Houthi supporters rally to celebrate advances by Houthi forces along the Red Sea coastline (Reuters)
The report, citing six people familiar with the preparations, said more than 100,000 Yemeni troops could be mobilised depending on the scale of the operation, while the timing remains uncertain, with estimates ranging from within a week to after the US midterm elections in early November. The offensive could be launched in the coming weeks and would be led by Yemeni forces and backed by Saudi air strikes, according to Reuters.
The immediate objective of the planned offensive is to reverse the Houthis’ rapid gains last month, when the group advanced down Yemen’s Red Sea coast and seized control of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, according to people familiar with the Saudi preparations cited by Reuters.
However, Reuters reported that President Donald Trump had previously rejected Saudi requests for direct US military support, including air strikes, leaving Riyadh to conduct the air campaign itself.
Ali Shihabi, a Saudi political analyst close to government thinking, also said the outcome would depend on the performance of the local forces, with the ground campaign moving from defending positions to going on the offensive.
Michael Ratney, a former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia, said he expected the operation to be more limited than the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen that began in 2015. The military chiefs of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey met in Riyadh on September 25 to discuss the situation, while Pakistan’s foreign minister said on October 2 that the three countries would hold an emergency meeting in Riyadh next week.
“Ideally, it would be a fairly limited operation to retake coastal areas and get back to normal maritime traffic,” Ratney said, according to Reuters.