Yemen's Houthi Rebels and Aden Government Trade Dozens of Strikes as 2022 Truce Collapses

Yemen's internationally recognized government carried out 81 attacks on Houthi positions in a single 24-hour period this week, government spokesperson Majed Abdullah al-Nuzaili said Thursday, August 20, according to Al Jazeera. The strikes reportedly killed or "neutralized" a number of Houthi fighters and field commanders.

The Houthis didn't sit still. Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree announced Thursday that the group launched two drone attacks inside Saudi Arabia's Najran province, claiming hits on Najran airport and a Saudi Aramco facility. Saudi Arabia has not confirmed either strike, according to both Al Jazeera and Yahoo News.

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which arms and backs the Houthis, warned Thursday that Saudi Arabia would be "unable to contain" the group as attacks intensify.

The 2022 UN-brokered ceasefire had mostly held for four years. It's now unraveling fast.

The Body Count Is Real and Growing

UN human rights chief Volker Türk laid out the toll on Monday, August 17, according to Euronews. Houthi attacks killed 58 government troops earlier this month, mostly in Marib province, per a military source. Two civilians died in Houthi shelling of residential areas and displacement camps in Marib the same day.

The UN rights office says at least seven civilians have been killed and 10 wounded in Houthi attacks on government-held areas since August 6. Houthi missile and drone strikes on the Red Sea port of Mokha on August 9 killed three port workers and injured four more.

Then came the Bab el-Mandeb Strait attack on August 11. The Houthis hit the Egyptian-owned cargo ship Tihamah with three ballistic missiles, setting it ablaze. When Yemeni coast guard and military rescue teams showed up, the Houthis struck again with what Breitbart described as a "double tap," a tactic aimed specifically at killing first responders. Four crew members (three Pakistanis and one Indonesian) and two Yemeni rescuers died, according to Yemeni and Pakistani officials cited by Fox News and Euronews. Reuters reported these would be the first confirmed shipping deaths from a Houthi strike since the U.S.-Iran war began February 28.

IMO Secretary-General Arsenio Dominguez condemned the attack, saying continued strikes on shipping "threaten global supply chains on which everyone depends" and calling for shipowners to reassess risk before transiting the region.

Why Bab el-Mandeb Matters

The strait sits between Yemen and the Horn of Africa, funneling shipping into the Red Sea and, eventually, the Suez Canal. Fox News raises a fair strategic question: could it become a second Strait of Hormuz, the chokepoint Iran has already used to squeeze global oil traffic since the U.S.-Israel war with Iran began?

The comparison only goes so far. Iran can threaten Hormuz shipping directly from its own coastline. Its leverage over Bab el-Mandeb runs through the Houthis, and Yemen itself is fractured. The Houthis hold Sanaa and the north, the Aden-based government and allied factions hold the south, and the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council operates as its own power center.

Amr Al Bidh, the STC's foreign affairs chief, told Fox News Digital that naval patrols can escort individual ships but can't solve the underlying problem. "Naval presence protects individual ships. It does not take away Houthi launch sites, it does not interdict the smuggling routes that resupply them and it does not hold terrain," he said. His argument, that only ground control of Houthi-held coastline actually secures the strait, is a real strategic position worth weighing, even though it also serves the STC's own interest in expanding its territorial role.

The Blockade Fight

Both sides now accuse each other of trying to strangle the other's economy. The Houthis declared a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia in July. The Aden government accuses the Houthis of also trying to block Yemen's own oil exports.

This is a genuine, mutual escalation, not a case where one side is passively defending against the other's aggression. Government forces have run hundreds of operations against Houthi positions over the past month, per Al Jazeera and Yahoo News, and both sides have struck civilian infrastructure (ports, airports, fuel depots) deep behind the front lines.

Separately, the UK's maritime security monitor reported Thursday that armed men boarded a tanker off Yemen's coast and diverted it toward Somalia, a sign the broader security vacuum is drawing in piracy as well as war.

What Nobody Disputes

Eighteen million Yemenis don't have reliable access to enough food, according to the UN. That number hasn't moved because of this week's headlines. It's been true for years of war and blockade. Türk's plea Monday to "spare the Yemeni people from further misery" was a direct response to a documented civilian death toll that keeps climbing on both sides of a line neither side is willing to hold.

No ceasefire talks have been announced. No UN Security Council resolution is currently pending on this specific escalation. The open question is whether either side (Riyadh, Aden, or Sanaa) has an actual incentive to de-escalate while Iran's own forces are telling the Houthis the Saudis can't stop them anyway.