Plans under discussion in Riyadh point toward a renewed military push against Houthi forces in Yemen, with options on the table ranging from a targeted operation along the coast near the Bab el-Mandeb strait to a wider campaign spanning multiple fronts across the country. Plans for the offensive, expected to get under way within weeks, place Yemeni ground troops at the front under Saudi Arabian oversight, with aerial backing provided by Riyadh.
Reporting by one broadcaster framed the offensive as an effort to push back Houthi territorial gains along the coastline and restore access to the Bab el-Mandeb, a Red Sea chokepoint whose role in global shipping has grown as Iran-related hostilities have curtailed vessel traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.
No clear schedule for the operation has emerged, according to half a dozen people with knowledge of the planning — a group that includes Gulf and Yemeni officials alongside Western diplomatic figures. Projected timelines put the event anywhere from less than a week out to sometime after early November.
Two options are reportedly under active review by officials in Riyadh, based on information from sources in the Gulf and Yemen. A tightly scoped operation targeting the waters and land near Bab el-Mandeb formed the basis of one proposal. A wider operation — one spanning the governorates of Al-Bayda, Marib, Taiz, and Al-Jawf — would unfold through simultaneous action across those four fronts.
Figures of up to 100,000 Yemeni personnel stand ready for deployment, with the final number tied to the breadth of the planned operation, according to the officials. Among the objectives described by people with knowledge of the planning was reversing the territorial advances the group had made along the coastline over the prior weeks — gains that included seizing control of the Bab el-Mandeb strait.
Talks between Riyadh and the Houthis are off the table for now, with the group's continued hold over the waterway cited as the sticking point — a position relayed by several Western diplomats and a Gulf official.
Positioned at the southern end of the Red Sea, the Bab el-Mandeb strait forms a key passage for vessels travelling between the Mediterranean and Asian ports. Disruption to Hormuz Strait traffic stemming from the Iran conflict has pushed vessels toward the Red Sea, lifting the profile of that passage considerably over the course of this year.
After Houthi forces drove the internationally recognised Yemeni government out of Sanaa in 2015, a coalition of Arab states assembled under Saudi Arabian leadership and began a military intervention aimed at reinstating that administration. A ceasefire arrangement between the opposing sides, reached in 2022, remained broadly intact until the current year, when the Houthis directed missile and drone strikes at Saudi vessels and oil facilities amid wider hostilities connected to the conflict involving Iran.
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.
Ratney, who previously served as ambassador to Saudi Arabia, told reporters he anticipated the operation would be narrower in scope and more restrained than the coalition campaign that began in 2015, noting that while there was a desire to fully dislodge the Houthis, the more immediate aim would be restoring control over coastal areas near Bab el-Mandeb and returning maritime traffic to its prior state. Separately, the Pentagon has been providing military advisers and intelligence in support of operations in Yemen, though allied forces are not anticipated to participate in direct ground or combat roles.
Targeting data, intelligence support, and military advisory personnel have been channelled toward Saudi air operations over Yemen, news reports indicate. Prior reporting by a broadcast news outlet indicated that Trump chose not to authorise the military assistance — including air strikes — that Saudi Arabia's de facto leader, Mohammed bin Salman, had sought from Washington.
Defensive arms and equipment have flowed to Saudi Arabia from neighbouring and European nations, with intelligence support coming separately from the United States. Weapons and military hardware transferred from Turkey and Pakistan have, according to officials in both the region and Pakistan, been put to use by Saudi Arabia in its Yemen operations. A mutual defence pact between the two nations was formalised during the preceding month.
Four cargo aircraft carrying air defence systems, light artillery, drones, and anti-drone equipment were dispatched by Pakistan to Aden the previous month, a Pakistani government official told reporters. Aden functions as the base of operations for Yemen's internationally recognised government, which holds Saudi Arabian backing.
Three sources — an official from Pakistan, a Gulf-based counterpart, and a diplomat from a Western government — indicated that Pakistani military advisers have been deployed alongside Saudi personnel in a support role for Yemeni forces on the ground. According to those sources, unmanned aerial vehicles of Turkish origin — acquired by Saudi Arabia ahead of the ongoing conflict — have since been put to use in operations over Yemeni territory.
Shielding energy installations and related national infrastructure from aerial threats — including drones and missiles launched by Houthi forces — ranks among the foremost items on Riyadh's security agenda, according to people with knowledge of the situation in the region, who indicated that requests for defensive equipment were directed by Saudi Arabia to a number of allied nations.
Figures from a second Pakistani official put the number of troops stationed in Saudi Arabia at somewhere between 30,000 and 40,000, assigned to tasks ranging from land-border protection to the interception of incoming drones and missiles. Deployment unfolded in successive waves over the past year, with personnel numbers climbing further after the most recent flare-up. A Pakistani official indicated that no decision on deploying troops to Yemen in a combat role had been reached by Islamabad.
Requests for comment directed at the defence ministries of Pakistan and Turkey about their respective military support for Riyadh drew no response. Defensive systems and troops are set to be deployed by France to the Red Sea port city of Yanbu, where they will bolster Saudi Arabia's protection capabilities.
Any ground offensive backed by Saudi Arabia would draw on a patchwork of Yemeni armed factions that Riyadh and Abu Dhabi equipped and trained during earlier phases of the conflict, a period when fighting had ground to a standstill. Analysts note that many of the forces opposing the Houthis remain loosely coordinated and unprepared for the kind of prolonged push needed to dislodge a well-structured adversary.
Yemen analyst Mohammed Albasha noted that those capabilities face a live test at this moment, given the Houthis' simultaneous activity across multiple fronts. Fractures within Yemeni armed groups deepened the previous winter, when UAE-backed fighters from the south moved to take control of eastern areas and put forward a formal call for independence, before forces aligned with Saudi backing gained the upper hand through a succession of armed engagements.
With Hezbollah's operational strength in Lebanon having been reduced by Israeli military action over the prior three years, the Houthis have moved into a position where they are viewed by many analysts as Iran's most active remaining partner across the region. Saudi political analyst Ali Shihabi, who has reported ties to government circles, noted that any push toward offensive operations would depend heavily on how ground forces perform, and that consolidating front-line positions had been the prevailing priority up to that point, with an offensive phase described as the next stage.
Such an offensive by Saudi Arabia would add another point of tension to a region already experiencing multiple armed conflicts, including the violence that followed the Hamas-led assault on Israel on 7 October 2023 and the subsequent military confrontation involving the United States, Israel, and Iran.
