Drones are displayed on the back of a vehicle during an official military parade marking the ninth anniversary of the Houthi takeover of the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, on Sept. 21, 2023. Mohammed Huwais/AFP via Getty Images
The forces of a Saudi-led military coalition traded attacks with Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis on July 25, amid an expanding conflict on the Arabian Peninsula and in the neighboring Red Sea.
Maj. Gen. Turki Al-Malki, a Saudi military spokesman, announced Saudi-aligned forces struck Houthi targets in the Yemeni port city of Hodeidah on Saturday, in retaliation for a Houthi attack that struck the Saudi-flagged oil tanker Encelia as the vessel sailed in the Red Sea on July 22.
Hours after the strikes on Hodeidah, the Houthis announced they had launched a retaliatory barrage of missiles and drones that struck oil facilities in Jizan and Yanbu operated by the Saudi state-led oil company Aramco.
The Houthis, a Shia Muslim movement that the United States has designated as a foreign terrorist organization, have clashed with Saudi-aligned forces since 2015. After the Houthis unseated the internationally recognized Yemeni government in early 2015, Saudi Arabia formed a military coalition of neighboring Arab states to intervene on the deposed Yemeni government’s behalf.
Though fighting between the Houthis and the Saudi-led coalition had declined measurably after a 2022 ceasefire, the conflict has been ramping up again in recent days, as clashes between U.S. and Iranian forces have also intensified.
The July 22 attack on the vessel Encelia came two days after the Houthis declared a blockade of Saudi trade through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a narrow waterway that sits between the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea.
This new Houthi effort to constrict trade through the Red Sea now runs parallel to Iranian efforts to attack shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, a strategy Tehran adopted after U.S. and Israeli forces began striking Iran on Feb. 28.
Before the current Iran conflict, about 20 percent of global oil exports passed through the Strait of Hormuz. Trade flows through that waterway have since fallen, leading to spiking global energy prices.
The Red Sea serves as another major transit point for the global shipment of oil and other commodities, and a blockade there could send oil prices ever higher.
U.S. President Donald Trump sought to restore normal traffic levels in the Strait of Hormuz as part of a recent ceasefire and peace negotiations with Iran. That ceasefire collapsed after Iranian forces launched new attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz and Trump ordered U.S. forces to resume strikes on Iran.
Following the attack on the vessel Encelia, Trump warned that he’d hold Iran responsible for further Houthi attacks.
