also reported strikes by the Saudi-backed forces in the province as well as artillery shelling in the province of Saada, the Houthi stronghold on Yemen’s northern borders with Saudi Arabia.

The Houthis’ advance puts them just 32 km from the U.S. military base in Djibouti, on the other side of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. It’s the main US base in Africa and one of several foreign military bases in Djibouti, including those of China, France and Japan.

The small Horn of Africa nation is already seeing the arrival of displaced Yemenis making the perilous water crossing. More than 2,000 Yemenis have reached Djibouti, the International Organisation for Migration said.

Djibouti’s Economy and Finance Minister Ilyas M. Dawaleh, said on X that the country’s navy, coast guard and other specialised agencies were conducting rescue operations and providing emergency assistance.

“The displaced people are in a very bad condition,” said Ahmad al-Masawi, the director of the Al Salam camp in the southern port city of Aden, who appealed to international organisations for assistance.

“They left their homes quickly without any clothing or anything. They are crammed in camps, houses and even on roads.”

Published – September 14, 2026 03:33 am IST

On July 13, an Iranian civilian aircraft carrying a high-level Houthi delegation was heading towards Sana’a, Yemen’s capital. Under an unwritten understanding between the Houthis (or Ansar Allah), who control northern and northwestern Yemen, including Sana’a, and the country’s Saudi-backed government, planes seeking to land in Houthi-held territory were required to obtain prior approval. The Houthi delegation had left Yemen on July 3 on another Iranian aircraft to attend the funeral of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader who was assassinated by the U.S. and Israel on February 28 when they launched their war against Tehran.

Yemen’s Saudi-backed government had protested the Iranian plane transporting Houthi leaders, arguing it was a violation of Yemen’s sovereignty. It also opposed the delegation taking an Iranian plane back home, and instead offered to facilitate their return on a non-Iranian airline. The government’s main concern was that the flight could also be used to transport personnel of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and military equipment to Yemen. The Houthis, nevertheless, chose to return on a Mahan Air flight. To prevent the aircraft from landing, Saudi-backed forces bombed the runway of Sana’a airport, forcing the plane to land in Hodeidah. This was the trigger.

The Houthis, who took control of Sana’a in 2014, said the strike was a violation of a 2022 ceasefire. They responded by bombing Saudi energy infrastructure and launching an offensive in Hodeidah and Taiz governorates. They also imposed a naval blockade on Saudi vessels in the Red Sea. Within two months, the Houthis made dramatic territorial gains, seizing the entire Red Sea coastline of Yemen and taking the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, the narrow chokepoint connecting the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, under their control.

A revivalist movement

The roots of the Houthi movement can be traced to ‘Believing Youth’ (Muntada al-Shahab Al-Mu’min), a Zaydi revivalist group founded in Northern Yemen in the early 1990s. Hussein al-Houthi and his father, Badr al-Din al-Houthi, influential Zaydi clerics in northern Yemen, became the movement’s leading figures. Inspired by the Iranian revolution of 1979 and the rise of Hezbollah in southern Lebanon in the 1980s, Badr al-Din and his sons started building vast social and religious networks among the Zaydi Shias of Yemen, who make up roughly one-third of the Sunni-majority country’s population. While the Zaydis are seen as part of the Shia branch of Islam, both in terms of theology and practice, they are different from the ‘Twelver’ Shias of Iran, Iraq and Lebanon.

In 2004, Ali Abdullah Saleh’s government, upset with the growing popularity and rebellion of the Houthis, issued an arrest warrant against Hussein. He resisted the arrest, starting an insurgency. In September, government troops attacked the rebels and killed Hussein. But the movement he founded would only grow, forcing Saleh to step down in 2012 and capturing Sana’a from government forces in 2014.

Alarmed by the rise of an Iran-aligned Shia militia across its southern border, Saudi Arabia formed a coalition and declared war against the Houthis in 2015. An intense bombing campaign followed, but the Saudi-led coalition failed to dislodge the rebels, who built a parallel state in northern Yemen. In 2022, amid a broader rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia, the Houthis and Saudi-backed forces agreed to a ceasefire.

The Saudis also struggled to build a credible counterweight to the Houthis inside Yemen. The top leadership of the government was based in Saudi Arabia, while in the south, the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council broke with the government and pursued its own separatist agenda, further weakening the anti-Houthi camp. Broader tensions between Saudi Arabia and the UAE also complicated their war efforts in Yemen. But the Saudis still maintained an air and naval blockade on Houthi-held territory.

The ceasefire allowed the Houthis to consolidate their position in the north and northwest, despite economic woes. The parallel state, an ideologically committed base, years of warfare and sustained Iranian support enabled the group to transform itself into a formidable territorial army. Their access to the Red Sea, a key shipping route, raised their profile as a naval force. When Israel launched a devastating war on Palestinians in Gaza following Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack, Houthis “declared war” against Israel “in solidarity with the Palestinians”. They also carried out attacks on Israel-linked ships in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. In March 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump announced a major air and naval operation against the Houthis, threatening to destroy the group. Despite the enormous firepower brought against them, the Houthis continued launching missiles and drones at U.S. naval forces. Seven weeks later, Mr. Trump announced an end to the U.S. strikes following an Oman-mediated ceasefire.

After the U.S. and Israel launched the war on Iran on February 28, the Houthis, to the surprise of many, stayed out of the conflict. Iran retaliated by attacking American bases in the Persian Gulf and shutting down the Strait of Hormuz. The Houthis understood that Iran’s closure of the strait strengthened their strategic position: they had the capacity to disrupt maritime traffic through the Red Sea. They also wanted the Saudi blockade of their air space and ports lifted. In the first week of July, as a second round of bombings between Iran and the U.S. was unfolding, the Houthis decided to test Saudi Arabia’s resolve by sending a delegation to Iran on an Iranian plane. Saudi Arabia responded by bombing the runway at Sana’a airport as the delegation was returning, effectively breaking the ceasefire. Then the Houthis moved rapidly up the escalation ladder.

Renewed conflict brings Saudi Arabia under enormous pressure. After traffic through the Strait of Hormuz was disrupted by Iran, Riyadh increasingly relied on its Red Sea terminals to export crude oil. Saudi Arabia’s East-West Pipeline, connecting its oil fields in the east with the ports on the Red Sea, allowed the Kingdom to skirt the impact of the disruptions in Hormuz to a certain extent. But the Houthis, after the ceasefire broke down, directly targeted Saudi oil infrastructure, apparently in coordination with Iran-aligned Shia militants in Iraq. On September 11, Saudi Arabia announced that the pipeline was shut, following drone attacks from Iraq. In Yemen, in a lightning offensive launched in early September, the Houthis captured the port cities of Mokha and Dhubab and the Perim Island in the Bab el-Mandeb, extending their control along the coast and into the strait.

Two chokepoints

More than 20% of the world’s seaborne oil trade passed through the Strait of Hormuz before the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran. The Red Sea, which connects Asia and Europe through the Suez Canal in the north and Bab el-Mandeb in the south, typically carries roughly 12-15% of global trade. This means that Iran and Ansar Allah now have the ability to exert pressure on two of the world’s critical maritime chokepoints. The Houthi capture of more territories along the Red Sea, as government forces collapsed within days, has also given them a clear upper hand in the civil war and allowed them to consolidate their position inside Yemen.

On February 27, before the war, both the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait were open, and Iran was prepared to make concessions on its nuclear programme. On June 17, when the U.S. and Iran signed an MoU, committing Tehran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz in return for sanctions relief from the U.S. and a regional ceasefire involving Lebanon, the Bab el-Mandeb was still fully open. Today, maritime traffic through both the chokepoints is disrupted, any regional ceasefire will have to include Yemen, and any final settlement will have to address the Houthis’ demands, while Iran’s nuclear programme has been pushed to the back burner.

Published – September 13, 2026 01:27 am IST