Rochester, NY: Right now Saudi Arabia is facing the worst crisis. Saudi Arabia is doing the unthinkable. Missiles are raining on its airports, oil pipelines and military posts. The Saudi administration made the error of considered weak for the third time. Missiles and drones are being employed.
Saudi Arabia’s biggest and busiest airport, King Khalid Airport, has been targeted four times in three days and more than 21 people have been murdered in total. Over 379 were hurt; many of them were critically harmed or lost their important organs.
A Pakistani was also slain at Riyadh airport. It has been verified.
The House of Saud, which has delivered stability to the Arab area for over a century and whose policies have generated jobs for millions of people in South Asia and North Africa, presently finds itself in a weak position owing to some of its wrong steps and alliances. The monarchy is at peril.
The geography of Saudi Arabia is also at stake. Yes, geography is under peril too.
Fact is, Saudi Crown Prince, Muhammad Bin Salman (MBS) didn’t initiate the deadly conflict with the Houthis in Yemen; he inherited it. That is, border confrontations between Saudi Arabia and the Yemeni Houthis had already began in 2015, when his father Salman bin Abdul-Aziz became king following the death of King Abdullah.
Taking for example that period in Yemen, in 2009, the totalitarian regime of Abdullah Saleh had existed for 31 years. This regime was backed by Saudi Arabia but did not have public backing. His reputation was somewhat murky to the public.
The Houthis also had more sway in northern Yemen’s Saada province.
Saudi pressure meant that Abdullah Saleh did not support their religious and political ideas and did not involve them in the administration. By 2009, fighting had already started between them. Now recall that Abdullah Saleh was the official government of Yemen but he was not recognized by numerous organizations, the Houthis being one of the major.
The government has done many operations against them and in August 2009 the sixth operation, “Operation Scratch Earth” was ongoing.
The Saada area was the Houthis’ core of strength. Beyond it were the mountains of Saudi Arabia’s Jizan province. Abdullah Saleh’s soldiers fought the Houthis and the highlands of the Saudi Arabian province of Jizan, notably Jabal Al-Dukhan aided Abdullah’s men in their operations.
This was a high location and it hurt the Houthis and they were shot upon. The Houthis warned Saudi Arabia publicly that it would also attack Saudi Arabia if it kept supporting Saleh to battle the Houthis on their land.
Saudi Arabia is now a major state, its partner in Yemen being the internationally recognized government. How could they back off? Saudi Arabia was still backing Abdullah Saleh. A few of Houthi rebels breached the border and murdered a Saudi guard on November 3, 2009.
The incident also left 11 guards wounded. From here on, border skirmishes started between the two, and MBS had not yet come down to the ring. The name of Ansar Allah, sometimes known as the Houthis, started to emerge increasingly in the worldwide media.
In the months to come, Saudi soldiers and Houthis continued to combat. The Houthis sustained tremendous casualties, but did not give up. They marched forward in Yemen, taking the territory of Abdullah Saleh.
They managed to expel Abdullah Saleh from government and transfer control to Mansoor Hadi in 2012. But even it could not put an end to the civil war since all the organizations including Mansoor Hadi and the Houthis could not build a single structure of administration.
The battle raged on.
The Houthis continued to attempt to conquer the capital Sanaa, but Saudi Arabia continued to back Mansoor Hadi and protect the city.
The Houthis had captured Sanaa and were now the rulers of Yemen. They even conquered the capital Sanaa after defeating Hadi soldiers and their Saudi backers in September 2014.
That meant the Saudi army. Five years of work had failed in every manner. All this is occurring now, with MBS still to step into the ring. In January 2015, King Salman-bin-Abdul-Aziz became the ruler and appointed his activist son, Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), as defense minister.
MBS started to intervene in Arab nations and North Africa, patterned on UAE ruler Muhammad-bin-Zayed (MBZ).
His initial aim was to teach the Houthis a lesson. And believe them weak.
Saudi Arabia was helping the troops of Hadi and other groups at the time. Remember that the Quds Force of Iran, the international armed wing of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was assisting the Houthis. When Qassem Soleimani, major general of IRGC was alive, he was suspected of training the Houthis and MBS were angry that Iran, a Persian nation, is backing Houthis through its proxies.
On 26 March 2015, MBS invited all the generals to a conference chamber of the Saudi army. MBS sat in the middle at a big, V-shaped table, everyone else sat left and right.
The 29-year-old defense minister instructed all the generals to “pull out the F-15 and teach the Houthis in Yemen a lesson. The distinguished Saudi generals glanced at each other in disbelief. For the first time in history, their army talked of involvement in a foreign nation. But their boss, MBS was so passionate he didn’t even bother to ask Pakistan or his primary ally, America.
He was so eager he’d even thought up a name for the procedure. “Operation Decisive Storm” is “Asaf al-Hazm”. Saudi Arabia was joined by soldiers from nine other Muslim nations including United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Jordan, Egypt, Sudan and Morocco.
There was an effort to get Pakistan involved. Then Pakistan prime Nawaz Sharif was evasive and declined it by referring the topic to parliament. “MBS knew if it went to parliament Pakistan didn’t want to send forces.
He was unhappy with Pakistan. The UAE was also backing its proxy in Yemen in those days, which was not really like-minded with Saudi Arabia, but was against the Houthis regardless. They were usually battling the Houthis.
Therefore, they also voiced significant unhappiness at Pakistan and gave a declaration that Pakistan will have to pay the price for this. Pakistan still did not answer and remained silent. Pakistan did not deploy soldiers to Saudi Arabia.
Thus MBS, with the UAE and eight other Arab allies began an operation against Houthi positions in Yemen.
Saudi warships dot the waters, tanks filled the ground and fighter jets F-15s ruled the skies.
These assaults persisted from 2015 until 2022, sometimes without interruption, fiercely and sometimes intermittently. More than 377,000 people have killed directly or indirectly in the conflict in Yemen from 2015 to November 21, the UN has said. 60% of them were children. Every 19 minutes a kid perished from hunger and sickness directly caused by conflict.
The history of the initial Houthi assault is not known to many people. Well, MBS has had no military wins in the Arab area. But in the seventh year after commencing the battle he learned that this war cannot be won by fighting. But bear in mind, even when he had failed to win.
The Houthis had gained land rather than lost it, and Yemeni troops, aided by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, had been routed and surrounded in the south, around Aden.
So they turned around back then in 2022. And via the UN, a truce was established with the Houthis of Yemen. But limitations still applied to its airports and ports.
Saudi soldiers shattered this de facto truce in July 2026. When several Houthi leaders flew to Iran in July 2026 to attend the funeral prayers of supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei, an Iranian airplane of Mahan Air arrived to drop them back to Yemen.
When the jet was set to arrive at the Sanaa airport on July 13, a foreign nation informed Saudi Arabia that the Iranian plane was returning laden with weapons, IRGC leaders and much more. This is a violation and it has to cease.
The jet was under threat from Saudi or Saudi-led Yemeni troops near Sanaa, forcing it to loop in the air and finally land at the little airstrip in Hodeidah.
Then it was said a top IRGC commander and drones and parts of missiles were being loaded aboard the aircraft.
The Houthis dismissed the allegations, saying that Saudi Arabia was behind the strike and that it breached the de facto truce. Saudi Arabia acknowledged the incident later, according to the Associated Press. “Blockade for blockade,” Houthi spokesperson General Yahya Saree said. “You did our naval and aerial blockade and we shall do a Saudi naval and aerial blockade”. And that is how it will continue till Saudi Arabia retains our boycott.
In July 2026, the de facto ceasefire expired. Over the following four months, regional nations, notably Pakistan, have repeatedly encouraged the Houthis to reestablish the similar arrangement with Saudi Arabia. But the Houthis now are saying, if we withdraw our embargo fully, we would lift the Saudi blockade.
It is obviously a dilemma for a major and strong government like Saudi Arabia, because if it negotiates with a supposedly small ragtag army on its terms, it would convey the perception of weakness in the area and this will be deemed its loss. And most of all, the Al Saud’s stranglehold on its nation will relax against others who want to take their place.
The challengers may doubt the Al Saud’s capacity to govern, accusing them of being vanquished by a guerilla army. So, for internal and external reasons, MBS refused to negotiate to remove the total siege by the Houthis. Then the combat became fierce.
The Houthis also seized the most significant island of Mawan in the Bab al-Mandab, several coastal and high-altitude towns of Moka and Dhabab.
Saudi airstrikes have likewise been failed in their campaign. Hence, Saudi Arabia has brought out an older organization funded by UAE which consists mostly of Salafis. This is the Al-Amalqa Brigade, which is called the Southern Giant Brigade in English.
This is the organization battling the Houthis, led by its commander Abdul Rahman Al-Muhrami, also known as Abu Zarrah. Abu Zarrah is from the south of Yemen, i.e. from the province with the capital of Aden, under the influence of Saudi sponsors.
He was a student at Darul-Hadith-Damaj in northern Yemen, which is currently controlled by the Houthis. His enmity for the Houthis increased after the fighting started and he and his coworkers had to evacuate.
The UAE has been backing them since 2015. Today the Al-Amalqa Brigade is effectively a member of the official military of the Saudi-backed government of Yemen and its most powerful organization, after been previously funded by the UAE.
The Houthis are fighting under an ideology that you and I could disagree with. But what to do? The truth on the ground is inescapable.
Saudi Arabia has to be wise since it has two limits. One is that it can’t beat the Houthis on its own, and no one’s going to deploy their army to Yemen for the Saudis. The second flaw lies in the fact that Saudi Arabia has a great deal to lose while the Yemeni Houthis have nothing to lose.
Today Saudi Arabia is gambling away everything. Its major program Vision 2030 that was meant to transform the Saudi economy and society, that was also a wonderful idea for the Arab region, the Muslim world and Pakistan is failing.
The Houthis are assaulting three of Saudi Arabia’s four international airports, they have vowed to target King Khalid Airport in Riyadh, King Abdul-Aziz Airport in Jeddah and King Fahd Airport in Dammam but they are threatening all the foreign airlines except for Mecca and Medina.
They have sent warnings to all foreign planes that Saudi space is not safe for you now. American projections about Iran have been proved inaccurate and they have been locked in a protracted conflict.
Similarly, Saudi Arabia has also been afflicted by a severe misunderstanding about the Houthis.
Bloomberg published exclusive reports that the Iranians have a larger stockpile of missiles and drones than previously thought and special fuel is also being supplied by Russia to Iran.
Also, five hundred drones are being made each month and their number is growing. Bloomberg says Iran is preparing for a battle of attrition. Similarly, Houthis In my view, the Houthis may pursue a protracted conflict. They have land, soldiers, desire to fight, passion, no professional army against them.
If they gain a position they will not be able to keep it for long even if they win. At some point Saudi Arabia will have to drag the United Nations on its shoulders and create a ceasefire like in 2022 or it will have to come to a de facto agreement with Houthis with a third party. Otherwise, Saudi Arabia is in difficulty and the challenges for Pakistan would also escalate.
Bookmark The Variant for trusted updates, informed analysis, and comprehensive coverage of the stories that matter most.
