THE Iran-USA-Israeli war is still raging and the conflict is getting closer to Pakistan. The crisis in Yemen once a part of British India is getting uncomfortably closer and closer. This conflict is a big problem for Pakistan because it involves two of the closest allies of Pakistan that is Saudi Arabia and Iran. Pakistan is now a member of the Saudi-Turkey-Pakistan defense Pact signed very recently in Makah. The Houthis are classified as non-state actors in the conflict, the Houthis, a tribal group based in Yemen, has become a target for the US. Yemen was once a part of the Bombay presidency in British India. Complicating the situation for Pakistan is its close relations with Saudi Arabia which is helping the formal government in Yemen. The Houthis have struck targets in Saudi Arabia the latest being the attack on the Riyadh International airport resulting in a massive flight disruption from Saudi airports. The Houthis (officially known as Ansar Allah) are an Iran-backed Zaydi Shia political and paramilitary organization based in Yemen. This organization was formed in the 1990s in the Saada Province of Northern Yemen, They are followers of the Zaydi Shia Islam and forms a part of the Iranian Axis of resistance and the movement is led by Abdul Malik Al-Houthi.
This group enjoys the complete political backing of Iran and receives immense military and financial aid from Iran. It was in 2014 that the Houthis seized control of the Yemeni capital Sanaa and today they are in full control of large areas in Northern and Western Yemen. The recent Houthi activities has ignited into a full scale war with the group clashing with the recognized govt. of Yemen and the Saudi Led coalition. The Houthis have launched major cross-border missile and drone strikes targeting infrastructure in Saudi Arabia, including fatal attacks on King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh and energy facilities. Saudi officials and energy ministers have vowed a serious military response to the escalating strikes, while regional tensions remain tied to wider conflicts involving Iran and shipping lanes near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and the Red Sea.
This enigmatic tribal band of Yemen is formally called Ansar llah or Partisans of God and takes its name from the movements late founder Hussein Al-Houthi and this movement rose in the 1990s and since 2004 it has been headed by Abdul Malik Al-Houthi. It was in the early 2000s that the Houthis rebelled against the Yemeni Dictator President Ali Abdullah Saleh and the country’s capital Sanaa was captured by them after the 2011 uprising known as the Arab Spring when the dictator was forced to hand over power to his deputy.
The movement was launched to get more power or autonomy for the group’s home territory in North Yemen. The Houthi group has continued to grow in strength and numbers and are now about 350,000 and control over one third of the country’s land area and about 70 to 80 % of its population. They demand an end to the Saudi blockade, control of the entire country and ownership of Yemen’s oil and gas reserves. Saudi Arabia the next door neighbor fears that the Houthis will take control of the country and turn it into a satellite state of its arch rival Iran. It was in 2015 that Saudi Arabia formed a coalition of Arab countries and intervened on behalf of the Yemeni Govt that is recognized internationally.
Since then almost ten eleven years of air attacks and ground skirmishes they have failed to expel the Houthi forces from the territories they have captured and this conflict has also resulted in one of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. It was only in 2022 that a temporary ceasefire was agreed to. Soon after the Gaza War in 2023 the Houthis started firing drones and missiles towards Israel and at merchant ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden presumably in support of the Palestinians. The USA and the European Union states deployed warships in the area and along with Israel carried out air strikes killing senior Houthi leaders including the Prime Minister of the Houthi declared Govt. In 2025 the US and the Houthis agreed to stop targeting each other. However the Houthis resumed missile attacks on Israel after the US and Israel attacked Iran in February 2026, having paused them after the October 2025 ceasefire in Gaza. The informal ceasefire between the Houthis and the Saudis began to unravel in July.
The Houthis announced a “maritime embargo” against Saudi Arabia and began missile and drone attacks on Saudi airports, oil facilities and tankers in the Red Sea. They said they were retaliating for what the Houthis say is a years-long Saudi blockade, and for an air strike on Sanaa airport this was followed by a rapid Houthi advance in September that captured as much as 130km (81 miles) of the country’s Red Sea coastline as well as the island of Perim.
The move gave the Houthis significant control of the strategic Bab al-Mandab Strait, but they have insisted that they pose no threat to international shipping, except for Saudi-linked vessels. The Houthis’ actions have caused renewed concern about disruption of world oil supplies. Bab al-Mandab has become an increasingly important route for oil exports from Saudi Arabia since shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, on the other side of the Arabian Peninsula, was curtailed due to the US and Israel’s war with Iran. The situation has also been exacerbated by Houthi attacks on Saudi oil installations, as well as an attack on the East-West Pipeline blamed on Iran-backed Iraqi militias, and the escalation threatens to again draw in Western powers.
—The writer is Professor of History, based in Islamabad