Saudi Arabia has been weighing military action against Houthi forces in Yemen, according to regional and Western officials who spoke with a news outlet. Plans under discussion range from a push along the coastline to consolidate control over Red Sea trade lanes to a coordinated operation across several fronts simultaneously.
Six sources with knowledge of the planning told reporters that ground forces operating under Riyadh's command would lead the push, with air support provided by Saudi Arabia, and that the operation was expected to get underway within the coming weeks. The sources spoke on condition of anonymity to protect discussions of security matters.
Those same sources noted that, although intelligence flows from the United States to support operations in Yemen and certain regional and European partners supply mainly defensive military equipment to Riyadh, none of those allied parties are anticipated to take part in direct combat roles.
A coalition of Arab states, led by Saudi Arabia, deployed forces into Yemen in 2015 to back the government holding international recognition — the same administration that Houthi fighters had forced out of the capital, Sanaa. The ceasefire arrangement reached by the opposing factions in 2022 remained broadly intact until Houthi forces began directing missile and drone strikes at shipping vessels and oil facilities linked to Saudi Arabia, a pattern of attacks connected to the broader conflict involving Iran.
Reversing territorial ground taken by Houthi forces along the coast — including their capture of the Bab el-Mandeb strait in the preceding weeks — stands as a central aim of the planned Saudi operation, according to Gulf and Yemeni officials and Western diplomats with knowledge of the plans.
Two potential courses of action are under consideration, according to Gulf and Yemeni officials: one confined to the territory surrounding Bab el-Mandeb, and another encompassing a wider set of coordinated operations spanning multiple fronts across Yemen, including the governorates of Al-Bayda, Marib, Taiz, and Al-Jawf. Unnamed officials indicated that the number of Yemeni fighters potentially drawn into the operation could reach upward of 100,000, with the final figure tied to how broadly the campaign is ultimately scaled.
None of the parties contacted — representatives of the Saudi and Yemeni governments, the Houthi group, or the US military — had returned comment on the reported Saudi plans by the time of publication.
Positioned at the southern end of the Red Sea, the Bab el-Mandeb strait serves as a passage linking the Mediterranean to Asian markets. That role has taken on added weight this year as vessels seek an alternative route following the disruption to traffic through the Strait of Hormuz amid the Iran conflict.
Diplomats from Western nations and a Gulf official indicated that Riyadh views renewed peace negotiations with the Houthis as unworkable for as long as the group maintains control over Bab el-Mandeb, a strategic waterway whose leverage over global shipping lanes strengthens the movement's position at any negotiating table.
None of the six people familiar with Saudi preparations were able to provide a precise timeframe for when the operation would begin, with estimates spanning anywhere from within days to sometime after early November's US midterm elections.
Ratney, who previously served as the US ambassador to Saudi Arabia, told reporters he anticipated any offensive would be narrowly targeted and considerably more limited in scale than the coalition-led campaign of 2015, which aimed to drive out the armed group. He added that while there was a desire to fully dislodge the Houthis from their positions, the more immediate goal would be restoring the pre-Houthi situation along the Bab el-Mandeb corridor, ideally through a contained operation to reclaim coastal territory and restore normal passage for maritime vessels — a priority shaped in part by the Houthis having grown into Iran's most consequential regional partner since Hezbollah's capabilities in Lebanon were substantially weakened over the preceding three years.
Carried out under Saudi direction, such an operation would add another layer of armed friction to a region where stability has been under strain since the Hamas-led attack on Israel in October 2023 and the subsequent military confrontation between the United States, Israel, and Iran.
Advisers and intelligence gathered by the United States — including data used to identify targets — have been made available to back Saudi air operations in Yemen, a Western diplomat told reporters. Prior reporting from a broadcast outlet indicated that Trump chose not to authorise the direct military assistance — including air strikes — that Saudi Arabia's de facto leader, Mohammed bin Salman, had sought from him.
Military hardware supplied by Turkey and Pakistan — both parties to a joint defence agreement with Saudi Arabia concluded the previous month — has been deployed by the kingdom in its Yemen operations, according to Pakistani and regional officials. Four cargo aircraft carrying air defence systems, light artillery, drones, and anti-drone equipment were dispatched by Pakistan to Aden — where Yemen's Saudi-backed administration is based — over the preceding month, according to an official within the Pakistani government.
Three sources — two Pakistani officials and a Gulf diplomat — indicated that military advisers from Pakistan were deployed alongside Saudi counterparts in a ground-level advisory role supporting Yemeni forces. Unmanned aerial vehicles of Turkish manufacture, acquired by Saudi Arabia ahead of the outbreak of hostilities, have since been put to use in operations over Yemeni territory.
Protecting oil installations and other infrastructure from drone and missile strikes attributed to Houthi forces ranks among the priorities shaping any new military campaign, with regional officials indicating that Riyadh has approached a number of allied governments about bolstering its defensive capabilities. A Pakistani official with knowledge of the matter indicated that between 30,000 and 40,000 troops had been positioned in Saudi Arabia, where their roles encompass guarding land borders and intercepting drones and missiles — personnel who entered the country in successive waves starting the previous year, with additional arrivals following the recent uptick in hostilities. No decision to deploy Pakistani forces to Yemen in a combat role had been reached, according to the official.
Neither the Pakistani nor the Turkish defence ministry provided any response when approached for comment about arms and logistical backing extended to Riyadh. Defensive equipment and ground personnel are set to be deployed by France to the Red Sea port of Yanbu, in Saudi Arabia, as part of a protection mission.
Ground operations inside Yemen would depend on the loosely aligned patchwork of armed factions that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates equipped and trained during earlier phases of the conflict, when fighting had settled into a prolonged deadlock. Analysts have noted that a number of these anti-Houthi groups remain insufficiently organised or prepared to mount the kind of sustained offensive that a structured Houthi military force would require to be pushed back.
Yemen analyst Mohammed Albasha noted that those capabilities face a live test at present, given the simultaneous pressure the Houthis are mounting across multiple fronts.
A rupture among armed groups in Yemen deepened that previous winter when fighters aligned with the UAE moved to seize territory in the east and declared plans to break away, only to be pushed back by forces operating under Saudi backing following a series of armed confrontations.
Political analyst Shihabi, who has ties to government circles, noted that any move toward offensive operations would hinge largely on how well ground forces hold up. He added that stabilising front-line positions had taken precedence until that point, but that a shift to offensive action was anticipated, with troop performance on the ground seen as the primary factor in determining the outcome.
