Ansar Allah continues to score as they trade tit-for-tat strikes with the Saudis. Several top American and European executives attended Riyadh’s WPC Energy Congress remotely. Reports say Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman is shuttling “between heavily guarded palaces equipped with bunkers and is guarded by a handpicked security team.” Ground combat continues in Yemen.
Aramco Burns in a ‘Limited’ Fire
The Saudis bombed an oil depot in Sanaa, per Al Jazeera. Ansar Allah reported 119 Saudi strikes in the last 24 hours on Sanaa, al-Jawf, Taiz, Saada, Marib, Lahj, al-Bayda, Ibb by F-15 and Typhoon jets from Khamis Mushait and Taif air bases; missile fire from Najran and Jizan; civilian dead and wounded “including women and children.”
Ansar Allah’s response was quick and harsh, with “an administrative building belonging to Saudi Arabia’s Aramco in the eastern city of Dhahran” taking a hit that resulted in a “limited fire,” per the AP.
The AP also quoted an Ansar Allah spokesman calling Saudi Arabia the “Kingdom of the Horn of Satan” and said it “must realize that security, stability, and sovereignty must belong to everyone; otherwise, no one will enjoy them.”
Reuters cited a company source saying that a ballistic missile hit an office tower and “its top three floors were damaged.”
The Guardian reports that the Yemeni Oil Company says the storage unit hit by the Saudis was empty and that the Riyadh Airport will remain closed until Saturday at the earliest, with Al Jazeera reporting an Ansar Allah missile attack on the airport for the third straight day.
More than 2000 flights affected, with Lufthansa, Air France-KLM, Qatar Airways, and SriLankan suspending Riyadh service, per Travel Market Report.
Saudi Oil Confabs Slightly Spoiled
The New York Times reported that “delegates to the WPC Energy Congress, which started on Sunday, were forced to reroute to other airports and even countries in the region. Some, including the chief executives of Exxon, Shell, Chevron, and BP, canceled their scheduled appearances altogether.”
Reuters reported that the Saudis have graciously made the tenth Future Investment Initiative a hybrid event, allowing busy executives to attend remotely should they wish.
Global financial titans, including Goldman Sachs CEO and Chairman David Solomon, Standard Chartered CEO Bill Winters and Citi’s CEO Jane Fraser, were scheduled to participate as speakers at the event, according to a draft programme on the FII website dated October 6. Citi and Goldman Sachs declined to comment on the executives’ attendance, while Standard Chartered had no immediate comment.
It’s unclear if Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman will be attending either conference, as his schedule is quite busy with shuttling from bunker to palace to bunker under armed guard.
The Crown Prince Is Indisposed
The Wall Street Journal got the exclusive:
Saudi press officials didn’t respond to a request for comment. Prince Mohammed has plowed funds over the past decade into a slate of projects with extraordinarily complex engineering requirements aimed at signaling the kingdom’s modernization and drawing investment and tourism. They include the futuristic city of Neom, an enormous cube-shaped building in Riyadh, and a desert ski resort. The total cost ran to the trillions of dollars, aggressive for a government with an annual budget of around $350 billion. The costs and economic damage of war with Iran are making that already implausible math impossible to balance.
Foreign investment fell in the first two quarters of the year and is running well behind the crown prince’s 2030 target. Rising defense and infrastructure costs threaten to siphon away money needed for the economic diversification drive. Even the kingdom’s push to become an AI hub now carries new risks, with data centers emerging as targets.
Many of the enormous projects spearheaded by Prince Mohammed are stalled or under review. In January, Saudi Arabia gave up on plans to host the 2029 Asian Winter Games. It still has to find a way to fund the World Expo in 2030 and the soccer World Cup four years later.
The non-oil side of the country’s economy was smaller in the second quarter than in the first, according to Capital Economics. The Saudi Finance Ministry now expects GDP to shrink by 3.6% in 2026.
…Despite Prince Mohammed’s efforts to build his relationship with Trump—including a pledge to invest around $1 trillion in the U.S.—the U.S. has so far resisted the crown prince’s requests for military help to roll back the Houthi advance, though it has sent military advisers.
The kingdom has called for help from its military ally Pakistan and is scouring the globe for air defenses, the people said. It is also looking to recruit foreign fighters to help its Yemeni allies, they said. At the same time, it is also increasingly looking to see if there is room for a diplomatic solution to the conflict, which otherwise looks hard to contain, they said.
The Telegraph mocked the “cowering” MBS and questioned the value the Kingdom is getting for its defense dollar:
Saudi officials are also said to be running low on stocks of the expensive Patriot interceptors that shoot incoming ballistic missiles out of the sky.
On paper at least, the Saudi military should comprehensively outclass the Houthi militiamen it has been fighting on and off for more than a decade.
The country has the eighth largest defence budget in the world, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, and spent around $83bn (£62bn) on its armed forces in 2025 alone.
Saudi Arabia has a significant air force, and the US agreed in November 2025 to sell F-35 stealth fighters to join the country’s fleet of F-15s and Eurofighter Typhoons.
…
Thomas Juneau, security analyst at the University of Ottawa, told AFP: “Saudi air defences have been able to intercept some Houthi missile and drone attacks, but Saudi Arabia is so large that it’s simply impossible for them to consistently defend themselves.”Some analysts have also suggested that despite the substantial defence spending of the Saudi forces, they are fractured and poorly co-ordinated.
Heavy spending on prestige weapons systems has not made up for weaknesses in organisation, with the armed forces significantly inward-looking and distracted by a focus on protecting the royal family and warding off internal coups.
Munaeem Jamal reported on rumors that MBS blamed his brother Defence Minister Khalid bin Salman for Saudi failings against Ansar Allah and said some versions of the rumors circulating “in Saudi opposition circles” “allege accusations of corruption and embezzlement” on the part of the Crown Prince. “Khalid supposedly replied that weapons and money could not repair strategic mistakes made when Mohammed led Saudi policy toward Yemen.”
Munaeem also points out the “awkward historical problem with blaming Khalid,” namely that the younger brother has only been defense minister since 2022 and that his predecessor who started the war is none other than Muhammad bin Salman.
Alastair Crooke is predicting “insurrection and regime change” coming soon to Saudi Arabia, pointing out the brittle and artificial nature of the kingdom, MBS’ many enemies within the royal family itself, and the vastly larger number of enemies in the various tribes which make up the majority of the country’s population.
The NY Times reported that “Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, offered to mediate between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis, warning that overlapping conflicts in the region had no military solution.”
POTUS Trump Truth’d on the matter:
The Houthis are behaving very badly. I thought they learned their lesson a year ago when we bombed the HELL out of them and, at their request, stopped. They’ve been silent for a long time, but now they’ve emerged again, probably at the behest of Iran, which is a Failing Nation, with No Navy, No Airforce, the World’s Worst Economy, and 301% Inflation, in a very nasty way, hitting Saudi Arabia, and purposefully trying to drive up Oil Prices, probably prior to the U.S. Elections — NOT NICE. Somebody should explain to them that I’m not running in the Elections, I’ve already won, IN A MASSIVE LANDSLIDE, but I’ll be there after the Elections, and I will never forget! President DONALD J. TRUMP
Now let’s turn our attention to the ground war in Yemen.
Taiz Under Siege, Saudi-Aligned Force Claims Advances in Marib
The AP reports that Ansar Allah has encircled Taiz, Yemen’s third-largest city. Multiple X accounts claim Ansar Allah has captured the Al-Hangar checkpoint at the western entrance to the city. Other accounts deny the claims. YNP reports that Ansar Allah forces took the checkpoint and the city’s central prison.
Saudi-aligned outlets say Taiz’s defenders are holding. The Taiz military command reported nine airstrikes on 13 Oct, five on Ansar Allah positions in the al-Dhabab valley west of the city and four in al-Misrakh to the south. Strikes on the 12th hit Milat, Tabbat al-Khalwa and al-Karba as Ansar Allah, having reached Najd Qasim and pushed toward the Hanjar checkpoint at the city’s southwest entrance, attacked at al-Dhabab and al-Aqroud. The coalition’s spokesman, Col. Majed al-Nuzaili, claimed 950 Ansar Allah fighters “neutralized” and 380 vehicles destroyed in nine days of the “Dawn of Yemen” offensive. Tareq Saleh’s National Resistance outlet al-Sahil al-Gharbi went further: Amran security chief Brig. Mujahid Ahmed Ali and 25 of his escorts killed at al-Dhabab, “dozens” captured, al-Sirari village and Tabbat al-Khazzan retaken, the southwestern entrance “secured,” and “more than 150” Ansar Allah fighters killed in an ambush at al-Sirari. None of those figures have been independently confirmed, and Anadolu reported fighting still under way on the al-Shaqab front south of the city.
On the Bab al-Mandab front the line has barely moved. CTP-ISW says Saudi-aligned forces have not advanced past Dhubab airport since 5 Oct and saw no territorial changes on the coastal plain after the 12th. Ansar Allah has held Mocha since 10 Sep, and Mayun (Perim) island is still disputed: Saudi ambassador Mohammed Al Jaber declared Bab al-Mandab “cleared” on 9 Oct, but Saudi-aligned military sources told AFP the next day that the island was still in Ansar Allah’s hands, and Ansar Allah’s Hizam al-Asad says “our forces maintain control over Bab al-Mandab, Mayun Island.” AFP counted at least 63 killed in 24 hours around the strait, 35 Saudi-aligned troops and 28 Ansar Allah fighters, and a Saudi-aligned commander told the BBC that about 500 Ansar Allah fighters remain on the high ground overlooking the strait. The fighting has also moved inland to Lahj, where Ansar Allah is trying to outflank the coastal force: YNP says the Subaiha front fell on 13 Oct and Giants Brigades units pulled back from al-Saqiya and Ras al-Ara, while Khabar says the attack was repelled with “some units” making “tactical withdrawals” and thousands of families fleeing toward Tur al-Baha and Aden. Shipping hasn’t stopped: there has been no Red Sea incident since a small craft fired on the containership CUL Klang on 7 Oct, and carriers are returning to Suez ahead of schedule.
UAE Forces Getting Western Press
The Telegraph did some stenography for the UAE last week:
On a windswept beach by the Red Sea, a flag with crossed swords and a shield was raised, adorned with the Arabic text: “The Southern Giants Brigade.”
It marked the return of the most feared militia in Yemen and the most dangerous fault line in the Arab alliance.
Surrounding Houthi fighters were also seen being run down in the sand by armoured vehicles, driven by Yemen’s Saudi-backed forces.
Monday’s offensive signalled that the divide between three of the Middle East’s most powerful players – Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – is once again playing out on Yemeni land.
…
The Giants are a militia nominally fighting under Yemen’s internationally recognised government. This makes them, on paper, allies of Saudi Arabia.In practice, however, they are the creation and instrument of a different wealthy patron: the United Arab Emirates.
Estimates of the group’s strength range from 20,000-30,000 fighters to as many as 70,000. They are organised into dozens of brigades, with their own training camps, intelligence arm, media centre and website.
The force, known in Arabic as Alwiya al-Amaliqa, was created in 2015 amid the chaos of the Yemeni civil war.The militia is rooted in Salafism, an austere, ultraconservative strand of Sunni Islam whose followers seek to model life on the earliest Muslims – the salaf, or “pious predecessors”.
GIS Reports offers a more high-end version of the same stuff:
Unresolved tensions between the United Arab Emirates-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) and the Saudi-backed internationally recognized Yemeni government continue to play out. Each side blames the other for Ansar Allah’s territorial gains in recent weeks.
Such divisions are not new. The power struggle between the STC and Saudi-backed actors in Yemen has fueled tensions between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi ever since the separatist group’s formation in 2017 with Emirati support. This friction between Saudi Arabia and the UAE vis-a-vis Yemen reached an unprecedented level in December 2025 and early January 2026, when armed clashes erupted in southern and eastern Yemen. The fighting seemed to signal a pivotal shift. The STC, the main separatist group in southern Yemen, appeared to have imploded, leaving Saudi Arabia as the predominant external power in the south.
The fighting was triggered by the STC’s December push into Hadramawt and al-Mahra, provinces beyond its traditional strongholds. Saudi Arabia saw the move as a direct challenge to its border security. It responded with military and political pressure, culminating in the STC’s dissolution, announced in Riyadh on January 9, 2026, by its secretary-general. Other council leaders rejected the announcement as illegitimate.
Despite the STC’s setbacks in January, the organization remains an influential force in southern Yemen. Any Yemeni-Yemeni dialogue will need to include the group and its constituents. Even after the STC’s “dissolution” in early 2026, the group continued to command meaningful grassroots support and to demonstrate its ability to mobilize large numbers of Yemenis around its separatist agenda. Recurring pro-STC demonstrations in Aden, Mukalla, Seiyun and elsewhere underscored that the faction had not been eradicated at the start of the year and that it remained a potent political force. The protests also exposed Riyadh’s limited ability to translate military and political ascendancy into lasting influence over southern Yemen.
The STC’s vision of an independent South Yemen still resonates in much of the territory that formed a separate state from 1967 to 1990. The reunification of Yemen at the end of the Cold War proved fragile, and many southerners harbor longstanding grievances about life in the unified state since 1990. Although the STC is only one faction within a broader independence movement, it positions itself as the umbrella organization for all pro-independence groups in southern Yemen. But not every southern faction accepts the STC in this role. In fact, Abdulrahman al-Muharrami, a Salafist leader who commands the powerful and highly disciplined Southern Giants Brigades, has increasingly challenged the STC’s role as the guardian of the southern cause throughout 2026.
Stay safe, y’all.