Yemen's New Offensive Hinges on Unity, Not Just Territory

Two days into "Dawn of Yemen," the counter-offensive launched by Yemen's internationally recognised government, forces have already retaken ground from the Iran-backed Houthis along the Red Sea coast near the Bab al-Mandeb strait. The operation, announced earlier this week, marks the most serious escalation in the country's long-running war since the UN-brokered truce of 2022. For four years, the conflict had been largely frozen, with front lines static and diplomacy stalled. Now, both sides appear determined to redraw the map.

The Saudi-led coalition supporting the government has thrown significant weight behind the campaign, deploying 100 fighter jets in round-the-clock sorties to help secure the strategic waterway. In response, the Houthis have claimed attacks on Saudi territory, signalling that they intend to raise the cost of the operation for Riyadh and its allies. The coming days and weeks will determine whether the offensive can deliver lasting change or merely reshuffle control of a few contested districts.

According to analysis of the campaign's prospects, the western coast is where the offensive will ultimately be won or lost, and the reasons extend well beyond Yemen's borders. With Iran disrupting traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, the Red Sea has become the Gulf's strategic lifeline. Saudi Arabia's East-West pipeline to Yanbu serves as its primary route around Hormuz, but crude shipped from Yanbu to Asian markets must still transit Bab al-Mandeb. A Houthi grip on the strait's Yemeni shore effectively turns that bypass into a hostage, squeezing the Arabian Peninsula at both ends at once, a scenario no Gulf capital can tolerate for long.

There is a counterintuitive dimension to the Houthi position. The group's most significant gain of the year, territory near Bab al-Mandeb, may also be its most exposed. The Houthis' traditional strength lies in the mountains of the north, where rugged terrain, tribal networks and short supply lines favour defence. The Tihama coast is the opposite: a flat plain far from their highland base, with long and vulnerable supply routes and little natural cover against sustained airpower. If government forces can win decisively anywhere, it is here, where the immediate goal need not be outright defeat of the Houthis but rather pushing them back from the strait, retaking the islands and denying them the ability to convert geography into regional leverage.

The second critical front is Taiz, a city that functions as the hinge between the Houthi-held north, the government-held south and the western coastal theatre. If the Houthis continue to keep the Aden road severed, any broader offensive risks being split in two. Should government forces reopen it, they would gain territorial continuity linking Aden, Taiz and the coast, a development that could transform the operational picture. The third front is Marib governorate, where fighting has escalated on the Raghwan axis, with potential spillover into al-Jawf.

Despite sweeping rhetoric from Yemeni government officials, an early march on Sanaa remains unlikely. The more plausible strategy is cumulative pressure: if the coast, Taiz and Marib are pressed simultaneously, the Houthis will struggle to concentrate manpower, missiles, drones and logistics on any single axis. The government does not need breakthroughs everywhere; it needs to keep the Houthis overstretched across multiple theatres.

External support has rarely been the government's problem; converting that support into coherent Yemeni military power has been the recurring failure. Saudi Arabia remains the decisive backer, and its incentives are now direct rather than abstract: Aramco facilities have come under fire, Saudi-linked shipping has been declared a target, and the main route circumventing the Strait of Hormuz is exposed. The commitment of 100 aircraft signals that Riyadh is willing to invest heavily in this campaign. Yet airpower, however formidable, can destroy positions, cut supply lines and break concentrations of force. It cannot hold territory. That task requires Yemeni forces to fight under a unified chain of command, support functioning local administration and maintain political agreement that prevents infighting between factions.

On that front, the anti-Houthi camp is arguably weaker than at any point in the war. The Southern Transitional Council, which launched its own offensive across the south in December 2025, was dissolved in January after a Saudi-backed counteroffensive, and its leader, Aidarous al-Zubaidi, left the country. The southern units that fought under its banner remain armed and capable, but they now operate without a political roof, and their loyalty to the Yemeni government is conditional at best. Alongside them, Tareq Saleh's National Resistance on the coast, the Southern Giants Brigades, and units aligned with the Islah Party in Taiz and Marib each answer to different leaderships, regional priorities and external patrons. The Houthis, by contrast, possess a centralised political and military command, giving them a structural advantage in coordination and sustained operations.

This asymmetry represents the offensive's greatest vulnerability. If the campaign is fought through fragmented chains of command, any gains will likely prove temporary. Rival forces may compete over captured territory, revenues and local authority, allowing the Houthis to regroup and counterattack. Recognising this risk, the Yemeni government has begun preparing to distribute salary payments and undertake reconstruction in recovered areas. That is the right instinct: a town taken by airstrikes but left unpaid and ungoverned will not stay taken, and the effort to consolidate control through governance and economic restoration must be maintained if military gains are to endure.

The offensive should not be judged by whether it captures Sanaa. That benchmark is maximalist and almost guarantees a verdict of failure, obscuring more meaningful measures of progress. The better question is whether the campaign can make the conflict ripe for resolution. In the language of conflict studies, parties negotiate seriously when they perceive a mutually hurting impasse. Since 2022, the deadlock has imposed costs on the Yemeni people, the government, Saudi Arabia and global shipping, but it has not yet imposed sufficient costs on the Houthis themselves to force a change in their calculus. The success of Dawn of Yemen may ultimately be measured not in kilometres gained, but in whether it alters that calculation and creates conditions for a negotiated end to a war that has devastated one of the Arab world's poorest countries.