Yemen

The poorest country on the Arabian Peninsula, Yemen has been divided since Ansar Allah (the Houthis) seized Sanaa in 2014; a Saudi-led Coalition intervened in 2015, and the war has killed hundreds of thousands and produced the world's worst humanitarian crisis. A fragile Ceasefire since 2022 let Ansar Allah consolidate the north, while the internationally recognised government, the Presidential Leadership Council under Rashad al-Alimi, governs from Aden in the south. That government briefly lost Aden in December 2025 when the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council launched a secessionist offensive across the south; Saudi-backed forces reversed the gains and retook Aden by 7 January 2026, dissolving the STC's seats on the council. OCHA runs contingency operations across Yemen, Iran, Lebanon, Gaza, and Syria.

Yemen returned to the centre of the 2026 Iran conflict when Ansar Allah fired Ballistic Missiles at Israel on 28 March, ending a month of restraint. Iran suspended talks on 1 June and authorised activating Bab al-Mandeb as an additional front; on 8 June, Ansar Allah declared a complete ban on Israeli maritime navigation in the Red Sea and struck the Jaffa area, its first hit on Israeli territory since the April ceasefire. It is the Aden government, not Ansar Allah, that holds Yemen's seat at US-led regional forums: the recognised state attended CENTCOM's 12-nation Bahrain defence dialogue on 1 July 2026. By 20 July, Saudi Arabia had itself imposed a blockade on Yemeni ports and struck Sanaa International Airport, an attack Ansar Allah says targeted an Iranian aircraft carrying its leadership home from Ali Khamenei's funeral; the group cited both actions as the trigger for its own embargo on Saudi shipping through Bab al-Mandeb, enforced by radio warning rather than force.

Yemen's strategic value lies in its geography: it controls the eastern shore of Bab al-Mandeb, through which 10% of global trade and 4.5 million barrels of oil pass daily; Ansar Allah's 2023-25 Red Sea attacks halved traffic and triggered the largest naval escort operation since the Cold War. Saudi Arabia struck a UAE weapons convoy at Mukalla port on 29 December 2025, the first kinetic exchange between nominal GCC allies, contributing to the UAE's formal OPEC exit in May 2026.