Houthi officials reported that 94 aerial attacks were launched by Saudi forces against territory under the group's control within a single day, a figure released as the kingdom weighs a military operation intended to reduce the movement's capabilities and loosen its grip on commercial traffic passing through the Red Sea.

According to a statement from Saba news agency, aerial attacks landed across multiple locations in Yemen, among them Sanaa, Hodeidah, Saada, and Hajjah. According to the organisation, those strikes formed part of a broader aerial offensive being conducted by Saudi forces.

Unnamed sources with knowledge of the talks told a news outlet that the airstrikes are unfolding alongside preparations by Saudi Arabia to mount a ground operation aimed at recapturing territory from the Houthis and establishing firmer control over the Bab el-Mandeb strait.

Plans under review by Saudi authorities span a range of potential military approaches, from a narrower coastal operation targeting the Hodeidah area to a wider campaign unfolding across multiple fronts. Plans for the operation draw on an estimated force of more than 100,000 Yemeni personnel fighting alongside anti-Houthi factions, with aerial backing provided by Saudi Arabia.

Houthi fighters maintain territorial control across a wide portion of northern and western Yemen, a zone that encompasses Sanaa — the nation's capital — along with stretches of Red Sea coastline. Control of that coastal strip brings the surrounding waters of one of the world's busiest shipping lanes within operational range.

Sources who spoke on condition of anonymity to protect their ability to discuss security matters indicated that, although intelligence-sharing with Riyadh over its Yemen campaign is already underway from Washington and a number of regional and European partners are furnishing largely defensive military equipment to the kingdom, none of those allied nations are anticipated to take part in frontline combat.

In 2015, a coalition of Arab states led by Saudi Arabia deployed forces into Yemen to back the country's internationally recognised government, which Houthi forces had already expelled from the capital, Sanaa. The ceasefire arrangement reached by the opposing sides in 2022 remained broadly intact until this year, when Houthi forces directed missile and drone strikes at Saudi vessels and oil facilities in an extension of hostilities tied to the conflict involving Iran.

Reclaiming the coastal positions the Houthis had seized over the preceding weeks — Bab el-Mandeb among them — sits at the heart of what the planned Saudi offensive is meant to achieve, according to people with knowledge of the plans, a group that includes Gulf and Yemeni officials alongside Western diplomats.

Two potential courses of action are under consideration, according to Gulf and Yemeni officials — one centred on a contained operation near the Bab el-Mandeb strait, the other a wider campaign spanning several fronts simultaneously, with governorates including Al-Bayda, Marib, Taiz, and Al-Jawf all falling within its projected scope. Unnamed officials put the potential troop deployment at upwards of 100,000 Yemeni fighters, a figure that would vary depending on how broadly the operation is drawn.

Situated at the southern end of the Red Sea, Bab el-Mandeb forms a passage connecting that waterway to the Gulf of Aden — a corridor long central to trade flowing between the Mediterranean and Asia, and one that has drawn heightened attention this year as vessels have sought to avoid the Strait of Hormuz amid ongoing hostilities involving Iran.

According to Western diplomats and Gulf officials, Saudi Arabia has determined that fresh peace talks with the Houthi movement over Yemen are not viable so long as the group retains a hold over the Bab el-Mandeb strait — a chokepoint whose control carries considerable weight in international shipping and trade.

None of the six sources familiar with Saudi preparations could pin down a precise date for when the operation would begin, with their projections spanning anywhere from within days to sometime after the early-November US midterm elections. None of the parties contacted — including representatives of the Saudi and Yemeni governments, the Houthi group, and the US military — had returned comment on the reported Saudi plans by the time of publication.

Ratney — whose diplomatic posting in Riyadh preceded his current role — told reporters that any military operation he envisioned would be narrowly defined in scope, far more limited than the coalition offensive launched in 2015, with the stated aim of pushing back Houthi presence along the Bab el-Mandeb strait and returning that waterway to the conditions that existed before the conflict began, rather than dismantling the group altogether. He noted as context that Israel's sustained campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon over the past three years has left that organisation in a diminished state, elevating the Houthis within the constellation of Iran's regional allies.

Any offensive action attributed to Saudi Arabia would add another front of armed friction to a region already navigating the fallout from the Hamas-led attack on Israel in October 2023 and the subsequent military standoff involving the United States, Israel, and Iran.