More than 184,000 people have been displaced by fighting in Yemen, the United Nations says. Government forces and their Saudi-led coalition allies are pressing an offensive against the Houthis, while Houthi attacks reach Saudi Arabia. People caught in the middle get no say in military decisions reshaping their lives. They’re left to bear the cost.
Government forces said they had driven Houthi forces from areas around the Bab al-Mandab Strait, including the port city of Mocha, Dhubab airport and Al-Omari military camp. The National reported that forces had recaptured Mokha and that 100 jets took part in Sunday’s offensive. Military sources cited by AFP, however, stopped short of confirming an official announcement that Mocha had been recaptured. They said pro-government forces had cut off the port’s only supply route. The difference matters: one outlet reported a recapture; AFP’s sources described isolation, not confirmed control.
The offensive and its claims
The Yemeni military said it had carried out more than 1,000 strikes and begun an offensive against Sanaa. The Saudi-led coalition said 100 warplanes flew sorties at dawn. Turki Al-Malki, spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition, said on X that naval forces struck what he called “military targets” belonging to the Houthis in Hodeida. He said they “destroyed weapons depots, facilities storing booby-trapped boats and naval mines” and “thwarted a planned attack” targeting waterways in the southern Red Sea.
Those were the coalition’s stated targets and its account of the operation. The Houthis, meanwhile, said Monday they had struck Riyadh’s international airport, a refinery belonging to state oil giant Aramco and other sites in Saudi Arabia. Loud explosions rattled the capital on Monday evening. The claims came as the coalition said it had destroyed Houthi targets on the Red Sea coast; the article offers no independent confirmation of the Houthi claims. That’s what the report establishes.
The military also said it had expelled Houthi forces from several areas in Taiz, where deadly fighting had surged in recent days. The United Nations says the fighting has displaced more than 184,000 people. That figure captures the human cost of the contest over territory and military advantage, without making displaced people responsible for the choices armed authorities make.
Regional powers enter the frame
Pakistan and Turkey pledged to deploy troops to Saudi Arabia under a new mutual defence pact, as Riyadh and its Yemeni government allies began a push to retake territory held by the Houthis. Representatives of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey met in Riyadh under a joint defence agreement signed in August. They agreed “to take the necessary measures to provide the agreed military forces and capabilities and ensure their rapid deployment in the Kingdom.” The statement didn’t specify the role those troops would fill. The pact commits regional partners to move more forces, but leaves their assignment unstated.
A spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was “deeply concerned by the sharp escalation in fighting” and condemned “the continued Houthi cross-border attacks” on Saudi Arabia. The statement, as reported, singles out those attacks even as coalition military operations and its territorial push continue. The UN’s words register concern. They don’t stop the escalation.
Oil routes, military routes
A source in the Saudi energy sector told AFP that a Sunday attack again halted pumping through the East-West pipeline to the Red Sea. The pipeline has become a key conduit for Saudi exports since Iran blockaded the Strait of Hormuz at the start of the wider Middle East war. Crude prices were already soaring before the Houthis began targeting the world’s largest oil exporter.
Saudi Aramco chief executive Amin Nasser warned Monday that global oil stockpiles were “scarily thin” because of the war. “The system is already straining,” Nasser told the Energy Intelligence Forum in London. The report follows military forces, attacks on infrastructure and oil supply; it gives no account of local grassroots organizing or mutual aid. What it does show is a widening apparatus of armed commitments and strikes, while the people displaced by the fighting remain the clearest measure of what these campaigns cost: more than 184,000 people.