Tuesday August 11, 2026
The Red Sea port city of al-Makha has come under repeated Houthi attack [File: Reuters]
Yemen’s internationally recognised government said the Houthis had launched a new barrage of ballistic missiles at the Red Sea port city of al-Makha and residential neighbourhoods in the central city of Marib.
Yemeni forces gave no indication of whether Monday’s attacks caused casualties.
The latest strikes followed a Houthi missile attack a day earlier that killed at least seven people and injured 30 in al-Makha, also known as Mocha. The assault inflicted extensive damage on the port area.
In another attack on Monday, a Houthi drone struck government forces in Yemen’s south-central Shabwa province, killing two soldiers and wounding seven, according to local media reports.
In a series of posts on X, Yemeni forces said they had targeted Houthi fighters and positions in eastern al-Jawf province, northwestern Saada province and the al-Tibas area of central Marib province.
The escalating exchange of attacks is the deadliest Yemen has seen in years and represents a major intensification of the country’s civil war, which was reignited by the United States and Israel’s war against Iran on February 28.
The Iran-backed Houthis seized Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, in September 2014. A Saudi-led coalition entered the conflict in March 2015 to support the government.
After killing hundreds of thousands of people, the war settled into a stalemate. In April 2022, the warring sides agreed to a truce that halted large-scale fighting across Yemen.
That relative calm broke on July 13, when a Saudi air strike hit the runway at Sanaa airport and blocked the landing of an Iranian aircraft carrying a senior Houthi delegation.
In response, the Houthis attacked Abha airport in southwestern Saudi Arabia and declared a blockade of Saudi shipping in the Red Sea. They have also struck Saudi vessels and oil facilities in the kingdom, causing further disruption to the global economy.
The Saudi-led coalition has retaliated with attacks on Houthi-held Hodeidah and Kamaran, Yemen’s largest Red Sea island. It has also strengthened Yemeni government forces along the front lines ahead of a planned ground offensive against the Houthis.
The United Nations has meanwhile urged all sides to show restraint.
“Yemen today faces a greater risk of renewed large-scale conflict than at any point since the UN-brokered truce of April 2022,” UN envoy Hans Grundberg warned on Friday.
Grundberg said the escalation could “jeopardise the gains of the 2022 truce … while also drawing the country into a broader regional confrontation, with devastating consequences for its people”.
