As Yemen’s old conflict flares up, a test for Mecca pact

As the last few years have shown, military force can impose costs, but cannot by itself neutralise the group or resolve the long-running conflict.

2 min readOct 9, 2026 06:05 AM IST First published on: Oct 9, 2026 at 06:05 AM IST

Yemen’s long war has flared again, this time as a spillover of the US-Iran conflict. Fighting along the Red Sea coast has intensified as Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces seek to secure the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, through which roughly 12 per cent of global maritime trade passes, while the Iran-backed Houthis have struck Saudi airports and oil facilities. With traffic through the Strait of Hormuz restricted, the Red Sea route matters more for energy exports, raising the stakes well beyond Yemen. But it is the Yemeni people, worn down by more than a decade of war, who will continue to suffer the most.

The 2022 UN-brokered truce largely froze the fighting and gave the Houthis, classified as a terrorist outfit by the US and several other countries, time to regroup. They subsequently began targeting ships linked to Israel in the Red Sea amid the Gaza war. US and British strikes in 2024, followed by a sustained US bombing campaign in 2025, failed to defeat them; neither did the Israeli strikes on Houthi-controlled ports. The fragile truce shattered in July. The conflicts in Iran and Yemen are now intertwined. Escalation in Yemen suits Tehran, which can use the Houthis to gain leverage over the region’s chokepoints. A sustained war would also complicate a US-Iran settlement. A political resolution between the Houthis and the Yemeni government looks distant, but the alternative — another prolonged military campaign — would be far worse.

The Yemen war is also the first real test of the Mecca Pact. Neither Turkey nor Pakistan has shown much appetite to be part of an anti-Houthi offensive. After the alliance’s emergency meeting in Riyadh this week, Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said Pakistan and Turkey had a “presence in theatre”, but only Saudi troops were engaged in combat. Islamabad knows that offensive support would cross Tehran’s red lines. Thus, the pact may offer Riyadh some political backing, but it is unlikely to deter the Houthis. As the last few years have shown, military force can impose costs, but cannot by itself neutralise the group or resolve the long-running conflict.