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Yemen’s Forgotten War Is Back, and This Time It Has Crossed the Border
Westbrook Advisory | Yemen Civil War - Monthly Geopolitical Briefing, October 2026
For four years, Yemen’s civil war was largely frozen. The 2022 UN-brokered truce never became a peace deal, but it ended major fighting and stopped Houthi missile attacks on Saudi Arabia. That pause is now over.
Today, we publish the first edition of our monthly risk briefing on the Yemen Civil War, one of the four Tier 1 conflicts Westbrook Advisory tracks. It covers 16th September to 15th October 2026. On 9th October, UN Special Envoy Hans Grundberg told the Security Council that Yemen had returned to full-scale war.
A war that no longer stays inside Yemen
The most important development this month is geographic. In September the Houthis seized Yemen’s entire Red Sea coast and the islands commanding the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. They then turned their missiles on Saudi Arabia.
On 10th October, an attack on a passenger terminal at Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport killed 13 people and injured 309. It was the deadliest attack on Saudi soil in more than a decade. Dammam airport and Aramco facilities have since been targeted, and airlines including Lufthansa and Air India have suspended flights to Riyadh.
Riyadh has answered by building a coalition. Pakistan and Türkiye have activated their defence pact with the kingdom for the first time. The UK and France are providing defensive support, and Syria has been reported to be weighing a troop deployment. On 13th October, Saudi Arabia struck Houthi fuel depots around Sanaa, opening an economic front in the air war.
On the ground, no one is winning
The Saudi-backed government launched Operation Dawn of Yemen on 4th October with the stated aim of retaking Sanaa. It has recovered ground around the Bab el-Mandeb. The Houthis, meanwhile, have cut the main road into Taiz, Yemen’s third-largest city, which is once again under siege.
The human cost is mounting. More than 184,000 people have been displaced since August, and the World Food Programme reports record hunger in government-held areas.
Why it matters beyond Yemen
With the Strait of Hormuz closed by the Iran war, Saudi Arabia has relied on the Red Sea to export its oil. That is exactly the route the Houthis are now attacking. Our briefing sets out what this means for:
energy markets
Red Sea shipping and war-risk insurance
sanctions compliance
business travel and operations in Saudi Arabia
Our assessment
We rate the overall risk from the conflict as Severe and rising. Spillover into the region and military escalation are the categories that have moved most. Our baseline expectation for the next 1-3 months is a regionalised war of attrition. We judge a US decision to join Saudi strikes a realistic possibility, and a Saudi-Houthi truce unlikely in the near term.
The full briefing includes our risk ratings across 10 categories, a month-in-review across 8 areas, scenarios for the coming quarter and the signals we are watching. It also sets out the links between this conflict and our Iran-USA, Israel-Gaza/Lebanon and Ukraine-Russia files.
Westbrook Advisory publishes monthly risk assessments for its Tier 1 conflicts and quarterly assessments for Tier 2 and Tier 3 files. For tailored analysis, contact Advisory@westbrookadvisory.co.uk.
