Yemen's Houthis: From Restraint to Calculated Involvement

As Yemen passes 15 years of devastating conflict, the country faces renewed risk of escalation amid the widening regional confrontation involving Iran, Israel and the United States. After weeks of speculation over whether Yemen's Houthis would remain on the sidelines, the movement launched ballistic missile attacks toward Israel on March 28. While the limited nature of the assault suggests an attempt to signal alignment with Iran's regional posture without triggering full-scale retaliation, the question now is whether Houthi thinking remains limited to this signaling or reflects the beginning of a sustained escalation, once again making Yemen an active front in the Middle East's expanding conflict.

The depth of the relationship between Iran and the Houthis is central to this question, constituting one of the most contested debates surrounding the group. For some analysts, the movement operates as a crucial component of Tehran's regional network of allied militias. "The Houthis always try to present themselves as independent decision-makers," said veteran Yemeni journalist Anwar al-Ansi in an interview with Democracy in Exile. "But we know there has been a very close ideological and military relationship with Iran for nearly three decades."

According to al-Ansi, the group's military capabilities — from ballistic missiles to drones and naval mines — were developed largely through training and assistance from Iran's Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) and Lebanon's Hezbollah. "Without Iranian weapons, the Houthis would not be what they are today," he said.

Numerous reports highlight how Iranian military support to the Houthis has grown over the course of the war in Yemen. The United Nations Panel of Experts on Yemen found in 2018 that Iran "failed to take the necessary measures to prevent the direct or indirect supply, sale or transfer" of various ballistic missiles that the Houthis have used to perpetrate unlawful attacks. As a result, Iran agreed to significantly reduce its support for the Houthis in the March 2023 China-brokered deal re-establishing diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Other experts describe the relationship in broader strategic terms. Nadwa al-Dawsari, a veteran Yemeni researcher, argued in an interview that the movement functions within a transnational project tied to Tehran's regional ambitions. "The Houthis are a transnational group," she said, explaining that "Yemen, for them, is a base where they organize, regroup and launch cross-border operations." In her view, the IRGC maintains significant influence over the group.

Yet not all analysts see the Houthis as mere proxies. Speaking in an interview for Democracy in Exile, historian and instructor at Harvard University, Asher Orkaby, notes that Yemeni political movements — particularly the Houthis — have historically shifted alliances based on power calculations rather than ideological loyalty. "The Houthis have continuously backed the winning party," he said. "What they understand is power — military power and financial power."

In "Beyond the Arab Cold War: The International History of the Yemen Civil War, 1962-68," Orkaby documents how Zaydi royalist forces drawn from the same northern highland communities and religious tradition that later gave rise to the Houthi Movement relied on shifting external support for survival. Backed primarily by Saudi Arabia and, at times, covertly by Israel, these actors navigated alliances pragmatically rather than ideologically. Most notable is the group's brief tactical alliance with the former Yemeni president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, despite having fought multiple rounds against him in the Saada Wars that precluded Yemen's civil conflict.

That alliance was derived purely out of self-interest. The Houthis needed access to state military networks and resources in their effort to conquer the state. Once they secured this objective, they turned on Saleh — killing him in 2017.

Orkaby argues that the Houthis similarly rushed to support Gaza because the group understood they would gain more than lose, winning the hearts and minds of people at home and abroad. That pragmatism may explain their delayed decision to join Iran's confrontation with Israel and the United States, even as other Iranian partners across the region have been weakened or sidelined.

For Orkaby, the Houthis may have been calculating the broader geopolitical balance. With several Iranian allies diminished in recent years, the group may hesitate to tie its fate too closely to Tehran. "They understand that Iran is a sinking ship," he explained.

Early Houthi restraint appeared to be driven by a combination of Iranian strategy and the group's domestic calculations. Al-Dawsari believes Tehran initially preferred to keep the group out of the war unless absolutely necessary. "Iran has lost most of its proxies, and now the Houthis represent the proxy with the most potential to support Iran's regime," she said. Preserving the Houthis was intended as a strategic priority. "The Houthis will likely intervene more fully only in the event of an existential threat to Iran's regime," she argued before the group launched strikes at Israel.

Al-Ansi points to the risks the movement could now face upon entering the conflict, especially if they do so more aggressively. In this regard, intelligence services in Washington and Tel Aviv have spent years gathering detailed information about Houthi military infrastructure. "If the Houthis begin aggressively attacking Israel or U.S. targets again, the response will be much stronger than before," he warned. One example of the devastating consequences of Israeli retaliation against the Houthis is the killing of most of the Houthi group's cabinet members in an August 2025 attack on Sana'a.

The group also faces domestic constraints. Despite controlling the capital and much of the north, the Houthis remain under economic pressure and international isolation. "Their situation is extremely difficult," al-Ansi said. "They are under sanctions, isolated internationally and face hostility even within areas they control." Last year, the United States re-designated the Houthis as a Foreign Terrorist Organization and a Specially Designated Global Terrorist, deepening economic pressure, albeit likely marginally compared to sweeping aid cuts to Yemen around the same time.

If conflict between Iran and its adversaries escalates, Yemen could quickly become a key theater, with renewed attacks on Red Sea and Bab al-Mandeb shipping — disruptions that would again amplify global economic pressure, as in 2024–25.

In an interview for Democracy in Exile, Yemeni academic and political analyst Abdulwahab Al-Awaj said that energy infrastructure in Gulf states could also become targets for the group. "The Houthis could attack fuel infrastructure in Saudi Arabia," he said. Al-Awaj added that such operations would likely begin from areas like Hodeidah and Ibb, where the Houthis have increasingly mobilized their forces, if Iran gave the green light.

For Yemen itself, the regional crisis could prolong the stalemate that has defined the war since a fragile truce emerged in 2022. Still, peace negotiations remain distant. Al-Dawsari argued that the Houthis have historically engaged in diplomacy to primarily buy time rather than to reach a genuine settlement: "They have never engaged in good faith in the peace process."

Meanwhile, the anti-Houthi camp has begun reorganizing after years of internal divisions. According to Al-Awaj, Saudi Arabia is working to unify Yemeni forces and assume greater control over key fronts following the United Arab Emirates' reduced role in the conflict. However, any decisive shift on the battlefield may depend on events far beyond Yemen's borders. As al-Ansi explained, the country now finds itself suspended between war and peace, waiting for the regional picture to clear.

The Houthis seem to be demonstrating a calibrated entry rather than a full escalation. What happens next will depend not only on those calculations, but on how forcefully regional actors respond. One fact is clear, however: Another critical front may be opening in this worsening regional war.

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*This piece was first written for/published on DAWN website here. 

Yemen Between Internal Deadlock & Regional War

Restoring the internationally recognised government of Yemen and undoing the Houthis' takeover of Sana’a, which had happened in September 2014, were the two key aims announced by Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States, Adel al‑Jubeir, just as Saudi Arabia began a military intervention in Yemen on 26 March 2015. Eleven years on, neither the internationally recognised government was restored, nor was the Houthis ’ takeover of Sana’a undone. The war persists, not as a dramatic clash of advancing armies but as a stalemate that refuses to resolve itself, and as a situation that persistently hampers the livelihoods of Yemeni civilians.

From Military Intervention to Stalemate

Yemen today inhabits an uneasy middle ground, the sort diplomats like to label “no war, no peace”. The large offensives that once defined the conflict have mostly faded since the truce arrangements of 2022. Saudi bombardments, which visually embodied the conflict in the eyes of many, have to a large extent halted for four years. Yet peace, in any meaningful sense, has not followed.

Instead, the country has settled into fragmentation. The Houthis hold Sana’a and most of the north-west of the territory, governing a landscape they seized through years of war. Elsewhere, a collection of forces aligned with the internationally recognised government and Saudi Arabia controls parts of the south and the east.

For much of the past decade, the forces opposed to the Houthis have struggled less with their adversary than with one another. Divisions ran deep, sharpened by the differing priorities of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Saudi Arabia wanted a unified Yemeni state under the internationally recognised government, but the United Arab Emirates wanted a fragmented Yemen, especially a semi-autonomous or independent south. Each of the two regional powers invested in its own network of Yemeni allies. Abu Dhabi backed figures such as the secessionist Southern Transitional Council it helped establish in 2017, and its affiliated forces, along with Tareq Saleh, a nephew of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh. Riyadh aligned itself with actors tied to the Islah Party, including Sultan al-Arada, governor of Marib, and Abdullah al-Alimi Bawazir, who headed the president’s office.

These parallel lines of support fractured the anti-Houthi camp, setting rival political projects—southern secessionism, party-based influence, and competing military commands—against one another. It pulled the conflict in conflicting directions, neglecting the initial anti-Houthi rationale of the Saudi-led coalition. The result was a patchwork rather than a unified front. Command structures overlapped or competed, military support arrived unevenly, and political loyalties remained fragmented. UAE-backed formations—including the Southern Transitional Council under Aydarous al-Zubaydi, the Security Belt forces in Aden, the Giants Brigades led by Abdulrahman al-Mahrami, and forces aligned with Tareq Saleh, as well as the Hadrami and Shabwani Elite units—operated through parallel chains of command that largely bypassed state institutions. By contrast, Saudi-backed forces remained formally tied to the ministries of defense and interior, alongside Islah-affiliated networks linked to figures such as Sultan al-Arada and formations like the Nation’s Shield Forces. In practice, however, these structures coexisted without integration, answering to different patrons and political agendas, and reinforcing a fragmented military landscape rather than a cohesive national force.

Time and again, these fractures weakened attempts to sustain pressure on Houthi positions in the north, turning what might have been coordinated campaigns into a series of faltering efforts. For instance, in 2019, clashes between government forces and UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council units in Aden led the STC to seize control of the interim capital, fracturing the anti-Houthi camp and forcing a shift in focus away from frontlines in the north. In 2020, the collapse of the government’s offensive in al-Jawf and the subsequent Houthi brief advance into Marib and Shabwah exposed the lack of coordinated command among anti-Houthi forces.

At the beginning of 2026, however, the domestic landscape had begun to shift in quieter but noticeable ways. The UAE’s military engagement was forced to end after Abu Dhabi lost its bet in expanding STC control over the east of Yemen. Saudi Arabia opposed the move, and consolidated its influence, marginalizing the UAE’s main local ally, the Southern Transitional Council, and then reshaping the Southern movement to its own advantage. These changes have created new conditions on the ground, opening space for a possible reorganisation of the Yemeni forces aligned against the Houthis. This dynamic first took the form of a new government announced in February 2026. Yet, plethoric as it is and unable to fully intervene in all the areas outside of Houthi-held territory, it remains at best fragile.

There are now efforts—tentative, uneven—to bring the various military formations under something resembling a unified command. At the same time, Saudi Arabia has taken a more direct role in overseeing key strategic areas, including Aden and stretches of the western coast, tightening its grip on the places that matter most to the broader war effort. Supporters of the STC remain active and able to organise rallies in urban areas, asserting their allegiance to Aydarous al-Zubaydi who fled Yemen in January 2026.

Riyadh’s approach now carries the unmistakable tone of someone who has learned, slowly and at considerable expense, the limits of force. And yet the problem remains. In northern Yemen, the Houthis continue to hold power with a resilience that refuses to fade. As their aggressive military strategy in the Red Sea has shown over the last two and a half years, their presence is not a temporary irritation but a long-term strategic concern—one that Riyadh cannot easily ignore.

Since November 2023, Houthi forces have targeted commercial shipping lanes, initially striking vessels linked to Israel before expanding their attacks to ships associated with dozens of countries, often indiscriminately. By October 2024, Houthi forces had carried out over 190 attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, and over 2,000 ships had rerouted away from the Red Sea, disrupting global trade and forcing costly diversions around the Cape of Good Hope. Flows of Houthi missiles and drones being sent to positions in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates up until 2022 have also highlighted a form of fragility of the monarchies. They were a of prelude to the post-February 2026 situation which, through Iranian attacks and the closure of the Hormuz Straight, has exposed Gulf security failures.

Airports, petrol facilities, infrastructure and even maybe Mecca are still at reach for the Houthis. Common ground thus needs to be found. For the moment, the Saudi kingdom seems less interested in launching a new offensive against them than in tidying the house on its own side: consolidating the various Yemeni partners it supports and strengthening the lines it already holds.

And so the battlefield in Yemen remains, for now, comparatively quiet when compared to situations elsewhere in the Middle East. The Yemeni front lines hold. The war pauses without ending and both the economy and the humanitarian situation - despite evident harshness, show a form of capacity of society to adapt. Meanwhile, elsewhere in the Middle East, tensions continue to rise, gathering force in ways that Yemen—so often drawn into other people’s struggles—cannot entirely escape.

Regionalization of Houthi Strategic Positioning

Viewed in a broader context, Yemen’s war drifted beyond its own borders. What began as a struggle over power inside the country now sits within a much larger web of regional tensions, most recently shaped by the war involving the United States, Israel, and Iran. Currently, all eyes are on the Houthis, wondering—will they step in this time to support their major ally, Iran, as they did through attacks to support Gaza in recent years, or continue to hold back?

The waters of the Red Sea might be one more time the Houthis’ stage for action. In mid-March 2026, public calls by the new Iranian leadership to close the Bab el-Mandeb Strait have been answered in ambivalent terms by Houthi military leaders. Through years of external assistance and training networks tied to Iran’s security establishment, the Houthis have developed their arsenal—ballistic missiles, drones, and naval mines. The result is a movement that no longer sits neatly within Yemen’s borders. Yet their operations beyond Yemen’s borders tend to move in step with the wider calculations emerging from Tehran. What exists between the Houthis and Iran, then, is not quite the tidy hierarchy implied by the word “proxy.” It is something looser and more networked: a web of allied actors, linked by shared ideology, mutual interests, and a habit of coordination that stretches across the region.

Nowhere is this arrangement more visible than in the present confrontation involving Iran, Israel, and the US. The rhetoric, as ever, is loud and uncompromising, suggesting that the Houthis are ready to support Iran. The Houthis are careful about appearances. They can go on air and give wonderful speeches about their support for Iran. They can also mobilize hundreds of thousands of demonstrators in the streets of Sanaa, as they did on March 7th, to condemn the American-Zionist aggression in Tehran and Lebanon. Yet the Houthis themselves have so far stopped short of fully entering the fray. There is a pause in their posture, a certain deliberation that suggests calculation rather than hesitation alone.

Part of that calculation lies beyond Yemen. Tehran, too, appears cautious. Having watched several of its regional partners weakened in recent years, it seems reluctant to expend one of the few actors that has proven both durable and strategically useful. The Houthis occupy a particular place in this landscape: resilient, geographically positioned near vital shipping routes, and capable—if they chose to act—of applying pressure where it might be felt far beyond Yemen’s shores - on key maritime chokepoints and regional adversaries.

The Red Sea hangs over all of this like a silent witness. Bab al-Mandeb, narrow and vital, offers a kind of leverage the Houthis—or anyone who controls it—can barely ignore. Even a small disruption, a ripple across the waters, can unsettle global trade and energy flows far beyond Yemen’s borders. But escalation is never a one-sided affair. The Houthis, too, must reckon with their costs. A sustained campaign against Israeli or American targets would almost certainly invite a response far more forceful than anything seen in earlier rounds of confrontation. Following the military losses Houthis have endured, for instance, the killing of some of their cabinet members in an Israeli attack on Sana’a in August 2025, the Houthis understand that the consequences of their escalation could be severe, perhaps devastating.

For now, their posture seems to favour a certain deliberate ambiguity. After years of war, the Houthi armed group has secured a degree of authority at home that they are unlikely to risk lightly. To rush headlong into a broader confrontation could undo those gains, trading the slow consolidation of power inside Yemen for a far more dangerous and unpredictable fight.

Eleven years after the Saudi-led intervention began, Yemen’s war no longer belongs entirely to Yemen; it has attached itself to the wider contest now shaping the Middle East. As long as the country plays host to this sprawling regional chess game, real peace feels like a distant rumor. Yemen’s future will bend and break according to currents it barely controls.

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This is the English translation of the original essay in French, first written for/published on the orient21 website. 

Withdrawal Without Accountability: The UAE's Unanswered Crimes in Yemen

*One of the latest key shifts in Yemen's conflict has been the rupture between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in southern Yemen. The recent development has exposed a power struggle that ended the UAE's military presence in Yemen and highlighted its harmful role — harm that cries out for accountability but remains ignored.

Riyadh and Abu Dhabi have long backed rival factions competing for control of southern Yemen, undermining coalition cohesion. By late 2025, this rivalry erupted into an open political and military confrontation after Saudi Arabia publicly accused the UAE of fueling unrest in the south and east of Yemen and acting beyond coalition coordination. The UAE rejected the accusations, insisting instead on its role in promoting Yemen's security and stability.

For most Yemenis, however, the UAE's overreach has long been visible. Following the commencement of the Saudi-led coalition's military campaign in Yemen in 2015, Abu Dhabi provided military, logistical and political support to armed groups operating outside government control — most prominently the secessionist Southern Transitional Council (STC) and its allied forces across southern and western Yemen. In practice, the Emirates exercised proxy rule, reshaping power structures that later became engines of abuse. In 2017, former Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi bluntly accused the UAE of behaving like an occupier.

Since the start of the war, coercive control and systemic abuse have defined the Emirati role in Yemen. The United Nations panels of experts and other international and local rights organizations have extensively documented these practices for years. As early as 2015, Emirati-backed forces in southern Yemen were implicated in arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance and torture carried out across a network of secret prisons operating beyond judicial oversight. This project targeted journalists, political critics and perceived opponents. Some detainees died under torture or following threats that have been traced directly to Emirati officials. Subsequent U.N. investigations concluded that these violations were not the result of rogue local actors, but unfolded within a command structure shaped by Abu Dhabi's material support, operational direction and, in some cases, direct orders issued by Emirati military commanders on the ground.

Last month, the Internationally Recognized Government of Yemen (IRG) — with Saudi backing — granted international media access to former Emirati-run military sites in southern Yemen, exposing detention facilities linked to the secret prisons. Before the rupture between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia and the Yemeni government were aware of these sites but refrained from public criticism. Their exposure now reflects a recalibration driven less by accountability than by an intensifying media and political dispute between the former partners.

International media outlets have revealed aspects of the UAE-run prisons, including shipping-container cells, isolation units and testimonies of torture, sexual abuse and enforced disappearances attributable to UAE personnel and allied Yemeni forces. Following these revelations, families of detainees — some held for years without charge — publicly demanded information about the fate of their loved ones. Families have diligently spoken out about those prisons for years.
In a recent statement, the Abductees' Mothers Association claimed to possess documented testimonies confirming the existence of secret detention sites across Aden, Hadramout and Socotra, where detainees were arbitrarily held, tortured and forcibly disappeared outside of any legal framework. The association also warned that closing such facilities without independent investigations risks destroying evidence and allowing perpetrators to evade accountability.

A daunting set of questions thus arises: Can the UAE, or any other state, enter Yemen and leave at will, abandoning victims of its wrongdoing? What happens to Abu Dhabi's record of human rights abuses in Yemen? Should it not be held accountable? Do its victims not deserve justice? Most crucially, who has the power to hold it accountable?

It is well established that all warring parties in Yemen have committed grave human rights abuses and war crimes. My reporting for Democracy in Exile since January 2024 — alongside my broader body of work — documents violations by all major actors, including the Houthis, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, the United States, the United Kingdom and others. Focusing on the UAE does not downplay the crimes of other parties, which are ongoing and well documented, but examines one case in depth. The UAE's role in Yemen offers a revealing test case: whether any actor can escape accountability for the harm inflicted on the Yemeni people.

The truth of the matter is clear: The UAE has largely hidden behind the Saudi-led coalition to evade any accountability. From the outset of the war, the coalition provided a convenient legal and political shield that Abu Dhabi utilized to diffuse responsibility for its conduct in Yemen. Coalition operations were marked by opacity, with no clear accounting of which states carried out a particular action in many instances. This ambiguity was not incidental.

Under international law, states are required to investigate alleged violations committed by their forces and to ensure respect for the laws of war by units operating under their direction or control. Instead, the UAE and other coalition members routinely withheld information about their individual roles, deflecting scrutiny onto the coalition as a collective entity.

The international system failed to hold Abu Dhabi accountable despite extensive and credible evidence. That failure became structural in 2021, when the U.N. Group of Eminent Experts on Yemen — the only independent, international and impartial mechanism systematically documenting violations — was terminated following sustained lobbying by coalition members, including the UAE. Since then, no comparable body has been mandated to investigate or document abuses in Yemen, leaving a deliberate accountability vacuum.

International human rights mechanisms have exposed their own limitations elsewhere. If the world failed to act in Gaza, why should anyone believe that these tools can hold the UAE accountable in Yemen amid real questions of political will? There appear to be no remaining, realistic mechanisms available today. While the U.N. Group of Eminent Experts no longer documents abuses, the internationally recognized government's National Commission to Investigate Alleged Violations of Human Rights (NCIAVHR) continues this work.

Yemen can leverage these records to pursue cases against Abu Dhabi, seeking justice and redress for victims. The newly appointed minister of legal affairs, Ishraq al-Maqtary — who led NCIAVHR and has tirelessly documented abuses since the war began — must now spearhead this difficult task. Yemen's future depends on accountability, thorough documentation and ensuring no actor escapes the consequences of their actions — including and particularly the UAE. A future marred by unaddressed injustice and a lack of accountability is, in fact, no future at all for tens of millions of Yemenis deserving of better from the international community.

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*This article was first written for & published by DAWN.org 

From the Special Envoy’s Office to What’s Ahead

I’ve just concluded nearly a year working as a Program Officer at the UN Special Envoy for Yemen office, under the leadership of Hans Grundberg. It was a demanding and formative experience, made richer by working closely with my supervisor, the courageous Libyan human rights defender Zahra Langhi. Grateful for the experience, the colleagues, and the opportunity to contribute during an important period for Yemen.

Since the appointment of the first UN envoy for Yemen in 2012, several envoys have taken on this demanding mandate. As a journalist, I spent years closely covering their work. That perspective deepened in 2018, when I served as a fellow at the UN Security Council—an opportunity to observe firsthand how global decisions are shaped, negotiated, and often diluted behind closed doors.

Working under the leadership of Swedish diplomat Hans Grundberg was a particularly meaningful experience. As a Swedish citizen, I shared a cultural frame of reference that helped me better understand his leadership style, diplomatic instincts, and approach to mediation.

Working at the Special Envoy’s Office during one of the most critical moments for Yemen, I sought each day to translate Yemeni realities into policy language—without dulling their urgency. Above all, I worked to expose the cost of inaction: the price Yemenis continue to pay when diplomacy stalls and accountability fades.

I do not see human rights advocacy, external critique/analysis, and working from within institutions as contradictory paths, but as complementary ones. My journey—from journalism to formal policy spaces—has shown me that while global institutions offer real opportunities to influence decision-making, they must remain closely connected to human realities. Even the most well-intentioned systems risk becoming bureaucratic and detached if they are not continually grounded in people’s lived experiences and reminded of the human cost of silence.

As I look ahead, I’m eager to apply these lessons in new opportunities and roles that value principled analysis and impact. 

Yemen in 2026: Rivalries and Ruptures

ICDI - After more than a decade of war, Yemen stands as an example of a profound failure of strategy and reason by domestic leadership, regional intervention, and international diplomacy. In 2025, Yemen’s war became increasingly entangled with broader Middle East geopolitical recalibrations — especially around Red Sea security and changing Gulf relations — which have posed major challenges for diplomacy.

The end of 2025 marked a decisive rupture in the partnership in Yemen between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), as years of concealed rivalry gave way to open political and military confrontation. Yemen’s conflict pits the Iran-backed Houthi armed group, which controls much of the north after toppling the internationally recognized government, against a fractured, Saudi-supported internationally recognized government located in the south, with both sides fighting for control over the Yemeni state. Complicating this divide, the UAE has long backed the separatist Southern Transitional Council (STC), seeking autonomy or independence for southern Yemen. Saudi Arabia’s direct intervention against the UAE-backed STC in eastern Yemen last December signaled a broader escalation, with Riyadh now actively moving to curb and roll back Emirati influence across the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa. Saudi Arabia now views Abu Dhabi’s proxy-based expansion as a direct threat to its strategic security belt. In parallel, Saudi Arabia has moved to reclaim stewardship over the southern issue, shifting it from an Emirati-managed proxy arena to a Saudi-supervised political track centered on dialogue by Riyadh convening southern leaders. This breakdown of relations between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi is almost certainly going to be a defining factor shaping Yemen’s conflict dynamics in 2026.

Three factors that could shape the conflict in 2026

It is difficult to predict with confidence what Yemen’s trajectory will be in 2026. Still, a few dynamics are likely to weigh more heavily than others: a conflict that remains stuck in a stalemate and fragmentation, deeper regional entanglements, and the humanitarian fallout of both. There is little indication that the war will move beyond this impasse. If anything, division itself now seems to function as the organizing principle of Yemen’s political landscape. With the Houthis firmly entrenched in the north and the anti-Houthi camp increasingly fractured across the south and east, it is hard to see what incentives exist for compromise rather than continued entrenchment.

The second uncertainty lies in regional geopolitics. With Red Sea security concerns, intensifying Gulf rivalries, and the possibility of a United States military strike on Iran, all converging, Yemen risks being treated as a secondary arena in wider strategic contests. Saudi Arabia’s pursuit of de-escalation in Yemen usually fails to translate into diplomatic engagement. At the same time, the proxy forces that the UAE has built in the south will not simply dissolve overnight. In this context, the Houthis may seek to exploit the situation by launching military offensives in areas they aim to expand. Whether they can do so, however, remains an open question, hinging largely on the level of support they continue to receive from Iran — and on Iran’s own fate should a US military confrontation materialize.

The final—and most unsettling—question is how long Yemen’s humanitarian catastrophe can continue to sit on the political sidelines. More than half of the population, an estimated 19.5 million people, now depend on humanitarian assistance, including 4.8 million internally displaced persons and over 61,000 refugees and asylum seekers. Yet even at this scale, the crisis no longer provokes urgency among donors, international institutions, or regional mediators. Aid is increasingly constrained and politicized through funding cuts, obstruction of aid, Houthis’ detentions of civil society and UN agency workers, donor conditionality, and access restrictions, while economic collapse and institutional decay deepen in the background. Ordinary Yemenis pay the price, day after day. And yet, history shows that desperation is rarely passive. One day, the pressure it creates may spill over in ways that no strategy, no negotiation, can contain.

Possible scenarios

These three dynamics create a context in which a range of outcomes is possible. How the conflict unfolds will depend on a number of moving parts: whether the Saudi-UAE rivalry escalates or stabilizes, whether the Houthis decide to push into new territory, and whether the international community steps in—or stays on the sidelines. Seen in this light, Yemen’s path over the coming year could follow two very different directions.

Scenario one: fragmentation vs stabilization

In the most optimistic scenario, Saudi Arabia manages to reassert itself as the dominant external broker in Yemen, reining in rival armed actors and nudging the fractured Presidential Leadership Council (PLC) toward at least a semblance of cohesion—a trajectory Riyadh has already begun to signal through its recent announcement of large-scale financial support for Yemen’s security and development sectors, particularly in southern areas previously dominated by UAE-backed forces.

A reduction in Emirati interference — whether due to shifting priorities or external pressure — would ease southern tensions and allow the council to exercise authority over its previously independent military units. In this scenario, the PLC would not suddenly transform into a fully functioning government, but it could begin to regain credibility, present a united front in negotiations with the Houthis, and establish clearer chains of command that make governance possible rather than purely reactive.

Yet even here, the gains would be fragile. Any stabilization would depend on Riyadh’s continued engagement, the council members’ willingness to subordinate personal ambitions, and the ability to balance external influence without appearing to cede sovereignty. Also, it depends on confronting Israel’s increasing entanglement in Gulf rivalries, aligning quietly with the UAE, and expanding its presence in the Red Sea and Horn of Africa — developments that Riyadh views as a strategic threat and factor in regional competition.

If all goes well, for the first time in years, Yemen could move from a state of pure paralysis to one where decisions are made, priorities set, and the country is at least minimally steered rather than drifting. It would not be a solution to Yemen’s deeper fractures, but a conditional stabilization that offers a space for peace talks.

Scenario two: entrenched fragmentation

The more likely — and more dangerous — scenario is one in which Saudi Arabia cannot fully assert control over southern armed groups, while the UAE quietly backs separatist and local forces in the south and east – a dynamic that risks escalating local violence and undermining the PLC’s authority — a pattern already evident in the large, recurrent pro-STC protests in Aden, which signal persistent popular legitimacy for the separatists despite Saudi-backed military gains.

In this trajectory, competition over territory, resources, and external patronage will intensify, particularly in regions such as Hadramout, where long-standing grievances are increasingly framed in autonomist or separatist terms. Fragmentation will become self-reinforcing, as armed groups resist any political settlement that threatens their economic lifelines or local dominance. National peace talks will likely stall, not only because of the Houthis, but because no unified counterpart exists on the other side. Frustrated by Saudi Arabia’s recent moves, the Houthis could respond with a military push toward areas they intend to advance into, framing Riyadh — not the UAE — as Yemen’s chief adversary. Houthi official, Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, has already accused Saudi Arabia of steering the war for its own strategic and territorial gain, manipulating regional actors, and placing its interests above Yemeni unity. While Houthis remain wary of the UAE and its ties to Israel, the Houthis portray Saudi actions as the greater threat — tools of a broader agenda serving American and Israeli ambitions under the veneer of religion.

In this context, Yemen drifts further toward a Libya- or Somalia-style model: a formally recognized government with shrinking authority, multiple competing power centers, and a conflict that no longer moves toward resolution.

Ultimately, 2026 is unlikely to be a year of resolution for Yemen. The question is not whether the war will end, but whether it will continue to be managed through fragmentation, external bargaining, and humanitarian containment. As regional actors recalibrate their priorities and Yemeni institutions remain hollowed out, Yemen risks slipping further into a conflict that no one is actively trying to win — or end. What happens next will depend less on new peace initiatives than on whether those with power, inside and outside Yemen, are willing to accept the costs of continued division as the status quo.

*This article was first written for and published on ICDI's website on 26 January. Original link is here.