The internationally recognized government of Yemen said its forces had retaliated on Saturday against Iran-backed Houthi rebels after days of attacks on the military, the latest in a surge of fighting that threatens to tip the country back into full-scale civil war.
The escalation reflected how the stability of the Middle East now hangs in the balance across multiple fronts. Despite a lull in fighting between the United States and Iran, the region is waiting to learn whether a deal can be finalized to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and stave off another round of conflict.
The Yemeni government’s counteroffensive follows a rapid escalation that began two days ago, when the Houthis struck military positions in the oil and gas-rich provinces of Marib and Hadramout, killing at least 17 soldiers.
The violence persisted on Friday, with Houthi attacks reported on civilian neighborhoods and a sprawling displaced persons’ camp near the city of Marib, killing two people and wounding 14 others, including children, according to the Yemeni government.
On Saturday, Majed al-Nuzaili, a spokesman for the Yemeni military, said that its forces had “carried out military action against terrorist elements” of the Houthi militia in several areas. He did not provide further details.
The Yemeni government, backed by Saudi Arabia, has been at war with the Houthis since 2014, when the group seized Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, with Iranian support. A year later, Saudi Arabia led a military coalition in support of the government, but its devastating bombing campaign ultimately failed to oust the Houthis from power.
Since then, Yemen has been effectively divided into two states, with the Houthis in control of large swaths of the north. Observers fear that a fragile truce hatched in 2022 has now all but collapsed. A sustained Houthi push into Yemen’s resource-rich eastern regions would threaten the government’s economic lifeline and risk triggering a fresh humanitarian crisis among millions of vulnerable Yemenis.
The fighting in Yemen has taken on broader significance amid the war that the United States and Israel launched against Iran in late February. The conflict prompted Iran’s allies in the region, like the Houthis in Yemen and Hezbollah in Lebanon, to mount their own attacks.
Last month, as tensions escalated in Yemen, the Houthis announced a maritime blockade on Saudi Arabia in the Red Sea, a major global chokepoint for commercial shipping. Iran has already blockaded the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf, another critical waterway for oil and gas exports, and fired on passing vessels.
On Saturday, the Emirati foreign ministry said an Iranian attack had targeted a tanker belonging to the state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Company as it crossed the Strait of Hormuz. The company said on Friday that at least 15 of its vessels were attacked in the waterway since the conflict began, leading to one death and 20 injuries among crew members.
Iranian forces blockaded the strait after the United States attacked in late February alongside Israel. In recent days, Iran and neighboring Oman have been negotiating a framework to allow transit through the waterway to resume.
The Trump administration hoped that a cease-fire in June would restore the strait’s prewar status quo, when ships transited freely. But the truce quickly unraveled as Iran militarily enforced its control over marine traffic, prompting an escalating cycle of American and Iranian attacks.
The U.S. military has retaliated by imposing its own blockade on Iranian ports. As of Friday, U.S. Central Command, which oversees American forces in the Middle East, said it had “redirected 51 commercial vessels,” forcibly disabled two others, and boarded another two as part of that blockade.
U.S. and Iranian officials have repeatedly said in recent days that an agreement to reopen the strait could be imminent. But officials familiar with the emerging deal have said it could formalize some of Iran’s claims of control over shipping in the waterway.
On Saturday, Hossein Mohebbi, a spokesman for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, said that the Strait of Hormuz would reopen “under conditions determined by the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
Reopening the strait, he added, depends on whether the United States accepts Iran’s conditions. His comments were carried by Tasnim, an Iranian news outlet affiliated with the Guards.
Leily Nikounazar contributed reporting.
