Updated 5 October 2026. This story is moving fast, so check the linked sources for the latest.
Houthis vs Saudi Arabia is no longer a distant, forgotten war. This week, Yemeni government forces backed by Saudi air power launched a counteroffensive to take back Houthi-held ground. The Houthis answered with missiles and drones aimed at Saudi energy sites, and oil prices climbed.
If you have been trying to understand how a conflict in one of the world’s poorest countries ended up shaking oil markets and shipping lanes, this guide walks you through it in plain language.
Yemen is one of the poorest countries in the Middle East, yet its position makes it important. It sits at the southern end of the Red Sea, beside one of the busiest shipping lanes on Earth. Its northern neighbor is the world’s largest oil exporter.
The war started as a fight over who would run Yemen. Over time, it became a regional contest between Iran and Saudi Arabia and then a problem for global trade.
The recent timeline shows how fast things changed:
| When | What happened |
|---|---|
| 2014 | Houthis take Sanaa |
| 2015 | Saudi-led coalition intervenes |
| 2022 | UN-brokered truce reduces fighting |
| Late 2023 | Houthis begin attacking Red Sea shipping after the Gaza war starts |
| July 2026 | Houthis declare a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia and begin firing at Saudi targets |
| September 2026 | Houthis seize parts of Yemen’s Red Sea coast near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait |
| 4 October 2026 | Yemeni government forces, backed by Saudi air power, launch a counteroffensive |
To see how this happened, we have to start with who the Houthis are.
The Houthis call themselves Ansar Allah, meaning “Supporters of God.” The name “Houthi” comes from the al-Houthi family, whose members lead the movement.
They come from Saada, a mountainous province in northern Yemen on the Saudi border. Most follow Zaydism, a branch of Shia Islam. Zaydis ruled the north for about a thousand years until a revolution in 1962 ended the imamate. Many felt pushed aside afterward.
The modern movement took shape in the 1990s as a religious and cultural revival group. Its leader, Hussein al-Houthi, criticized the Yemeni government’s closeness to the United States and the spread of Saudi-backed Salafi teaching in Zaydi areas. Yemeni forces killed him in 2004, and the group turned into an armed rebellion. Between 2004 and 2010, the government and the Houthis fought six rounds of war in Saada. Hussein’s brother, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, took over and still leads the group.
Those wars turned a small revival movement into a hardened force. It learned guerrilla tactics, built local loyalty and developed deep grievances against both Sanaa and Riyadh.
One point matters for everything that follows: the Houthis are not a foreign creation. They grew out of Yemen’s own politics.
For much of the 20th century, Yemen was two countries. North Yemen became a republic after 1962. South Yemen was a Marxist state that emerged from British rule around Aden. They united in 1990, but the union was uneasy. A short civil war in 1994 ended with a northern victory, and many southerners have felt sidelined ever since.
The man who held the united state together was Ali Abdullah Saleh. He ruled North Yemen from 1978 and the whole country after unification, balancing tribes, army units and foreign backers. He also fought the Houthis in Saada, with Saudi support.
Then came the 2011 Arab Spring. Mass protests demanded that Saleh go, and after months of unrest, a Gulf-backed deal moved power to his deputy, Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi. The plan called for a national dialogue and a new constitution.
It failed. Hadi was weak, the economy was struggling, the army was split and Saleh still had loyal commanders. The Houthis joined the dialogue but rejected its outcome, especially a plan to divide Yemen into federal regions that would have left them without a Red Sea coast.
In 2014, the Houthis moved out of Saada. They used public anger over fuel price rises to win support and marched south. In September 2014 they entered Sanaa with little resistance.
The reason was a surprise alliance. Saleh, the man they had fought for years, backed them, and his loyalists in the army opened doors that might have stayed shut. He wanted revenge on those who had pushed him out. The partnership did not last, and the Houthis killed Saleh in December 2017 after he began to break away.
By early 2015, Hadi had been placed under house arrest, escaped to Aden and then fled to Saudi Arabia. In March 2015, as Houthi forces advanced toward Aden, Saudi Arabia launched a military campaign with a coalition of Arab states, with logistics and intelligence support from the United States. The stated goal was to restore Hadi’s internationally recognized government. A UN Security Council resolution in April 2015 backed that political aim and imposed an arms embargo on the Houthi side.
Riyadh reportedly expected a short campaign. It became a war that has lasted more than a decade.
The short answer is security. Saudi Arabia shares a long, rugged border with Yemen, and the provinces of Jizan, Najran and Asir are within easy range of weapons the Houthis possess.
Riyadh’s concerns fall into four groups:
The Houthis see it differently. They call the coalition’s actions “aggression,” point to years of airstrikes and a blockade of their ports, and argue that Yemen’s decisions should be made in Yemen.
Both sides have a case, and both have done things that international observers have criticized. Coalition airstrikes have hit markets, weddings and hospitals. Houthi forces have laid landmines, shelled cities and detained critics.
The latest phase has moved the war back toward Saudi territory. The Houthis have fired ballistic missiles and drones at multiple targets in Saudi Arabia since late July, including industrial and energy infrastructure. In late September, Saudi Arabia said it intercepted six ballistic missiles fired toward Taif and Yanbu and reported no damage to Aramco sites. The Saudi-led coalition also said the Houthis attacked a power station in Medina, a city that hosts one of Islam’s holiest sites.
Over the weekend of 3–4 October, the Houthis claimed an attack on an Aramco facility in Riyadh. A coalition spokesman called that claim “misleading.” Treat competing claims with care until they are independently confirmed.
This is the most argued-over question in the whole story.
Iran does support the Houthis. UN experts and Western navies have intercepted weapons shipments over the years, including missile parts, drone components and anti-ship weapons. Iran has also provided training and technical help. Tehran has often denied direct arms transfers, but technical evidence points strongly to Iranian origin for many components.
Iran gains a lot at low cost. A friendly armed group on Saudi Arabia’s southern border and beside the Red Sea gives Tehran leverage over its main Gulf rival. It forces Riyadh to spend money and attention on defense. It also gives Iran a way to pressure global shipping without using its own navy.
For Saudi Arabia, the worry is simple. If a group with Iranian weapons controls Yemen’s coast and can strike Saudi oil facilities, the kingdom’s economic lifeline is exposed. The 2019 attack on Saudi oil facilities at Abqaiq showed how damaging such strikes can be. The Houthis claimed it, while the US and Saudi Arabia blamed Iran, which denied involvement.
But “Iran controls the Houthis” is too simple. Most analysts describe an alliance of shared interests, not a chain of command. The Houthis have their own leadership and goals, and they were fighting in Saada years before Iran gave them serious help. They sometimes act against Iranian advice.
The accurate picture is this: Iran is a major supplier and strategic partner, and the Houthis are a Yemeni movement with their own aims.
Yemen is one arena in a much larger contest. Iran and Saudi Arabia are the two biggest powers in the Gulf, and they have competed for influence since Iran’s 1979 revolution.
The Sunni-Shia divide is part of the story, but only part. Iran is mostly Shia, and Saudi Arabia is Sunni and hosts Islam’s holiest sites. Yet the rivalry is also about power, security and money. Zaydis differ from Iran’s Twelver Shias in belief and practice, and Sunni and Shia communities lived side by side in Yemen for centuries.
The competition shows up in several places:
Yemen is different in one way. It sits directly on the Saudi border and beside a critical sea route, which makes the stakes far more personal for Riyadh.
The two states tried to cool tensions. In 2023, China helped broker a deal that restored their diplomatic ties. But the war involving Iran this year has put that thaw under heavy strain. Tension between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia has grown since the US-Israeli war on Iran began at the end of February.
Alliances in Yemen have shifted often, so no fixed list tells the whole story. Here is where things stand now.
The Houthis are backed by Iran, which supplies weapons and expertise. They also rely on their own local support base and on taxes and trade in the areas they hold.
Yemen’s internationally recognized government, led by the PLC, is backed mainly by Saudi Arabia. The PLC is not one united group, since it contains factions with different agendas.
Saudi Arabia leads the anti-Houthi camp, providing airpower, money and political cover.
The UAE was once Saudi Arabia’s most important coalition partner. It withdrew most of its forces in 2020, and the rest left in January 2026. The anti-Houthi side has also been split by a dispute with the separatist Southern Transitional Council (STC), which has since dissolved. The episode showed how fragile the anti-Houthi camp is.
The US and Western states have played several roles. Washington backed the coalition with intelligence and refueling in the early years, later supported UN peace efforts and, since 2023, has led military action against Houthi attacks at sea. Despite Saudi pleas, the US is not taking part in direct combat against the Houthis for now. Riyadh is meanwhile widening its circle of partners: Türkiye, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have moved to formalize a defense alliance, and officials from the three countries were set to meet in Riyadh on Monday.
The Houthis want to keep control of northern Yemen, including Sanaa. They want the blockade of their ports and airport lifted, a share in any future national government and foreign forces out of Yemen. They also want to be seen as a serious regional actor, not a rebel movement.
Saudi Arabia wants a quiet border and safe oil facilities. It wants a stable Yemen with no armed group holding a permanent threat over Saudi cities. It also wants to avoid an open-ended war and a repeat of the criticism it faced over civilian deaths.
Yemen’s government wants to return to Sanaa, but it has lacked the strength to do so alone, and its members disagree over the future of the south.
The regional picture is about influence. If the Houthis emerge strong and independent, Gulf states will rethink their defense. If they are weakened, Iran loses a valuable card.
To understand the global side of this story, look at a map.
The Red Sea is a long, narrow sea between Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. At its northern end, it connects to the Mediterranean through the Suez Canal. At its southern end, it opens to the Indian Ocean through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a gap only about 30 kilometers wide at its narrowest. The name means “Gate of Tears” in Arabic. Beyond it lies the Gulf of Aden, which leads to open sea.
Before the recent crises, roughly 12 percent of global trade and about a third of container traffic passed through this route. It is the shortest sea link between Asia and Europe. Ships that avoid it must sail around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope, which adds about 10 to 14 days.
The route also matters for energy. Saudi Arabia has a pipeline that carries crude oil across the country to Yanbu on the Red Sea coast, which lets it export without using the Strait of Hormuz. When Hormuz is under threat, the Red Sea becomes even more valuable, and so does the Bab el-Mandeb gateway to it.
Whoever can threaten Bab el-Mandeb holds a lever over world trade. That is why one of the main goals of the counteroffensive launched on 4 October is to regain control of the strait. In September, the Houthis captured Mocha, Dhubab and Perim Island, giving them command of Yemen’s west coast and the strait.
There are two phases to understand.
Phase one (from November 2023). After the Gaza war began in October 2023, the Houthis said they would target ships linked to Israel until the war stopped. They seized the vehicle carrier Galaxy Leader in November 2023, then began firing missiles and drones at merchant ships. Many vessels hit had weak or outdated links to Israel, or none. The Rubymar sank in 2024, and the Magic Seas and Eternity C were lost in 2025. The US and UK carried out strikes on Houthi targets, the US launched Operation Prosperity Guardian and the EU started its Aspides naval mission. Attacks largely eased after a Gaza ceasefire in late 2025.
Phase two (2026). The picture changed after the US-Israeli war with Iran began. In July, the Houthis declared a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia. They have said they do not plan to disrupt Red Sea trade in general, but that Saudi-linked vessels are targets. That makes this crisis different from 2023 and 2024.
The danger at sea has not gone away. On 4 October, UKMTO reported multiple explosions near a tanker off the Yemeni coast. The Saudi-led coalition also accuses the Houthis of targeting commercial vessels in the southern Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.
One caution is useful. Houthi statements are political messages. Independent evidence comes from ship operators, navies and monitoring bodies such as UKMTO. When the Houthis claim a strike and nobody else confirms it, treat it as a claim until it is checked.
The effects reach far beyond Yemen.
Longer routes. When ships avoid the Red Sea, they add thousands of nautical miles around Africa. That means more fuel, more days at sea and higher crew costs.
Higher freight and insurance. Insurers charge “war risk” premiums for dangerous waters, and carriers add surcharges. Those costs move down the chain to importers and eventually to shoppers.
Supply chain strain. Longer voyages put ships out of position and bunch up arrivals at ports. Delays hit manufacturers that depend on parts arriving on schedule.
Energy markets. A threat to Saudi oil leaving from Yanbu matters more while Hormuz is disrupted. Markets are reacting: oil prices climbed on 4 October after a Houthi missile attack on Saudi facilities.
Impact on Europe and Asia. European ports and retailers depend on Asian goods that normally arrive through Suez. Asian exporters face slower deliveries and higher costs. Egypt loses Suez Canal income when traffic falls.
The lesson is that a small armed group with relatively cheap weapons can impose large costs on the world economy. That is a new kind of problem for navies, which were not built to stop cheap drones and missiles.
India sits in the middle of these trade routes. A large share of its exports to Europe, North Africa and the US East Coast goes through the Red Sea and Suez, including machinery, textiles, chemicals, rice and pharmaceuticals.
Shipping costs. When ships reroute around Africa, freight rates rise. Exporters, especially smaller ones with thin margins, feel it first. Importers pay more for goods and materials.
Energy. India imports most of its crude oil, much of it from the Gulf and Russia. Disruption at Hormuz or the Red Sea affects both supply and price, and India’s fuel bill is sensitive to each.
Seafarers and ships. Indian sailors make up a large share of the world’s merchant crews, so they are often on ships that pass through dangerous waters. The Indian Navy has stepped up patrols in the Arabian Sea and Gulf of Aden. In December 2023, the merchant ship Chem Pluto was hit by a drone off the Indian coast, which the US linked to Iran.
For India, the Red Sea is not a distant story. It affects prices, jobs and national security.
Behind the maps and missiles, the people of Yemen have paid the highest price.
The UN estimated that the war had caused about 377,000 deaths by the end of 2021, with roughly 60 percent from indirect causes such as hunger and disease. Millions have been displaced. Before the current escalation, about two-thirds of the population needed some form of aid. The UN OCHA Yemen page tracks the latest figures.
Food insecurity is a constant threat. Yemen imports most of its food, and disruption to ports and roads quickly raises prices. Hospitals face shortages of fuel, medicine and staff, and cholera has hit the country several times. Roads, water systems and power lines have been damaged in many regions.
The new fighting adds to this. Reporting from NPR says Houthi gains in the west have displaced more than 100,000 people at a time of severe funding shortages. Photos from Sanaa on 3 October show debris scattered in a hospital after an airstrike on a nearby building. Casualty figures from both sides, including a government claim that about 700 Houthi fighters were killed in 24 hours, are unverified.
Both sides, and the outside powers that back them, bear some responsibility for this suffering.
For a while, peace looked possible.
In April 2022, a UN-brokered truce brought a real drop in violence. It formally expired that October but largely held in practice for years. Saudi Arabia and the Houthis held direct and Oman-mediated talks, and in late 2023 the UN announced that the parties had committed to a roadmap. It covered opening Sanaa airport and Houthi-held ports, paying public salaries, reconstruction and a timeline for foreign forces to leave.
The roadmap never became a deal. Talks stalled after the Red Sea attacks began and the regional war widened. The UN Special Envoy warned in August 2026 of a serious risk of a return to large-scale conflict. For now, the news is about battlefield moves, not diplomacy.
Why is a lasting settlement so hard to reach?
Even if Saudi Arabia and the Houthis reached an agreement, Yemen would still face deep problems.
Many armed groups. Besides the Houthis, there are tribal forces, Islamist groups, local militias and army units with different loyalties. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has used the chaos to survive.
Political divisions. The anti-Houthi camp has never been united, and the STC episode this year showed how fragile it is.
The southern question. Many southerners want autonomy or independence. Ignoring that demand keeps the country unstable.
Economic collapse. Yemen has rival central banks, effectively two currencies and public salaries that go unpaid. Without a working economy, armed groups offer some of the only steady income.
Foreign involvement. Each outside power has its own goals, and Yemenis often become tools in wider rivalries.
Local interests. Yemen is not one society with one voice. Regional identities, tribal ties and religious differences all matter, and any lasting settlement has to work at the local level.
Nobody can say for sure. It is more useful to think in scenarios.
Scenario one: talks resume. Pressure from regional and UN mediators could bring a new truce, perhaps built around ports, airports and border security. The old roadmap could return as a starting point. This would need both sides to see more benefit in calm than in fighting.
Scenario two: the offensive reshapes the front. One of the operation’s key aims is to regain control of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. If government forces make real gains, Houthi leverage over the Red Sea could shrink. If the push stalls, the Houthis, who are trying to encircle Taiz, could keep their coastal gains, and both sides would likely hit each other’s infrastructure harder.
Scenario three: the Red Sea stays tense. Even without a full war, threats to Saudi-linked ships could keep insurers and shippers cautious. A strong Houthi position at Bab el-Mandeb gives them long-term leverage.
Scenario four: outside involvement changes. The US, Saudi Arabia’s other partners or Iran could change their level of support. That could cool the war or widen it.
The most important factor may lie outside Yemen. If the wider war involving Iran cools, pressure on Yemen could ease. If it does not, Yemen is likely to stay a front line.
The chain of events is easy to state but hard to untangle. Yemen’s internal breakdown gave the Houthis room to rise. Their capture of Sanaa in 2014 led to the Saudi-led intervention in 2015. Iranian support turned a local rebel movement into a regional military force. The Gaza war and then the war with Iran pulled Yemen into wider conflicts, and the Houthis’ position on the Red Sea made those conflicts a matter for global trade.
That is why the Houthis vs Saudi Arabia framing, while useful, is incomplete. It leaves out Yemen’s own divisions, the Houthis’ independent goals, the southern question, Iran’s calculations, the interests of the US and other powers, and the ordinary Yemenis living through it. Any lasting answer will have to deal with all of these at once.
Want to keep following this story? Subscribe to the blog for updates as the situation develops. Tell us in the comments which part of the conflict you’d like explained next, and share this guide with someone trying to make sense of the headlines.
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Sources and further reading:
The Houthis, officially Ansar Allah, are a Zaydi Shia movement from Saada in northern Yemen. They grew from a religious revival group in the 1990s into an armed force that took the capital, Sanaa, in 2014 and now controls much of western and northern Yemen.
The Houthis oppose the Saudi-led intervention that began in 2015 and the blockade of their ports and airspace. Saudi Arabia fights them because it sees an armed, Iran-friendly group on its southern border as a security threat, and because it backs Yemen’s recognized government.
No, most analysts say. Iran supplies weapons, technology and training, but the Houthis have their own leadership and goals. The relationship is closer to a partnership than a chain of command.
Iran is their main outside backer. The Houthis also rely on their own local support base, territory, taxes and trade revenue in the areas they control.
Saudi Arabia intervened in March 2015 after the Houthis took Sanaa and pushed the internationally recognized government out. Riyadh aimed to restore that government and stop a hostile armed group from consolidating control next door.
Yemen shares a long border with the kingdom, and instability there can spill over. Its coastline also sits beside the Red Sea route that Saudi Arabia uses for oil exports.
It is a narrow waterway, about 30 kilometers wide at its tightest point, between Yemen and the Horn of Africa. It connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean.
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