For more than 10 days, Iran-backed Houthi rebels have been launching ballistic missiles and drone attacks against critical Saudi infrastructure in retaliation for the kingdom’s support for government forces fighting the group in Yemen.
Attacks on airports in Riyadh, Abha and Dammam have killed at least 19 people and injured more than 360, according to the Saudi-led coalition, while other strikes have targeted oil infrastructure. The escalation comes as fighting has resumed in Yemen, where Saudi-backed government forces have launched a counteroffensive to retake strategic areas near the Bab al-Mandab Strait that were seized by the Houthis, which the U.S. State Department has designated a foreign terrorist organization. The waterway has assumed greater importance for global trade and energy supplies amid disruptions to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
The attacks raise questions about what the Houthis hope to gain by striking Saudi Arabia, what it means for the war in Yemen and whether a political settlement is still possible in a conflict that has raged for more than a decade.
Ali al-Bukhaiti, a former Houthi spokesman who has since broken with the group, told MBN that one of the main aims of the escalation is to halt Saudi intervention in Yemen, particularly the kingdom’s support for the internationally recognized government. That, he says, would give the Houthis an opportunity to expand their area of control.
To that end, he said, the group’s strikes on airports and oil exports were intended to inflict economic pain on Riyadh and Washington.
Some airlines have suspended or canceled services to Riyadh, which has disrupted the Gulf’s busy fall conference season, a lucrative source of revenue for the kingdom. In November 2025, TradeArabia forecast the kingdom would earn almost $9 billion from international conferences, meetings and exhibitions.
The European Union and the Gulf Cooperation Council said Thursday that they had postponed a summit between the two blocs scheduled to take place in Saudi Arabia on Oct. 24 because of the continuing Houthi attacks.Reuters reported that Saudi Arabia planned to turn its flagship Future Investment Initiative conference, scheduled for later this month and nicknamed “Davos in the Desert,” into an event that would allow executives to participate remotely.
Global sporting events have also been postponed, including the Esports World Cup finals and the Six Kings Slam tennis tournament.
April Longley Alley, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute, told MBN the Houthis were seeking to raise the costs Saudi Arabia faces for continuing to support Yemen’s government.
The group is exploiting Saudi Arabia’s vulnerabilities and targeting its ability to project an image of stability, she said. Its broader objective, she said, is to “coerce the Saudis into ending this war on the Houthis’ terms.”
Thomas Juneau, a security analyst specializing in Middle Eastern affairs at the University of Ottawa, views the escalation as part of a Houthi effort to accumulate leverage for negotiations with Saudi Arabia.
The group’s ultimate aim remains consolidating “their power inside Yemen” by weakening their adversaries, Juneau told MBN.
Tom Warrick, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, said the group’s central objective was to get “Saudi Arabia and other Arab Gulf countries to legitimize their control over Sanaa and much of Yemen,” despite the Houthis’ alliance with Iran and their threats to international shipping through the Bab al-Mandab Strait.
New Rules of Engagement
Juneau said the Houthis were also trying to set new rules of engagement: answering the Saudi-led coalition’s restrictions on ports and airports in Houthi-held areas by hitting Saudi Arabia’s own. He doubted the group could impose a full air and naval blockade on the kingdom but said it could still disrupt some air traffic and shipping.
The Saudi-led coalition has long imposed restrictions and extensive inspection procedures on Yemen’s ports and airports controlled by the Houthis. Riyadh says the measures are intended to prevent the smuggling of weapons, drone technology and missiles from Iran.
The Houthi response, Alley said, is “a blockade for blockade, escalation for escalation, airport for airport.”
At the regional level, the Houthis seek to end a U.S. blockade that has crippled the airports of their ally Iran by barring airlines from dealing with the country.
“The aim is eventually to trade Saudi airports for Iranian airports,” al-Bukhaiti said.
He also believes the Houthis seek inclusion in any settlement between Iran and the United States and guarantees that Saudi Arabia and Yemen’s government will not launch a war against them once the current conflict in the Middle East ends.
So far, the Houthis have achieved an important part of their aims, said al-Bukhaiti, including “reaching a level of deterrence against Saudi Arabia and managing to paralyze air traffic in Riyadh.”
The Houthis, said Alley, are making a long-term bet that they are willing to endure more economic pain than the Saudis. “They know the Saudis have more to lose,” she said.
Adapted and translated from the original Arabic.
