How a series of miscalculations restarted Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman wanted to make his kingdom a magnet for investment, tourism and the world’s biggest sporting events. Now drones and missiles launched from Yemen are slamming into Saudi cities, drawing the kingdom deeper into the regional turmoil he hoped to leave behind.

The civil war in Yemen erupted once again this summer and significantly intensified last month, breaking years of relative calm. Saudi Arabia has for 11 years tried to contain the conflict on its southern border through military force and diplomacy – first waging war with the Iran-allied Houthi group, then pursuing peace talks with them and restoring diplomatic talks with their backer, Iran.

Despite the efforts, a series of miscalculations has left Riyadh exposed to further conflict in Yemen, experts say. Saudi Arabia’s ended its longstanding partnership with the UAE late last year over its backing of a rival force in Yemen, misjudged President Donald Trump’s willingness to back it if it needed support, and struggled to organize disintegrated armed factions fighting the Houthis in Yemen.

Now, Riyadh is trying to regain its footing by supporting its Yemeni partners in yet another campaign against the Houthis, an operation named “Yemen’s Dawn.”

Prince Mohammed’s ambitions to transform his kingdom have already faced several challenges since his rise to power more than a decade ago. Today, they’re coming under further strain as multi-front attacks on oil infrastructure cut into exports, major projects are canceled, and the kingdom is pulled into a war with no clear way out.

At least three people, including a Saudi pilot, were killed this week after Houthi forces struck several airports in the kingdom, according to Saudi Arabia. Regional turmoil has forced the suspension of star-studded film festivals, award shows, and music concerts this year. Meanwhile, the kingdom’s flagship financial conference, which is expected to draw high-profile business leaders at the end of October, is coming under pressure amid the strikes.

“They just needed the conflict to stay (as) far away from them as possible without the Houthis disrupting their transformation plans,” Michael Ratney, the former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia, told CNN. “Now they find themselves in the middle of it.”

A hasty UAE exit

When Saudi warplanes struck a shipment of military vehicles sent to Yemen by the UAE last year, a decade-old alliance between two nations fighting Iran’s influence in Yemen shattered, leaving the kingdom to contend with the crisis alone after Abu Dhabi withdrew its forces. The break with the UAE shocked the region. Saudi Arabia launched a rare media campaign against its neighbor, accusing it of fueling instability in Sudan and Yemen. Saudi commentators publicly cast the UAE as a younger sibling rebelling against a wiser one.

Saudi Arabia is the “head and body” on which regional stability rests, wrote prominent Saudi journalist Dawood Al-Shirian in January. “If (Saudi Arabia) stumbles, the entire system is disrupted and the Gulf scatters.”

As Riyadh pressed for dominance in the Gulf, the ground shifted in Yemen. The four-year ceasefire with the Houthis was already fragile, and the rapid UAE withdrawal as demanded by Riyadh left thousands of fighters who had spent a decade under Abu Dhabi’s command disoriented by Riyadh’s strategy.

Fighters allied with the UAE say Abu Dhabi’s departure left a power vacuum the Saudis didn’t fill.

“There wasn’t a proper transition when the Emiratis left,” a southern Yemeni official, who asked to remain anonymous to speak freely to CNN, said. “It was frightening how different things became. The Emiratis’ command and control was very efficient, and the Saudis did not replace this efficiency.”

CNN reached out to the Saudi government for comment on whether the forces fighting the Houthis on the ground received enough support and whether there was a proper transition.

Lack of preparation

Eight weeks after the UAE withdrawal, the US and Israel launched a war on Iran, killing supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The moves sparked a conflict that has plunged the region into unprecedented turmoil and placed Washington’s allies, including Saudi Arabia, in Iran’s crosshairs.

The timing was unfortunate for Saudi Arabia, several experts say. After contending with the UAE-backed separatist push in Yemen, the US and Israel triggered a regional war. And despite years of trying to stop the war from breaking out in Yemen, the pressure Trump imposed on Iran was expected to eventually trigger a Houthi push on the kingdom.

“The Saudis had to respond after being attacked by an enemy force on their territory… so there was always going to be a response,” Ratney, the former US ambassador, said.

Even as Iranian missiles struck the kingdom from the east, Saudi attention focused on the south. The Houthis, still formally in a truce with Riyadh, appeared unwilling to aid their Iranian partners. Tehran instead drew the Saudis in.

In July, Iran sent a commercial plane to carry a Houthi delegation to Khamenei’s funeral in Tehran, defying a Saudi air blockade of Yemen. Riyadh struck the Houthi-held airport in Sanaa to prevent the plane from landing. The rebel group retaliated by declaring the truce dead and announced a naval blockade on Saudi ships. It also started a lightning offensive down Yemen’s coast, seizing strategic territory at the Bab al-Mandeb Strait in the largest escalation since 2022.

The Houthis attacked Saudi oil facilities and pipelines, disrupting crude supplies and sending prices sharply higher. Saudi forces answered with hundreds of airstrikes.

“The Saudis have made several mistakes and failures,” Ahmed Nagi, a senior analyst for Yemen with the International Crisis Group think tank, told CNN, noting that Riyadh hadn’t prepared for a Houthi offensive and lacked coordination with allied Yemeni forces it inherited from the UAE.

“The areas they’ve lost created morale issues with their allies and now it’s a big challenge for the Saudis as the Houthis have more advanced weaponry which managed to reach several cities in Saudi Arabia,” he said.

‘Unpredictable’ Trump

Another miscalculation by Saudi Arabia was its reliance on continued American support, experts say. Despite signing a new defense pact with Washington last year and being designated a Major Non-NATO Ally by the US, Riyadh has been disappointed by what it sees as waning US commitment to its security.

Prince Mohammed spoke twice with Trump last month, urging him to strike the Houthis, sources told CNN at the time, but Trump declined to intervene. Washington instead met the Houthis in Oman, seeking to protect its own ceasefire with the group, which made it clear that its war was with Saudi Arabia alone, thus allowing US vessels to traverse the Red Sea freely.

For a military that has built its “entire worldview” around partnering with the US, the Saudis are realizing how unpredictable Trump is, said Ratney.

“It was never their concept or the structure of their military to fight these wars by themselves,” he said. “Under a normal US presidency, if something like this happens, we would’ve helped our partner in what would’ve been a rational and considered process.

“Now we don’t have that process, and it ultimately comes down to: what does Trump think? And the Saudis probably feel exposed as a result,” he added.

Saudi Arabia has since looked elsewhere. Last month, Prince Mohammed flew to Egypt to meet President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, then invited UAE Vice President Sheik Mansour bin Zayed to Riyadh a few weeks later to discuss regional developments. France agreed to deploy defense assets, including military personnel. Britain said it would send an aircraft to help refuel Saudi jets. More than 100 American military advisers are on the ground providing intelligence and targeting support under a newly established joint forces command.

Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan agreed on Monday to “activate collective deterrence measures” under the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement after an emergency meeting in Riyadh. The pact, set up earlier this year, is meant to coordinate defense and security cooperation among the three. Forces loyal to the UAE also appear to be taking part in the offensive, a sign of at least a partial thaw between the kingdom and the UAE.

A regional solution

But experts warn that outside support and early gains by the Saudi-backed Yemeni government will not settle the conflict. Infighting remains common among the factions, and there is still no clear political end state.

A sustained push against Iranian-backed forces, analysts say, would require organization, regional backing, funding, and logistics that the current coalition has not yet shown it can sustain.

“They need to unify their command centers, they need to resolve the issues they have between the various factions within the group,” Hisham Al Omeisy, a senior Yemen adviser for the European Institute of Peace told CNN’s Becky Anderson. “Territorial gains they’ve made would mean nothing if the (Saudi-backed) Yemeni government cannot maintain control over those areas.”

Many experts said however that the fighting in Yemen is connected to the US war in Iran, and as long as the conflict between Washington and Tehran is ongoing, the Iranians will continue having a powerful incentive to watch the Houthis disrupt Saudi Arabia.

Gulf states could manage to secure a separate diplomatic solution with Iran, analysts say, or escalate their military strikes to eliminate Houthi leadership.

“Neither of those scenarios fix the conflict in Yemen in any near term,” Ratney said. “The Saudis will have to just figure out an imperfect path ahead.”