Iran-backed Houthi rebels launched missile and drone strikes on Yemeni government military camps Thursday, killing at least 30 troops and wounding dozens more in the deadliest single attack in the country’s civil war since a de facto truce took hold in 2022, as Saudi Arabia braced for the conflict to widen further.
What Happened
The Houthis fired eight missiles from Al-Jawf governorate, north of Marib, striking government military sites in the towns of al-Thiniya and al-Abr in Hadramout province and al-Rouk in Marib province at around 2 p.m. local time Thursday, according to Yemeni government sources who spoke to Al Jazeera.
The strikes hit camps belonging to several government-aligned formations, including the Saudi-backed Homeland Shield Forces and the Emergency Forces, which secure the frontier between Houthi-controlled territory and areas held by the internationally recognized Yemeni government.
Yemeni officials said at least 30 troops were killed and 15 to 50 others wounded, cautioning that the toll was expected to rise. Houthi military spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree said the attacks were carried out in response to a buildup of Saudi-backed forces in eastern Yemen, claiming the strikes killed and injured “hundreds of Saudi enemy mercenaries” and destroyed military camps, depots, and vehicles. The US mission to Yemen condemned the attacks as “yet another example of their terrorism against the Yemeni people.”
The violence continued Friday, with Houthi forces launching at least 12 additional missile attacks on Hadramout and Marib. Separately, a senior Saudi official told Reuters that a Houthi attack on southern Saudi Arabia Thursday wounded 11 civilians, including a young child, in the Najran region near the Yemeni border.
Why It Matters
Thursday’s attack marks the deadliest single episode in Yemen’s civil war since a de facto truce halted major fighting between the Houthis and the Saudi-led coalition in April 2022, representing a significant and abrupt escalation in a conflict that has repeatedly slipped from global attention before flaring again. Marib holds particular strategic significance given its energy infrastructure and military value, while Hadramout’s location in eastern Yemen illustrates how far the renewed fighting has already spread.
The escalation extends well beyond Yemen’s internal front lines. A senior Saudi official told journalists Friday that intelligence suggests the Houthis and allied Iraqi armed groups, operating under the supervision of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, may be preparing new attacks on energy infrastructure, ports, and airports inside Saudi Arabia itself, raising the prospect of a substantially wider regional conflict.
The renewed fighting ties directly into the broader regional conflict reignited by the US and Israeli campaign against Iran that began in late February. Yemen and the Red Sea have remained an active flashpoint throughout that conflict, with Houthi attacks on shipping and, more recently, Saudi-linked targets contributing to sustained instability across Gulf and Red Sea waterways critical to global trade.
Context and Background
The Houthis, formally known as Ansar Allah, have controlled much of northern Yemen, including the capital Sanaa, since seizing the city in 2014, triggering a civil war against the internationally recognized government that has drawn in a Saudi-led military coalition. The 2022 truce significantly reduced large-scale fighting between the two sides, though sporadic violence has continued and tensions have escalated repeatedly since.
The Homeland Shield Forces, one of the units targeted Thursday, were formed in 2022 with Saudi backing and number in the tens of thousands, tasked with guarding the Marib-Hadramout frontier and the Saudi border. The Emergency Forces, created by presidential decree in late 2025 under Saudi-led coalition supervision, similarly secure land borders and anti-Houthi front lines in the region.
The Houthis have separately been engaged in attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea throughout 2026, including a blockade specifically targeting Saudi Arabia and Saudi-linked vessels declared in July, part of a broader pattern of the group leveraging its position along key regional waterways to project influence well beyond Yemen’s borders.
Analysis
Regional security analysts note that the scale and coordination of Thursday’s attack, hitting multiple government military formations across two separate provinces simultaneously, suggests a level of planning consistent with a deliberate strategic escalation rather than an isolated incident, particularly given the Houthis’ explicit framing of the strikes as retaliation for a Saudi-backed troop buildup.
Analysts tracking the broader regional conflict point to the reported involvement of Iraqi armed groups operating under IRGC supervision as evidence that Iran may be coordinating a multi-front pressure campaign against Saudi Arabia and its regional partners, using proxy forces in both Yemen and Iraq simultaneously, a pattern consistent with Iran’s broader strategy throughout the conflict of leveraging allied non-state actors across the region.
The potential for attacks on Saudi ports, airports, and energy infrastructure, as flagged by Saudi intelligence, would represent a further significant escalation given Saudi Arabia’s central role in global energy markets, adding another potential source of disruption to a regional security environment already destabilized by the ongoing Strait of Hormuz crisis.
What Happens Next
Continued Houthi strikes on Yemeni government positions in Marib and Hadramout are likely in the near term, given Friday’s additional missile attacks following Thursday’s initial assault. Saudi Arabia’s heightened alert status regarding potential attacks on its own ports, airports, and energy infrastructure will be closely watched in the coming days.
The broader trajectory of the conflict will depend significantly on whether the 2022 truce framework can be salvaged or whether this week’s escalation marks a more permanent breakdown, a question with significant implications for regional stability and global shipping and energy security given Yemen’s strategic position along the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.
