There is another crucial consideration: the Houthis have so far avoided attacking American ships under an understanding reached with Washington.
Trump told Fox News on Sunday that the United States remained in communication with the group and said the Houthis had agreed not to fight the US.
A senior Houthi official separately told AP that the group did not intend to target American vessels. Oman-mediated discussions have also reaffirmed the 2025 US-Houthi ceasefire arrangement.
Trump initially resisted launching airstrikes during meetings with advisers Wednesday but later ordered the Pentagon to prepare for military action following a phone call with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Thursday, the report said.
The Saudi crown prince urged Trump to intervene directly amid rapid territorial gains by the Houthis in Yemen, according to the newspaper.
The administration did not give a reason for the change of plans. Trump was originally scheduled to depart Camp David later on Sunday local time.
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Trump’s return to the White House came after the US State Department issued an alert to US citizens in the Middle East, warning that hostilities between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis in Yemen have “the potential to escalate rapidly”.
Saudi Arabia on Saturday confirmed that Yemen’s Houthi rebels tried to attack its capital with a ballistic missile, the first targeting of Riyadh since the escalation in fighting with the Tehran-backed rebels that has opened a new front in the Iran war.
The statement by the Saudi-led coalition fighting the Houthis came long after the dawn attempt, which the coalition said was intercepted. Some residents in Riyadh heard an explosion. Later, some saw a plume of smoke near the airport. There were no reports of casualties or damage.
The Commission condemns the attacks carried out by the Houthis against civilian targets and economic infrastructure in Saudi Arabia, as well as attacks and threats against commercial shipping in the Red Sea.
The Commission expresses particular concern over reports of attempted attacks targeting Makkah and other holy cities of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It stresses that holy sites, as well as civilians and pilgrims visiting them, must be fully protected and must under no circumstances become targets of military action.
The Commission further strongly reaffirms the principle of freedom of navigation in the Red Sea and through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, in accordance with international law. Any action aimed at obstructing or threatening navigation along this strategic maritime route poses a serious risk not only to the littoral States, but also to international trade, global supply chains, energy security and African economies.
The organisation also emphasised that the security of the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandeb strait was “a major strategic interest for Africa, particularly for the States of the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea littoral States”.
The commission joined a number of other states, global organisations, and individuals that also came forward to condemn ongoing attacks.
Fighting between the Houthis and Yemeni government forces and their Saudi backers has killed 63 people in the last 24 hours, AFP reported on Thursday, citing military sources from both sides.
At least 23 government soldiers were killed in missile and drone attacks by the Houthis in two southwestern provinces, a government official said, while Houthi military sources reported 40 fighters killed in Saudi air strikes and fighting on the ground.
Saudi Arabia and Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis exchanged fresh strikes across their border on Thursday and Yemenis took to boats in the Red Sea to escape fighting, as the spreading West Asia war created new threats to global oil supplies.
The Saudi-led coalition fighting Yemen‘s Houthis said on Wednesday it had shot down a drone south of Mecca a day earlier, before it could enter the restricted airspace over Islam‘s holiest city. The coalition said „the security of the Two Holy Mosques and the pilgrims is a red line“ and promised deterrent measures against the Iran-backed group.
In der internationalen Berichterstattung wird das Ergebnis überwiegend als militärischer Erfolg AnsarAllahs dargestellt. Ein genauerer Blick auf die von CNN rekonstruierten Abläufe zeigt jedoch ein anderes Bild: weniger einen Sieg der einen Seite als einen aussergewöhnlichen Zusammenbruch der anderen – mit direkter saudischer und US-amerikanischer Beteiligung an diesem Zusammenbruch.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian says Tehran is “not at war with Saudi Arabia”, as tensions rise over Houthi attacks on the kingdom, Al Jazeera reported.
Pezeshkian said the Houthis have “their own issues”, distancing Iran from the group’s actions.
A 2022 truce had reduced large-scale combat and allowed Saudi Arabia to distance itself from the conflict, but it left the capital under Houthi control and did nothing to establish centralized control over the country and its heavy weapons.
Now, as the Houthis advance rapidly toward government strongholds in the south, Yemen’s military is scrambling to regroup and make progress on its planned offensive in the north. The question now is whether Saudi Arabia, the U.S., and other powers will now intervene to help blunt the Houthis’ rapid advances.
Sultan al-Arada, a member of the ruling presidential council, described the collapse of government forces in the port city of Mocha and elsewhere on Yemen’s west coast as “painful and regrettable”.
Al-Arada, also governor of central Marib province, said in a TV interview that government fighters “are currently regrouping and will return to the battle in one form or another”.
Obock, a city only about 20 kilometres (12 miles) across the water from the Yemeni coast, has for several years been a preferred arrival point for those seeking refuge from war-torn Yemen. The Bab-el-Mandeb strait is also used in the opposite direction by migrants from the Horn of Africa, who transit through Yemen on their way to Gulf countries.
According to reports, their advance is facing little resistance after government-aligned forces withdrew from their positions.
If that continues, it could pave the way for the Houthis to seize more territory along the coast and move closer to Bab al-Mandeb, while increasingly threatening shipping in the crucial Red Sea trade route.
They’ve been battling it out over the past nine days and we knew that the Houthis were trying to push west of Taiz because their main goal, their main prize, was the takeover of the city of al-Makha (Mocha) and also the Red Sea coastline.
It gives the Houthis full advantage to prevent ships from crossing Bab al-Mandeb and also, more importantly, the ability to cut off three main supply lines to the government in the south of the country.
Beginning on Thursday, the Houthis launched an offensive aiming to cut off the government-held port city of Mokha, under fire for weeks, and advance towards areas bordering the Bab al-Mandab strait at the southern entrance to the Red Sea.
A military official within the government told AFP that the Houthis had succeeded on Saturday evening in „cutting off the road linking Taiz to Mokha.“
According to three separate Yemeni military sources, 26 government troops and 31 Houthis have been killed over several hours of battles in the country’s southwest, AFP reported.
A Yemeni health source also told the French news agency that the death toll from a Houthi missile attack on a road in Yemen’s Taiz governorate earlier today now stands at six – an increase on the four reported by government-aligned sources earlier today.
Strikes by Yemen‘s Houthis on Sunday killed at least 11 people, a medical source in the Yemeni port city of Mokha has told AFP, after an earlier drone salvo targeted a Saudi oil refinery on the Red Sea coast.
A years-long truce in Yemen‘s civil war between the Houthis and the Saudi-backed internationally recognised government appeared to collapse last month.
Houthis’ expansion of cross-border attacks on government forces means the threat of all-out war between the two sides is no longer far-fetched.
A senior Saudi official, speaking anonymously to Reuters late on Thursday, said intelligence gathered by Saudi Arabia, the United States and other countries in the region indicated that civilian and economic sites could be targeted.
The potential targets include energy infrastructure, ports and airports.
Saudi Arabia had detected the movement of drones and missiles, according to the official, suggesting preparations for attacks from Iraq to the north and Yemen to the south.
The sources added that the casualty numbers were expected to rise.
Fighting in Yemen between the pro-Iranian Houthis and Saudi-backed government forces has intensified in recent weeks, after four years of relative calm.
(July 31, 2026)
The battle to restore the State institutions and eliminate the militias‘ coup isn‘t just the army‘s battle, but it is everybody‘s fight, al-Alimi stressed.
The President emphasized that the current stage requires political parties to reclaim their natural role as forces of enlightenment, mobilization and rallying against threats, to restore respect for the idea of the national state and to reinforce the isolation of militias and their destructive agenda.
The political parties need to make the battle to restore the State institutions a matter for the whole society, not only a government‘s task or issue, al-Alimi noted.
Military spokesperson says maritime blockade has forced Saudi tankers to avoid Red Sea route
Fourteen countries have backed a Saudi proposal to establish a multinational “Maritime Defense Alliance,” aimed at protecting international shipping routes and global trade, Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Defense said in a statement Thursday.
The countries are Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Yemen, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Sudan, Djibouti and Somalia.
The ministry said military chiefs and other representatives from 43 countries attended a meeting on the initiative, either in person or by video link. A European Union delegation also took part.
While the new blockade has disrupted shipping in the region, Ansar Allah hasn’t announced a blanket ban on shipping through the strategic Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which connects the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. Some Chinese ships loaded with Saudi crude have also been able to pass through the strait, and Reuters reported that Beijing had cleared each passage with Sanaa.
But as the US-Iran war and conflict across the region are escalating again, the chances of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait being completely closed are rising. The Al-Monitor report, which cited two diplomatic sources and an unnamed US official, said that Riyadh has invited around 50 nations to join the Red Sea coalition, but that US support was seen as vital for the initiative to take off, and it was unclear at this point if Washington would participate.
Der Bundestag hat am Donnerstag, 16. Oktober 2025, den Bundeswehreinsatz im Roten Meer um ein Jahr verlängert. Dazu lag ein Antrag der Bundesregierung für die fortgesetzte Beteiligung der Bundeswehr an der EU-geführten Operation Eunavfor Aspides zur Abwehr von Angriffen der Huthi-Milizen auf die Schifffahrt im Roten Meer vor (21/1372(Dokument, öffnet ein neues Fenster)). In namentlicher Abstimmung wurde der Antrag auf Empfehlung des Auswärtigen Ausschusses mit 435 Ja-Stimmen bei 69 Gegenstimmen und 77 Enthaltungen angenommen.
A senior official in Yemen‘s Houthi movement said on Wednesday that the group, and not Iraq‘s Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), carried out earlier attacks on Saudi Arabia, accusing Riyadh of blaming Iraqi factions for operations they did not conduct.
Abdullah Al-Numi, a member of the political bureau of the Houthi movement (Ansarallah) told Shafaq News that the PMF had repeatedly denied attacking Saudi Arabia, while his movement had openly claimed responsibility for earlier operations against Saudi ports and facilities, including sites in Yanbu and Jizan.
A member of Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council has called for increased combat readiness within military and security units, describing the fight against the Houthis as a “fateful battle”.
Sultan al-Arada made the remarks during a meeting in Marib with Defence Minister, Taher al-Uqaili, and armed forces chief of staff, Lieutenant-General Saghir bin Aziz, where they “reviewed field conditions and progress of operational plans”, the Saba news agency reported.
Al-Arada said the campaign waged by government forces aims to restore state institutions and end “the rebellion” by the Houthis.
Iran‘s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has said that the conflict between Saudi Arabia and Yemen „cannot be attributed to Iran“ and that the escalating tensions in the Bab al-Mandeb strait are “rooted in old disputes and issues“ between the two countries.
“We believe that there is no military solution to the issue of Yemen, Bab al-Mandeb, and other regional issues,” he said in an interview with the state-run Iran Daily newspaper.