Renewed Fighting in Yemen Threatens Sanaa and Vital Red Sea Shipping Lanes

War is once again descending on Yemen, a country once described as the world’s worst humanitarian disaster. The nation is currently experiencing its most serious spell of fighting since 2022, when a United Nations-brokered truce halted eight years of a war that had killed tens of thousands of people.

This week, Yemen’s internationally recognised government launched counterattacks against the Houthi rebels, with fighting intensifying on Monday in the provinces of Taiz, al-Bayda and al-Jawf, the latter seen as one of the main gateways to the Houthi-controlled capital Sanaa. The Houthis, meanwhile, say they have repelled some of the government forces’ advances and attacked Saudi Arabia, which supports the Yemeni government.

A wider landscape of regional instability and conflict has created new conditions for Yemen’s unresolved war to flare up once again. Tensions escalated in July after government forces claimed an attack on the Houthi-controlled airport in Sanaa, preventing an aircraft from Iran from landing. More attacks followed, and it further escalated last week when the Houthis launched a major offensive, trying to advance through western Taiz and southern Hodeidah, towards the port city of al-Makha (Mocha) and the Bab al-Mandeb Strait in the Red Sea.

In this new phase of war, the internationally recognised government has its sights set on retaking the capital from the Iran-backed Houthis. Both, meanwhile, are vying for control of the area near Bab al-Mandeb – which has gained greater significance amid Iran’s effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a vital artery for global oil and gas supplies. The Houthis have conducted regular attacks on shipping in the Red Sea since 2023.

Analysts say that government-aligned forces are better resourced than at any point in the conflict, but they also warn against a swift victory. “This is likely to be a protracted war rather than a rapid campaign,” Mohammed al-Basha, a Yemeni-American analyst and founder of Basha Report, a US-based risk advisory, told Al Jazeera.

Changing the status quo

Analysts say that the Yemeni government’s objective is to retake the whole of the country, after years of civil war and fragmented leadership. Emboldened by its ability to take back areas in non-Houthi-controlled southern Yemen from the Southern Transitional Council (STC), a UAE-backed separatist group, earlier this year, the government is now setting its sights on the Houthis.

“The government was able to control more, and less militias [are] now on the ground … the only [other] player now [is the] Houthis in Sanaa,” Mahjoob Zweiri, a professor of Middle East politics at Qatar University, told Al Jazeera.

Since the defeat of the STC, the Yemeni government has focused on presenting the country’s anti-Houthi forces as a united group with one military chain of command, after years of division. Still, the Houthis remain a “formidable military force”, said al-Basha.

Regional crises a catalyst

Against the backdrop of the ongoing US-Israel war on Iran – and attacks from Iran and its allies on the Gulf – the opportunity has been ripe for the Saudi-backed Yemeni government to take on the Houthis. “There is a wide perspective that non-state actors – militias – should be ended regionally,” said Zweiri, adding that there is growing aversion from regional states to such groups.

The US-Israel war on Iran is a particularly important catalyst, said Saudi political analyst Khaled Batarfi. “The confrontation involving the United States, Israel and Iran has changed the strategic value of Yemen,” he told Al Jazeera.

The battle for Bab al-Mandeb

Another key objective of the internationally recognised government has been to secure the Bab al-Mandeb Strait. Iran is leveraging the Strait as a point of pressure through the Houthis, so one of the aims of the war is to ensure the waterway comes under the control of Yemen’s central government, Zweiri said.

“Some initially expected a Syrian-style scenario, with Houthi defences unravelling rapidly in the way Bashar al-Assad’s regime collapsed,” al-Basha said, referring to the December 2024 lightning offensive that brought down al-Assad. “If anything, what we may be looking at is closer to a Sudan-style scenario, with two relatively well-defined geographical blocs pitted against each other in a prolonged and costly conflict,” he warned.