Riyadh readies a move to retake Bab Al Mandab

Saudi Arabia is preparing to go on the offensive against the Houthis to retake Bab Al Mandab. An operation could begin within weeks, led by Yemeni forces on the ground with Saudi jets overhead, Reuters reports, citing regional and Western officials. They diverged on timing, some putting it as little as a week away and others until after the US midterm elections in early November.

Riyadh is weighing two options: It can keep the campaign tight, hitting the area around Bab Al Mandab alone, or widen it into simultaneous pushes in Al Bayda, Marib, Taiz, and Al Jawf. The bigger version could put more than 100k Yemeni troops in the field, the officials said.

Not a repeat of 2015: Michael Ratney, a former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia, told Reuters he expects something narrowly focused, far short of the Saudi-led campaign that set out to rout the Houthis a decade ago. Riyadh wants the group beaten, he said, but above all it needs to claw back the coastline the Houthis took around Bab Al Mandab and get shipping moving again, ideally through a limited operation.

It comes down to the strait: The Houthis’ move down the coast last month and their capture of Bab Al Mandab is what Riyadh aims to reverse. The seizure gives the group leverage in any future talks, and the Kingdom has decided it cannot negotiate a new peace while they hold it, Western diplomats and a Gulf official said.

Outside help stops short of the battlefield: US intelligence is already guiding Saudi operations, and a handful of regional and European governments are sending mainly defensive equipment; none of them, the officials said, are expected to take part in the fighting.

The phones have been busy: Saudi Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman discussed the Kingdom’s defense partnership with the US in a call on Thursday with US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. He also discussed defense cooperation with French Armed Forces Minister Catherine Vautrin in a separate call.

Turkey and Pakistan have already put hardware into the fight. Pakistan flew four cargo planes into Aden loaded with air-defence systems, light artillery, drones, and anti-drone gear, a Pakistani government official told Reuters, and has stationed 30-40k troops inside the Kingdom over the past year to help defend it. Its advisers are working alongside Saudi forces, and Turkish drones that Riyadh bought before the war are in the air over Yemen.

Saudi Arabia was mainly expected to lean on air defense, intelligence, and measured retaliation, while keeping the diplomatic track open, we reported last week. Political science professor Ismail Turki told us the Kingdom could defend its territory through air defense and intelligence, back anti-Houthi Yemeni forces, and apply measured pressure, while Mustafa Antar of the Yemen and Gulf Center for Studies expected “calibrated escalation, supporting Yemeni partners, and targeting immediate threats.”

A political off-ramp is still open. The three members of the Makkah Defense Pact — Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan — will hold an emergency meeting in Riyadh this week to weigh an Iranian proposal to engage the Houthis politically, Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said. Iran has distanced itself from the Houthis and Iraqi militias, Dar said, adding that both Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi want the matter settled.

REMEMBER- Pakistan has pledged to defend Saudi Arabia against the Houthis by any means available to it, judging that the group and Iraqi militias may now be acting independently.

Counting strikes

Smoke rose near an Aramco facility in Riyadh yesterday after it was hit in a Houthi missile and drone attack, Reuters reports. The Yemeni Coalition also said a Houthi strike on the Taibah distribution station in Madinah — which feeds the Prophet’s Mosque — took one power transformer offline without affecting the wider grid. The Houthis have denied this.

Over the weekend, Saudi forces intercepted five ballistic missiles and four drones aimed at Khamis Mushait and Jazan, coalition spokesman Turki Al Maliki said on X (Link 1, Link 2, and Link 3). Debris from an intercepted missile damaged buildings and vehicles in Khamis Mushait, while another interception over Asir’s Ahad Rafidah injured an Asian expat and damaged a prayer hall. A projectile also hit a school in Najran.

By the Houthis’ count, Saudi forces have carried out about 192 airstrikes and missile attacks in recent days, bringing the total to 1.35k since the escalation began, military spokesman Yahya Saree said in several posts on X (here, here, and here). He claimed the strikes hit “civilian infrastructure” across Sana’a, Saada, Taiz, Hajjah, Amran, Marib, Hodeidah, Al Jawf, and Ibb.

US buildup near Iran

Washington reinforcing presence in the region: The US is deploying a third aircraft carrier strike group and an additional Marine expeditionary unit, adding 9-10k troops to its Middle East forces as President Donald Trump weighs resuming strikes on Iran after the midterms, the Wall Street Journal reports, citing US officials. The USS Theodore Roosevelt left its home port of San Diego on Sunday on a scheduled deployment, and the USS Makin Island Amphibious Ready Group followed on Monday.