Al-Alimi announced a military campaign to recapture every Houthi-held area of Yemen, days after the Houthis claimed a missile and drone strike on an Aramco refinery in Riyadh.
Published 5 October 2026 · 06:00 GMT
ADEN — Yemen's Saudi-backed, internationally recognised government announced on Sunday that it was launching a major military campaign to recapture every area of the country held by the Houthis, the Iran-aligned movement that has controlled the capital Sanaa and most of the populous northwest since 2014. In a televised address, President Rashad al-Alimi said the armed forces would press the offensive “until the country is liberated from the grip of the terrorist militia,” and a military spokesman followed by calling on Houthi fighters to lay down their weapons. The declaration caps a week of vertiginous escalation: on Friday, Reuters reported that Saudi Arabia was planning its own assault to break the Houthis' Red Sea chokehold; on Saturday, the Houthis claimed a ballistic-missile and drone strike on an Aramco facility in Riyadh, where smoke and fire were seen rising near the refinery; and on Sunday, Yemen's armed forces said they were already conducting strikes against Houthi targets in Sanaa. What began as a shipping war in the Red Sea is becoming a land war for the whole of Yemen — the largest government offensive in years.
In his televised address from Aden on Sunday, al-Alimi — chairman of the Presidential Leadership Council, Yemen's internationally recognised government — framed the campaign as total: the armed forces would fight until the state had recovered every Houthi-held district. A military spokesman followed with a direct appeal to Houthi fighters to lay down their weapons. The decision, al-Alimi said, came after all chances of de-escalating the conflict had been exhausted, according to Reuters' account of the address.
The trigger was a month of Houthi gains. Last month the movement, formally known as Ansar Allah, launched a surprise offensive that captured the strategic Bab el-Mandeb strait and some 150 kilometres of Red Sea coast in weeks, giving the Houthis new leverage over one of the world's busiest shipping lanes. That advance opened a new front in the wider US-Israeli war launched in February against Iran, whose responses have included choking oil shipping through the Strait of Hormuz at the peninsula's other end. With both straits under pressure, shipping has no safe alternative route.
The Houthis seized a strait in weeks; the government answered with a war for the whole country. Between Bab el-Mandeb and Hormuz, the world economy is running out of safe water.
Two days before al-Alimi's address, Reuters reported that Saudi Arabia itself was planning an offensive against the Houthis — a coastal push to secure the Red Sea shipping route, or an assault on multiple fronts. The operation would be led by Yemeni ground forces, overseen by Riyadh and supported by Saudi air strikes, six people with knowledge of the preparations told Reuters. The United States is already providing intelligence, and some regional and European nations mainly defensive military aid; the allies are not expected to fight directly. Two options were described: a narrow attack around Bab el-Mandeb, or synchronized assaults in Al-Bayda, Marib, Taiz and Al-Jawf.
Saudi Arabia entered Yemen's civil war in 2015 at the head of an Arab coalition backing the recognised government the Houthis had driven from Sanaa. A 2022 truce largely held until this year, when the Houthis launched missile and drone attacks on Saudi shipping and oil infrastructure in a spillover from the Iran war. Across the decade the Houthis withstood attacks by Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Western allies, updating their weaponry with Iranian help — never dislodged from the capital or the populous northwest.
The newest escalation unfolded around Saudi oil infrastructure. On Saturday the Houthis said they had targeted an Aramco facility in Riyadh with ballistic missiles and drones, and later claimed a second strike in the Khurais area — retaliation, their military spokesman said, for what the group described as 50 Saudi-led air and missile strikes on Yemen in the previous 12 hours. A Reuters witness saw a large plume of smoke and fire near the Aramco facility on October 3. Saudi Arabia did not confirm that any facility had been hit; Aramco did not respond to requests for comment. The coalition's spokesman, Major-General Turki al-Malki, disputed the account as a bid to divert attention from Houthi losses. What is established is the Houthi claim and the visible fire — not a confirmed successful strike.
On Sunday, Yemen's armed forces said they were conducting strikes against Houthi targets in Sanaa, Reuters reported. Houthi-run media attributed the strikes on the capital and on Saada province to Saudi Arabia, and a Sanaa resident told Xinhua that warplanes could be heard overhead late Saturday as powerful blasts echoed across the city. Whether government aircraft or Saudi jets carried out the raids was itself contested — a preview of the fog the new campaign will move through.
The most consequential ground may be around Taiz, Yemen's third-largest city. According to the Institute for the Study of War, Houthi forces have captured multiple sections of the Taiz–Aden supply line — the road linking the front to the government's temporary capital — after attempts on September 23 and October 1; al-Alimi announced his counteroffensive after that seizure. ISW assessed the capture could open the way into Taiz City, threaten Aden, hand the Houthis a propaganda victory in a governorate long resistant to them, and strengthen their hand in peace talks. But ISW added a critical caveat: although the government announced an offensive across all fronts, no offensive action by government forces had yet been observed.
The campaign is being prepared inside a shifting alliance architecture. On October 2, Reuters reported that Pakistan said the members of the Mecca Pact — Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan — would hold emergency talks on engaging the Houthis. The pact is expected to reconvene in Riyadh next week: Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said Iran had proposed political outreach to the Houthis — no developed offer, only ideas among ministers — which the three partners will weigh against what Dar called “kinetic action.” Pakistan has delivered air-defense equipment, artillery and drones to Aden, Hollister reported; 30,000 to 40,000 Pakistani troops are said to be assigned to protect Saudi Arabia, though not committed to combat in Yemen. Washington provides reconnaissance, targeting information and military advice — but will not fight directly.
The strategic logic of the moment is written in water. Hormuz was the central route for Gulf oil and liquefied natural gas; Bab el-Mandeb connects the Indian Ocean to Europe through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal. If one passage comes under blockade pressure while the other falls under Houthi control, ships cannot simply divert: insurance, freight rates, refinery supplies and government reserves react to two uncertainties at once. Qatar is mediating over Hormuz, where Tehran has submitted a plan to Washington initially rejected by President Donald Trump. On October 1, Reuters reported Iran was readying harder retaliation if attacked. The Yemen war is becoming part of the US–Iranian conflict even if no Iranian soldier fights at Bab el-Mandeb.
Geopolitics. A proxy war is becoming a direct one. The Houthis are Iran-aligned; the government they fight is Saudi-backed, internationally recognised, and now mobilising for a campaign “until the country is liberated.” Washington supplies intelligence and targeting but not bombs; Pakistan, Turkey and France contribute equipment, advisers and defensive systems below the threshold of combat. The Mecca Pact is the coalition's new institutional shell — and its members already debate whether to fight the Houthis or talk to them, with Tehran itself floating the political track. Two wars now share one front line, from Hormuz to Bab el-Mandeb.
Macroeconomics. The Red Sea route carries roughly 12 percent of global seaborne trade; with Hormuz under pressure, the twin-strait squeeze hits insurance, freight and refinery supply at once. Houthi targeting of Aramco — Riyadh, Khurais, Yanbu — puts the world's most valuable oil company in the crosshairs. Monitoring data cited in regional reporting indicated Saudi refining and export operations continued normally after the Riyadh claim — but the risk premium on Gulf energy security is repricing by the day.
Demographics. Yemen's wars are fought over people as much as ports. Taiz, home to hundreds of thousands of civilians and thousands of government troops, sits at the hinge of the fighting; the Houthis have held Sanaa and the populous northwest since 2014. The UN World Food Programme reports intensified fighting displaced tens of thousands and disrupted supplies for millions, with three out of four households facing hunger in some areas. A siege of Taiz would land on a population already exhausted by a decade of war.
Historical patterns. Saudi Arabia has been here before. It entered Yemen's war in 2015 promising to restore the recognised government; a decade of airpower and blockade later, the Houthis still hold the capital, their arsenal upgraded with Iranian help. The “liberation” of the whole country has been announced before — and never achieved. The new variable is the Red Sea: the strait gives the Houthis leverage they never held in 2015–2022, and gives Riyadh a motive it never had — an open shipping lane.
Structural and technological. The battlefield has changed shape. Ballistic missiles and one-way drones now reach Riyadh and Yanbu, answered by Saudi air defenses, French systems at Yanbu and American targeting data. Turkish drones operate over Yemen; Pakistani artillery and air defenses land in Aden. The Houthis have declared a naval blockade on Saudi shipping — a claim that, however enforced, forces every vessel in the strait to price in the risk. Satellite imagery now documents strikes within hours, compressing the information war into the tempo of the shooting one.
The honest ledger is that the campaign exists, for now, more as an announcement than as an observed operation. ISW's caution — announced across all fronts, observed nowhere yet — is the datum to watch: the coming days will show whether al-Alimi's address mobilises the 100,000-plus Yemeni fighters that sources have described, or remains a statement of intent. The Mecca Pact's Riyadh meeting will reveal whether the coalition's weight falls behind the military track or Tehran's proposed political outreach. Around Taiz, the supply line will decide whether the south holds or faces a siege of Yemen's third city. And above it all hangs the two-strait equation: every strike in Yemen raises the price of a deal with Iran — and every contested day raises the price of everything that moves by sea.
The Western reading treats this as the moment a proxy war turned direct: a Saudi-backed, internationally recognised government moving — with American intelligence, Pakistani equipment, Turkish drones and French air defenses behind it — to break an Iranian proxy's chokehold on one of the world's great shipping lanes. The Aramco strikes make the energy case personal: the world's most valuable oil company is now a frontline target, and every refinery fire is priced into the risk premium on Gulf crude.
It also carries a decade of skepticism. Saudi Arabia has announced the liberation of Yemen before — in 2015, with an Arab coalition and Western backing — and a decade of airpower never dislodged the Houthis from Sanaa. The Western press will watch two things: whether al-Alimi's announcement becomes the 100,000-strong campaign the sources describe, and whether Taiz becomes the siege that turns a military narrative into a humanitarian indictment.
The Eastern reading — Moscow and Beijing's — sees escalation as the failure of the political track and a direct threat to energy flows both depend on. Russia and China have no appetite for a war that chokes Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb at once: it reprices every barrel they buy or sell and every container that crosses Eurasia. From this angle, Tehran's proposed political outreach to the Houthis and the Mecca Pact's debate between “kinetic action” and negotiation are the story that matters — the off-ramp both capitals would prefer to an open Saudi–Houthi war.
It also reads the coalition's composition with suspicion: American targeting data, Pakistani artillery, Turkish drones and French air defenses assembling behind Riyadh look less like collective security than a Western-aligned military bloc forming around the Gulf's oil. The Eastern press will frame any Yemeni civilian toll as the predictable price of that bloc's war — and measure the campaign's legitimacy by whether the political track survives the week.
The Global South reading counts the cost in freight, not communiqués. For Egypt, India, East Africa and the importers of Asia, two contested straits mean higher insurance, higher freight rates and dearer food and fuel — a tax levied on the poorest economies by other people's wars. Egypt's Suez Canal revenues, already battered by the Red Sea crisis, face a new chapter of disruption. From this angle, the question is not who liberates Yemen but who pays for the shipping lane.
And the human ledger is Yemeni. Tens of thousands displaced, millions with disrupted supplies, three in four households facing hunger in some areas — the WFP's figures describe a population that has endured a decade of war and now faces its largest government offensive in years. The Southern press will ask the question the communiqués avoid: what does “liberation” mean for the civilians of Taiz?
Ansar Allah, an Iran-aligned movement that has held Yemen's capital Sanaa and most of the populous northwest since 2014. They have withstood a decade of attacks by Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Western allies, updating their weaponry with Iranian help, and were never dislodged from the territory they hold.
The strait linking the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden — the gateway between the Indian Ocean and Europe via the Suez Canal. The Houthis' seizure of it last month, paired with Iranian pressure on the Strait of Hormuz, means shipping has no safe alternative route: insurers, freight rates and refinery supplies react to both uncertainties at once.
An alliance of Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan that, according to Pakistan, will hold emergency talks in Riyadh on engaging the Houthis — weighing military options against a political outreach track that Iran has proposed. So far its members contribute intelligence, equipment and defensive aid below the threshold of direct combat.
They claim they did, with ballistic missiles and drones, and smoke and fire were documented near the facility on October 3. But Saudi Arabia and Aramco have not confirmed that any facility was hit, and the cause and extent of the fire remain unresolved. The coalition called the claim a diversion from Houthi losses.
It has been announced — al-Alimi declared it on October 4 and strikes were reported in Sanaa — but the Institute for the Study of War says it has not yet observed any offensive ground operations by government forces. The coming days will show whether the announcement becomes a campaign.
Dire and worsening. The UN World Food Programme has reported that intensified fighting displaced tens of thousands and disrupted supplies for millions, with three out of four households facing hunger in some areas. Fighting around Taiz threatens Yemen's third-largest city, home to hundreds of thousands of civilians.
