AnsarAllalah enjoys many perhaps unperceived advantages in its conflict against the ‘wealthy’, westernised Saudi Kingdom. This is a war recently rekindled by Saudi’s September rupture of the 2022 Truce, when it bombed Sana’a’s international airport in July 2026 to prevent an Iranian civilian aircraft from landing.
Saudi Arabia says that Trump explicitly approved the airport strike -- thereby opening the way for AnsarAllah to put aside the truce, and for war to flare up.
AnsarAllah responded to the breach of Truce with an 18 hour ‘blitz’ strike that seized the west coast of Yemen (some 5,400 sq. km taken in 11 days), the key ports and the main strategic islands in the Red Sea. Their actions and strategy were well planned and grounded in a deep understanding and experience of the Peninsula’s unique geography and societal make-up.
A quick glance at the map will show that Saudi and Yemen are situated in a ‘box’ — the centre of which is desert, with its sides composed of rugged mountain ridges sloping downwards to the Red Sea. AnsarAllah now hold the highlands above the Red Sea approaches, and have also seized the key Red Sea islands that control access to the Bab al-Mandab Strait.
In some respects, the geography mirrors the rocky hillside Iranian terrain that frames Hormuz.
This geographic reality suggests that Saudi air power will not dislodge agile mountain tribesmen from their mountain redoubt. AnsarAllah, in any case, fight asymmetrically. Having been relentlessly bombed for over a decade, they fight as “free men”; they ‘flit’ from place to place, and their military infra-structure is buried (in a practice similar to that of Iran). They now control the Bab al-Mandab Strait with artillery, thus saving their more sophisticated drones and missiles for other purposes.
In short, Saudi or western air power will avail little. There are no obvious targets; AnsarAllah fighters are like mirages moving hither and thither. The Saudi-aligned forces in the south rather, are coalitions drawn from different southern tribes and mercenaries; there are also remnants of pro-UAE mercenaries with whom the pro-Saudi forces variously clash.
The initial Saudi offensive against AnsarAllah was a débacle; with no central command, no plan and unprepared logistics, the assault collapsed. Fighting now seems to be spreading to Jizan and Najran Provinces — currently part of Saudi Arabia. These are two of three rich, fertile Yemeni provinces seized by Saudi Arabia in the 1930s. Undoubtedly Yemen wants them back.