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Timeline by Djordje Djukic and Evan Centanni
Houthi-PLC Truce Ends Amid Struggle for Red Sea Chokepoint
In the first six months following our February 2026 Yemen control map report, which covered the collapse of control by the separatist Southern Transitional Council (STC) in the south and east, the country’s frontlines remained calm. However, as Yemen’s internationally-unrecognized “Houthi” government returned to cross-border war with neighboring Saudi Arabia in July, the four-year-old truce between Houthi and anti-Houthi forces began to break down.
The frontlines within Yemen were stable at first, but all that was suddenly shattered in September: Within days, a new Houthi offensive swept all the way down the Red Sea coast, seizing the shores of a global shipping chokepoint, the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, from forces aligned with Yemen’s Saudi-backed, internationally-recognized Presidential Leadership Council (PLC) government (whose leadership was based in Saudi Arabia, though it did move its administrative cabinet back to provisional capital Aden in Yemen during this period).
With the Iran-allied Houthi government now stationed at the southern entrance to the Red Sea, even as Iran itself exerted power over the vital Strait of Hormuz 2,000 kilometers to the northeast, Yemen seemed to be entering a new era of international relevance, as well as a turning point in its 12-year civil war. With the Houthis demonstrating a clear upper hand as the PLC’s loose, Saudi-dependent coalition faltered, the future of Yemen’s internationally-recognized government looked less certain than ever. Meanwhile, the separatist STC put up a formidable fight against its own abolition, and the local branch of Al Qaeda made new strides forward in the power vacuum brought by the STC’s early-2026 retreat.
All of these topics, and others, are summarized below by our human editor (no AI), and covered in much more detail in the Timeline of Events further down. For sources, please see the links provided in each timeline entry.
Restructuring: The PLC, the STC, and the “Southern Forces”
Continuing STC Defiance
Before the resumption of war in mid-2026, news about political and military shifts in Yemen was mostly dominated by the political aftermath of the STC’s retreat. Though a delegation of STC officials sent to Saudi Arabia for negotiations in January had declared the dissolution of their organization, the move appeared to have been almost universally rejected by STC officials and supporters within Yemen, as well as top STC leaders in ally country the United Arab Emirates (UAE), with the delegates widely speculated to have made the announcement under duress.
Nor did the defiant STC elements give up on their leader’s declaration, at the start of 2026, of a two-year transition to independence, which he continued to promote over the internet after allegedly fleeing to the UAE. The organization has even reportedly changed its full official name to “Southern Transitional Council of South Arabia”, as a message that “Yemen” itself is a foreign concept to southerners.
Besides the complex situation in the island province of Socotra (see below for updates), the STC’s direct military influence in Yemen was limited by this time to the Dhale area north of Aden (though by some accounts there were also PLC-loyal forces present there). However, the group’s political offices and activist networks were still functioning openly in some areas, including the heart of provisional capital city Aden, which was now controlled by the Saudi-backed PLC except for certain STC-occupied government buildings. Though efforts were made by the PLC government to repossess those buildings and shut down STC offices elsewhere in Yemen, by April the campaign seemed to have stalled, with separatist protesters coming out en masse to resist the political suppression, in some cases forcing the reopening of shuttered STC facilities.
The Other "Southern Forces"
Meanwhile, an array of autonomous military forces previously allied with the STC, but now cooperating with the PLC, continued to be spoken of warmly as fellow “southern forces” in STC-aligned messaging. Saudi Arabia and the PLC, for their part, also seemed concerned about separatist sentiment among these groups, and in many cases moved to consolidate control over them, or disrupt or dismantle their influence.
Not all southern commanders were treated as suspect: The leader of the Southern Giants Brigades, himself a council member of the PLC, cast his lot firmly with the PLC’s Saudi-backed leadership, even deploying his forces directly against STC activists in the Aden standoffs. Despite this, STC sources continued to take credit for actions of the Giants Brigades as unspecified “southern forces”, especially once the Brigades found themselves at the vanguard of the anti-Houthi coalition come September.
But many other autonomous forces were treated as having divided loyalties, with the Giants Brigades’ leader getting directly involved in ousting commanders seen as too close to the STC leadership. Presumably under a mandate from the chair of the PLC, he appointed new commanders to various units and factions, contentiously wresting full control of the Security Belt forces in Aden and Abyan province (now renamed the “National Security” forces), as well as a major STC-linked brigade in Shabwa province, and moving a group of his own Giants Brigades forces out of a sensitive frontline area at the border of Marib and Shabwa provinces.
Similar moves took place in March and April in eastern Yemen’s Hadramawt province, targeting two autonomous forces historically forming the mainstay of the province’s fight against Al Qaeda: First, it was reported that the provincial governor, also a PLC councilman, was “demobilizing” much of the Barshid Brigades, targeting either separatist or non-local elements of the force. Then, under alleged pressure from the leader of the Giants Brigades, the provincial government announced that the Hadrami Elite Forces would be entirely absorbed into the PLC command structure.
In the subsequent months, a less-expected power struggle took place in Hadramawt: The pro-Saudi leader of the Hadramawt Tribal Alliance militia network was barred from re-entering Yemen after disagreeing with the PLC over plans for oil revenues, as allegations were made that Saudi Arabia was backing breakaway factions of his group.
What about STC control in Socotra?
Last February, we published a dedicated analysis of territorial control in Socotra, concluding that STC forces seemed likely to still be the main security force in the island province, though they seemed to be keeping a low profile after the UAE’s withdrawal. The STC-affiliated civilian governor, for his part, had made a major point of publicly welcoming incoming PLC governance and Saudi involvement, despite never actually disavowing the STC.
As late as November 2026, that still appears to be the case, with the governor appearing to have sufficiently appeased the Saudis and PLC after a band of alleged STC forces in Socotra fired on Saudi troops in May. By some accounts, the Saudi forces slightly expanded their public presence on the island after that, and opponents of the governor complained of an “administrative vacuum”, but no major changes to the composition or allegiance of the island's armed forces or governing bodies have been reported.
As for the smaller outlying islands, the UAE base on Abd al-Kuri was reported in March to be abandoned, in contrast to unsubstantiated claims that UAE forces had not withdrawn from there. Meanwhile, local authorities on both Abd al-Kuri and neighboring Samhah were reported by PLC-friendly media to be cooperating with the provincial governor. (The third outlying island, Darsa, is uninhabited.)
Al Qaeda on the Upswing in Yemen
Meanwhile, the STC’s mass retreat was by most accounts a boon to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), Yemen’s formerly-prominent branch of the transnational religious hardline network. The group’s fortunes were already improving in 2025, but it reportedly took major strides forward after the chaos of early 2026, as the STC had been its main active opponent over the previous years. AQAP’s troop strength was thought to have remained about the same into mid-2026, but it reportedly enjoyed greater freedom of movement and was able to seize stockpiles of heavy weapons amid the STC’s hasty forced withdrawal.
These windfalls seem to have quickly resulted in gains on the ground, with AQAP appearing to fully overpower formerly STC-allied forces in the mountains of northern Abyan province, and to eventually spread to more parts of the province where it hadn’t previously been reported active – possibly due in part to its new leader’s strategy of good relations with local community leaders.
This edition of our map also shows a new area of AQAP presence that isn’t actually new, but that we missed because it wasn’t widely reported before. That area, interestingly, is right next to one of the PLC government’s loyalist strongholds, the city of Marib. The village of Samdah is labeled on the map as a representative location where the preponderance of evidence now points to a major AQAP presence, though the group’s activities there are often said to extend far to the northeast along Marib’s “Wadi Abidah” bottomlands (Wadi Abidah is not labeled on our map, but corresponds to the area of yellow “mixed or unclear control” extending northeast from Marib city).
The AQAP presence in Marib has made great fodder for anti-PLC messaging: The political party that dominates Marib is made up of religious conservatives of a flavor relatively palatable to Al Qaeda, and both the Houthi government and the STC have accused them of allowing or even encouraging AQAP to flourish there. However, the Houthis may not be one to talk, since there appears to be growing evidence that they themselves are now collaborating closely with AQAP, despite stark religious disagreements.
The Houthis and the Iran War
Despite its close relationship with Iran, Yemen’s Houthi government mostly stayed out of the broader Middle East war that began in February with attacks on Iran by the US and Israel. Though international media made a big deal of the Houthis’ “entry into the war” in late March - consisting of a series of long-range missile attacks on Israel - their involvement didn’t end up amounting to much. After an early-April attempt at a truce between the US and Iran, the Houthis never returned to targeting Israel, except for one smaller salvo in June.
Part of the reason is that the Houthis aren’t necessarily what foreign media and politicians assume them to be. Their government is generally seen by specialists, regardless of allegiance, as an ally of Iran, rather than an Iranian “proxy”. The difference is that the Houthis don’t seem to actually take orders from Iran, instead acting as a friendly government that works together with Iran on its own terms.
It’s still true that the Houthis are “backed” by Iran. Though that wasn’t as clear a decade ago, they now are well-documented to receive weapons, training, and other assistance from the more powerful country. And they’re also now documented to have a longstanding relationship with an organization more closely beholden to Iran: the Hezbollah paramilitary group and political party in Lebanon. But it’s hard to make recent Houthi actions in Yemen into a clear-cut case of participation in the Iran war; even the attacks on Israel are often dismissed by analysts as a domestic political strategy to score points among Yemenis for supporting Palestine.
Remote Violence: The Houthi-Saudi War
The lines of territorial control in Yemen didn’t really change until September, but by July many observers were already declaring the death of the four-year unofficial truce between the Houthis and their opponents. Though there was some fighting along the frontlines in July – much as there had been for years prior – the main development was the eruption of a renewed and intense cross-border war between the Houthis and neighboring Saudi Arabia.
This started on July 13, when the Saudi/PLC alliance claimed an attack on the airport of Houthi-controlled Sana’a, Yemen’s official capital city. They were apparently trying to prevent the landing of an Iranian plane carrying returning Houthi officials – but also, it was later reported, Iranian military advisors and heavy weapons. The strike failed to prevent the plane from landing in Houthi-controlled Yemen, but it did set off a chain of escalations between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia. (The PLC government often appears to take credit for airstrikes against the Houthis that are more likely conducted by the Saudi military.)
The Houthi government made much of what it called Saudi Arabia's longtime policy of “blockading” Yemen by controlling air traffic and seizing weapons shipments, and on July 20 announced its own retaliatory “blockade” on Saudi Arabia. At first this was focused on Saudi shipping - and maritime oil exports in particular - but would soon extend to a campaign against the operation of Saudi airports and oil production infrastructure. Though not nearly as well-armed as their rival, the Houthis were able to cause significant havoc with sporadic targeted attacks using long-range missiles and drones. From the beginning, Saudi Arabia responded in turn with much more prolific attacks on Houthi targets inside Yemen, taking advantage of its fleet of combat jets, helicopters, and top-of-the-line bomber drones.
After half a dozen or so strikes on Saudi ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, the Houthis did seem to have forced Saudi Arabia to divert its Red Sea oil exports to the north, through the Suez Canal and Egypt, rather than south through the Bab al-Mandeb Strait. And by early August, they were steadily targeting Saudi airports as well, mostly in the area close to Yemen’s border at first. They seemed to have only very limited success with this, though the Saudi government didn’t consistently disclose whether damage had occurred.
It was also in August that the war came to PLC-controlled Yemen: A series of Houthi missile strikes on PLC-aligned military camps killed almost 60 soldiers, as the claimed number of retaliatory strikes against the Houthis rose into the hundreds. Houthi missiles also began targeting oil facilities in Saudi Arabia, while reaching for further and further airports. By late September, their missiles had managed to reach the faraway Saudi capital city of Riyadh, but didn't yet manage any major damage there (for events after September, see our subsequent October-November 2026 Yemen report).
The Red Sea Offensive
The first half of September saw most of the dramatic action on the ground between February and September of 2026, as the Houthi army rapidly advanced from the Red Sea coastal frontlines of southern Hodeida province, all the way to the narrows of the Bab al-Mandeb Strait at the sea’s southern entrance.
Fighting began on September 3, continuing near the existing frontlines for about five days, with media sympathetic to each respective side disagreeing on who was winning. Inconclusive battles also took place in mountainous inland parts of Taiz province, in faraway Jawf province, and along the Abyan-Bayda provincial border elsewhere in the south.
However, there would soon be no more question of which side was winning: After the Houthis’ capture of Hays town on September 8 or 9, the pro-PLC defense of the coast mostly collapsed. Houthi forces marched into the booming port town of Mukha on September 10, continuing south to Dhubab and beyond. On September 11, they took Perim Island (a.k.a. Mayyun), securing control of Yemen’s side of the Bab al-Mandeb Strait.
Though the opposing fighters represented the PLC, they weren’t exactly regular army units. Instead, the main force in the area was the National Resistance Forces (NRF), a paramilitary group formerly funded by the UAE before its withdrawal, and led by PLC councilman Tareq Saleh, nephew of Yemen’s late former president and a former Houthi ally. It appears that the Houthi victory may have been the end of the NRF, with no further reports of the now-homeless group's activity, and Saleh himself fleeing first to Aden and then Saudi Arabia.
Old grudges against Saleh from units closer to the PLC’s central factions reportedly played a role in the PLC disarray amid the Houthi advance, alongside a lack of investment in the NRF since the UAE’s hasty pullout. Reinforcements from fellow former UAE allies the Giants Brigades failed to turn the tide, with neither group receiving air support from Saudi Arabia, nor apparently having robust lines of communication among themselves.
The end of PLC control along the Red Sea was marked globally as a momentous event, with the Iran-led “Axis of Resistance”, which includes Yemen’s Houthi government, now positioned at two of the oil-rich Middle East’s three main shipping chokepoints (the third being the Egypt-controlled Suez Canal). It also signaled a new phase of Yemen’s long-stalled civil war, with the Houthis appearing to gain a clear upper hand. And according to conservative estimates, more than 800 Yemenis had died in the fighting.
The War Continues...
Once the strait’s fate was sealed, the territorial contest slowed and moved inland, with the Giants Brigades left as next in line to stop the Houthi advance. The so-called “Kahbub front” (also spelled “Kahboub”) became the top strategic target for the rest of the month, in a struggle to dominate the high ground inland from the narrows of the Bab al-Mandeb Strait. Most of the fighting actually took place well northeast of Kahbub mountain proper, along the first major ranges of mountains in that direction. The Houthis at first appeared to have a modest advantage, but the lines of control had nearly frozen by late September.
Fighting in Jawf and neighboring Marib provinces didn’t come to much either, with pro-PLC forces possibly gaining some ground in the desert, with the help of a recently formed autonomous alliance of anti-Houthi community militias from around the country. However, the missile and airstrike war between the Houthi government and Saudi Arabia continued to escalate, and changes to control within Yemen wouldn’t remain paused for long.
For subsequent events, including the siege of Taiz city, see our November 2026 Yemen control map and report.
Country Name: • Yemen (English) • Al-Yaman (Arabic) Official Name: • Republic of Yemen (English) • al-Jumhūriyyah al-Yamaniyyah (Arabic) Capital: • Sana'a (constitutional; seat of Houthi govt.) • Aden (official provisional capital of internationally-recognized government - only partially in use) • Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (headquarters of internationally-recognized leadership) |
Yemen War: Timeline of Events
The following is a chronology of changes to territorial control and other major events in Yemen since PolGeoNow's previous Yemen control map report of February 8, 2026. Sources are cited in the form of inline links within the text (when the ACLED conflict database is cited directly, the source information requires access to direct downloads of raw data from the project).
February-June 2026: Aftermath of the STC's Defeat
February 11, 2026
Forces aligned with Yemen’s Saudi-backed internationally-recognized government opened fire in Ataq town on supporters of the Southern Transitional Council (STC) - a separatist political coalition supported by the United Arab Emirates (UAE). (The Saudi-backed government is sometimes referred to by the name of its top governing body, the Presidential Leadership Council or PLC, which currently meets in Saudi Arabia).
A hospital said that five people were killed and 39 injured by the violence at Ataq. Pro-PLC media said armed STC supporters had previously tried to storm the Shabwa provincial government headquarters, attacking the guards with a hand grenade. The STC didn’t address accusations of storming the building, instead accusing the PLC forces of attacking a peaceful commemorative rally, which local authorities had apparently tried to prevent from happening. Another source, apparently close to the PLC, said “armed clashes” had broken out after protesters tried to remove the Yemeni flag from the provincial headquarters, and a later report would say plainclothes STC fighters had gotten into a firefight with the PLC-aligned security forces.
After seizing large portions of the country in late 2025, the STC’s armed forces had suffered a rapid collapse in early 2026 after the withdrawal of UAE troops from Yemen. By this time, the STC’s zone of military superiority was limited to the Dhale area north of Aden, and a low-profile presence on the outlying island province of Socotra, though STC political offices and activist networks were still functioning openly in some areas. (Though a delegation of STC officials sent to Saudi Arabia for negotiations in January had declared the dissolution of their organization, the move was rejected by STC officials and supporters within Yemen, as well as top STC leaders in the UAE, with the delegates widely believed to have made the announcement under duress.)
February 14-15, 2026
Saudi-aligned forces deployed to a former UAE base on the western outskirts of Ataq town in Shabwa. The arriving fighters were reportedly from the Homeland Shield (Dera al-Watan; a.k.a “National Shield Force” or “Nation’s Shield”) and Yemeni Emergency Forces, two paramilitary groups answering to the PLC government. Reports recorded in the ACLED conflict database said they had seized the advanced facility from a prominent province-level paramilitary force, apparently in relation to the pro-STC protests several days earlier (the Shabwa force in question had previously allied with the STC, before changing course to cooperate with the PLC amid the separatist network’s military withdrawal from the province in January).
The following month, further Saudi-backed reinforcements would reportedly arrive in the Ataq area, taking over several more sites around Ataq from the same local Shabwa force according to ACLED.
Mid-late February 2026
According to informants working with the ACLED conflict database, fighters of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) took over positions near Imbaqirah village, in Abyan province, from a PLC-aligned counterterrorism unit that had formerly been allied with the STC. The event apparently took place in the days after a major confrontation between the two forces, following the redeployment of another former STC force out of the area to the coastal town of Zinjibar. Imbaqirah, also called “al-Buqayra”, lies at the entrance to Wadi Omran (a.k.a. Awmran), an isolated mountain valley with a recent history of clashes between AQAP and STC troops.
The events seemed to mark a definitive reversal of the STC forces’ 2022 capture of AQAP’s positions in Wadi Omran - purported to be Al Qaeda’s top stronghold in Yemen - with STC operations already having shifted by 2025 to “re-clearing” areas outside the valley. The STC’s strength against AQAP had likely been diminished by the withdrawal of its foreign patron, the UAE, in January. Meanwhile, AQAP was pursuing a new policy emphasizing good relations with traditional community networks in Yemen, after its previous chief, a Saudi, was replaced in 2025 with a Yemeni community leader. A UN-commissioned report later in the year would conclude that AQAP achieved “enhanced freedom of movement and media outreach” in 2026 amid the chaos in Yemen and the wider Middle East, despite launching fewer attacks (the same team had already reported that AQAP was in resurgence the previous year, “driven by improved funding and greater operational freedom”). The report estimated that AQAP’s troop strength remained steady at about 2,000, but that it had captured a large amount of heavy weaponry and advanced equipment after the collapse of the STC in the south and east.
As for Imbaqirah, ACLED would also record a report of AQAP operatives operating openly in the village on May 27, months after their takeover of the PLC positions, suggesting that the government counterterrorism forces had not re-occupied the area.
February 20, 2026
The PLC government’s new cabinet held its first meeting in Aden, its provisional capital, since taking control of the city from the withdrawing STC in January, with many ministers having returned to the city in the previous days. The Presidential Leadership Council itself, to which the cabinet answers, was still based in neighboring Saudi Arabia’s capital city, Riyadh (some 1,000 kilometers north of central Yemen, and not pictured on our map).
STC supporters gathered outside Aden’s Presidential Palace to protest against the return of the cabinet, and PLC Homeland Shield forces opened fire, this time killing one person and injuring 11. PLC-friendly media said the protestors had tried to “storm” the government building where the meeting was held.
February 22-23, 2026
PLC-aligned fighters forcibly closed three major facilities used by the STC’s parallel government bodies in Aden - the “General Assembly”, “Foreign Affairs Authority”, and “General Secretariat”. In at least one case, the closure was enforced by the Southern Giants Brigades, a formerly STC-allied force that had sided with the Saudi-backed PLC leadership amid the STC’s collapse in January (its commander in chief was a council member of the PLC itself, and had kept his seat when STC-affiliated members were expelled).
Pro-PLC media framed the closure of the facilities as “part of efforts to recover former government buildings and institutions“. The STC no longer controlled the streets of Aden militarily at this time, but had continued its civilian “government” operations there.
March 2, 2026
A large Saudi-operated Wing Loong II surveillance drone reportedly crashed after a near-hit from a missile launched by forces of Yemen’s internationally-unrecognized “Houthi” government, which governs the majority of the country’s population from the official national capital city, Sana’a (the governing party is officially known as Ansar Allah, but is widely called by the name of its ruling al-Houthi family). The anti-aircraft missile was believed to have been launched from the southeastern edge of Bayda province, while the drone came down in mountains west of Ahwar in Abyan province.
March 13, 2026
The ACLED conflict database recorded a report that AQAP fighters attacked PLC-aligned forces in Mahfad town of Abyan province from a “position” in the mountains to the north.
March 14-21, 2026
A Saudi-aligned Shabwa provincial force reportedly replaced the Southern Giants Brigades (also known simply as the “Giants Brigades”) in the Harib area along the Marib-Shabwa provincial border. According to STC-aligned media, the move took place under orders from Saudi officers stationed at the base near Ataq that PLC forces had deployed to a month earlier. It may have been an attempt by the Saudi-PLC coalition to shore up its command and control in the area, with elements of the Giants Brigades sometimes said to remain sympathetic to the separatist cause of the STC, who they had allied with prior to January 2026 (if so, the transfer likely happened peacefully due to orders from the Giants Brigades’ commander in chief, who was cooperating closely with Saudi Arabia as a PLC council member.)
The ACLED conflict database recorded reports of this force replacement taking place across several different areas around Bayhan, as well as Harib itself inside Marib province, though other reports said locations inside Marib were instead transferred to a different unit of the Giants Brigades. Over the next week, other reports in ACLED said the Saudi-backed Shabwa provincial force also assumed control of Giants Brigades positions in the desert northeast of Bayhan, extending along the province’s northern border as far as Arin.
March 20-21, 2026
An international birdwatching expedition visited the outlying island of Abd al-Kuri in Socotra province, apparently with permission from the Socotra provincial government. The expedition would report that the UAE-built airstrip there appeared to be abandoned, and was freely accessible to the public as “the island’s only paved road”. (PolGeoNow’s February 2026 article on the control status of Socotra had described a lack of clarity over whether the UAE had truly withdrawn from the remote smaller island when its forces left Yemen in January. Also unanswered had been the question of whether incoming Saudi forces might have commandeered it).
March 28, 2026
In response to the war against Iran launched by the United States (US) and Israel a month earlier, the Houthis launched a ballistic missile attack against southern Israel. No damage or casualties seemed to have been reported from the missiles, with Israel saying at least two had been shot down.
The Houthi government is a close ally of Iran, but had until now held off from military involvement in the new wave of violence. However, it had previously waged a long-distance war against Israel and allegedly-Israeli-linked ships starting in October 2023, in purported solidarity with Palestine amid Israel’s military operations in the Gaza Strip. The Houthi government’s aggressive anti-Israel actions are one of its major sources of public support, since Yemen’s mostly Arab and Muslim population generally sides strongly with Palestine. However, the Houthis had ended their attacks on Israel and passing ships in October 2025, amid the partial ceasefire in Gaza, after sustaining waves of damaging counterattacks by Israel, the US, and the United Kingdom (UK).
Over the following week, the Houthis would launch several more new attacks against Israel, pausing again after an April 8 ceasefire agreement between Iran and the US. Despite that ceasefire not holding for the long term, the Houthis would only attack Israel again briefly in June, with no further incidents recorded by the ACLED conflict database as of the end of September.
March 31, 2026
Pro-STC media reported that the PLC government was partially demobilizing the Barshid Brigade, a fighting force in Hadramawt province that had played a key role in capturing provincial capital city Mukalla from Al Qaeda fighters in 2016. The PLC said it was expelling non-local elements from the Hadramawt-focused force, while a Houthi-aligned news outlet reported PLC officials were targeting the faction of the Brigade that had participated in the late 2025 STC military takeover of Hadramawt.
April 1, 2026
Pro-STC media said protesters had managed to “reopen” the three STC political facilities in Aden that PLC-aligned fighters had closed off access to on February 22 and 23, breaking the PLC-aligned security cordon around the buildings. It said this was followed by a “resumption of work” at the facilities.
April 12, 2026
After being closed off for several days by PLC-aligned forces, the STC’s main political office in Mukalla, capital city of Hadramawt province, was reportedly reopened under a deal negotiated between the STC and the province’s PLC governor.
April 23, 2026
The PLC government said it was launching a project to absorb the Hadrami Elite Forces, a powerful “semi-independent” paramilitary force in Hadramawt province, into the Yemeni national military. The force had previously allied with the STC, but remained in place after the STC’s defeat in early 2026, cooperating with the Saudi-led PLC forces.
A month earlier, the ACLED conflict database had recorded reports of the Hadrami Elite Forces assuming control of Mukalla after the PLC’s Homeland Shield forces withdrew inland to Seiyun. The Saudi-backed Homeland Shield had moved into the area in January as the STC withdrew.
April 27, 2026
The STC said it “resumed” business at its political office in Seiyun, Hadramawt, which was then allegedly ransacked the same day by PLC-aligned forces. The events came amid a reported return of the Yemeni Emergency Forces, a controversial Saudi-backed paramilitary group that had withdrawn from the area in late January after helping defeat the STC’s late-2025 military takeover. (The Emergency Forces are derided by STC supporters as “northerners” invading Hadramawt - previously part of independent South Yemen despite extending further north than any province of North Yemen - whereas the other major Saudi-backed paramilitary force stationed in Seiyun, the Homeland Shield, contains formations of southerners.)
April 30, 2026
An informant for the ACLED conflict database reported that two suspected AQAP members were killed in Marib province. The incident, which apparently took place east of Samdah, involved their vehicle being hit by a drone strike of unknown affiliation, after which unidentified armed men arrived to collect the bodies.
Pro-Houthi sources claim that AQAP maintains one or more camps near Samdah village, and a long-running string of airstrikes against Al Qaeda figures in the area, allegedly by the US, does seem to confirm that the group has some kind of major presence there. The local AQAP presence is often said to correspond more broadly to Marib province’s fertile central bottomlands (an area called “Wadi Abidah”), which are considered a bridge between Marib city and the desert region of Al Abr (Wadi Abidah is not labeled on our map, but corresponds to the area of yellow “mixed or unclear control” extending northeast from Marib city).
STC-aligned sources also have said AQAP operates “almost openly” in Wadi Abidah, with Marib being the stronghold of a core PLC member bloc, the religious-conservative Islah party. Both Houthi-aligned and STC-aligned media often accuse Islah of either supporting AQAP or turning a blind eye to its operations,* though the rural zone is acknowledged to have little to no government presence, and PLC actions against AQAP operatives there are not unheard of.
*Islah and Al Qaeda share some historical ties to the fundamentalist strain of Sunni Islam long promoted by neighboring Saudi Arabia, though Islah seeks to exist as a mainstream political player, while Al Qaeda supports violent revolution against the world order. The Houthis are also a Muslim religious-conservative party, but follow a minority version of Shia Islam that puts them at odds with Al Qaeda’s hardline Sunni philosophy.
However, evidence appears to be building that the Houthis themselves are collaborating pragmatically with AQAP. AQAP stopped hitting Houthi targets in 2022 amid an apparent Iran-influenced truce, and the Houthi government is now known to cooperate with neighboring Somalia’s Al Shabaab shadow government, which like AQAP is a member of the global Al Qaeda network and made up of hardline Sunnis. A UN-commissioned report based on research up to June 2026, made with input from the governments of various countries, asserts that the Houthis and AQAP acted increasingly in alliance after January, with the Houthis helping arm the Al Qaeda group, and AQAP fighters in return fighting on the side of the Houthis against the PLC-aligned forces.
April 30 - May 1, 2026
An allegedly STC-sympathetic military brigade abruptly withdrew from its camp in the Azzan area of Shabwa province. Its commander had reportedly held out with a loyalist faction for over a month after the PLC leadership ordered him replaced with an officer from the Giants Brigades. Meanwhile, another faction had reportedly aligned with the new commander and positioned itself north of Ataq town. Informants for the ACLED conflict database reported that the elements of the force also withdrew the same day from a series of positions along the road southeast of Azzan, reaching as far south as the junction with the east-west coastal highway.
Pro-Houthi media would afterwards allege that a leaked PLC government document described the camp being looted by AQAP fighters before PLC-aligned forces arrived to assume control. According to the claims, stolen weapons and equipment were taken by AQAP to Rumah in Yemen’s far east, then moved back west along the main road via Seiyun and Al Abr, which is under control of the PLC-aligned Homeland Shield and Emergency Forces. The pro-Houthi report was presented as evidence of a conspiracy by the Saudi-backed PLC coalition to transfer the weapons to AQAP fighters in the central bottomlands of Marib province, in relation to the standing Houthi claims that AQAP’s presence there is approved by the PLC-affiliated Islah Party (see April 30 timeline entry).
Early May 2026
STC officials reportedly started calling their organization the “Transitional Council of South Arabia” - though a purported statement from the group published on a pro-STC website presented it as only an extension of the full name from “Southern Transitional Council” to “Southern Transitional Council of South Arabia” (English-language media, including those supportive of the group, would continue calling it the “STC”).
Use of the name “South Arabia” here seemed intended to distance the group from the concept of a nation of Yemen, while harkening back to the Federation of South Arabia, which governed much of what’s now southwestern Yemen under UK oversight from 1959 to 1967 before joining with Hadramawt and Mahra to form the People’s Republic of Southern Yemen. (That country, popularly known as South Yemen, later changed its name to People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen, and in 1990 merged with the “northern” Yemen Arab Republic to its west to form the unified Yemen.)
May 10, 2026
A news report said that the Saudi troops stationed around Hadibu on the main island of Socotra had carried out an aid delivery mission to the small outlying island of Samhah. The mission was said to have taken place in coordination with the Socotra provincial government, and a local community leader on the smaller island was said to have thanked the Saudis for their help.
Soon afterwards, the STC-affiliated but Saudi-friendly governor of Socotra province (see May 17 timeline entry) would reportedly hold consultations with local authorities on both Abd al-Kuri and the even smaller inhabited island of Samhah, further implying that both were at least loosely under the true oversight of the provincial government.
May 17, 2026
An apparently small band of alleged STC forces hijacked a Saudi or PLC diesel tanker truck in the island province of Socotra, reportedly firing on Saudi forces in the process. A Houthi-aligned news outlet called the STC’s “first armed attack” on Saudi-led coalition forces since the withdrawal of the STC-allied UAE military from the island in January, and said they had taken and stolen the fuel.
As explained in PolGeoNow’s dedicated analysis from February, STC forces previously in control of Socotra’s main island had apparently remained in place after the UAE’s withdrawal, even as the province’s STC-aligned governor made a point of cooperating with incoming Saudi and PLC authorities. Houthi-aligned reporting on the new incident agreed that STC forces “maintain security and military control” on the island beyond the key sites occupied by the Saudi military, while opponents in Socotra reportedly complained of an “administrative vacuum” in the province (the Houthi government has its own appointed governor of Socotra who openly opposes the Saudi presence, but seems to be based in Sana’a rather than on the island). Another report from Houthi-aligned media had alleged the previous month that the UAE continued to fund “allied factions and local figures” in Socotra.
After the attack on the fuel truck, several arrests of presumably STC-affiliated military figures were reportedly made, and the governor was summoned to Saudi Arabia (presumably by the Riyadh-based PLC, possibly on behalf of Saudi Arabia). Despite rumors reported by Houthi media that he would be detained there and forcibly ousted from his office, he would soon return to Yemen, making controversial statements at a conference in Aden the following month that were interpreted as questioning Socotra’s place as part of Yemen.
Following the attack, and during the governor’s absence, Houthi-aligned media would report “rising tension” between STC forces and the Saudi contingent on the island, with the Saudis setting up new roadblocks and checkpoints. In the following months, the STC-aligned governor would reportedly remain in charge of local security forces on the island, with his office reportedly working with them to “enhance security and stability” there.
May 18-29, 2026
In the span of eleven days, the Houthis reportedly shot down two US-operated MQ-9 Reapers - a model of large, US-made combat drones - over Marib province. The US politically supports Yemen’s internationally-recognized government, and sometimes launches airstrikes in the country against alleged fighters of AQAP (it has also bombed Houthi targets at some points in the recent past, but doesn’t appear to have an ongoing campaign of strikes against that group).
June 3, 2026
Reports said STC holdout forces in the southwestern interior of Yemen were rallying their troops along the frontline with the Houthis, after rejecting an offer to be restructured and integrated into the PLC coalition. They were generally considered to still control areas of Dhale and Lahij provinces, though by some accounts PLC-loyal forces had also been deployed to those areas.
PLC-friendly media would report the following month that the group had reassured the Houthis that it wouldn’t join any impending offensive against them by PLC-loyal forces, with pro-Houthi media later making similar reports. In early October, once the war with the Houthis had fully resumed, an STC spokesperson would tell UAE-associated media that the southern forces were fiercely defending their territory from Houthi advances, but weren’t interested in pursuing the Houthis into areas not part of the former South Yemen. (The border between North Yemen and South Yemen followed the northern boundary of Lahij province, which at that time included parts of what’s now Dhale province.)
June 6, 2026
Brigadier General Yahya Wahish, a high-level commander in the PLC-aligned National Resistance Forces (NRF) paramilitary group, was killed by a roadside bomb in Hodeida province. The incident occurred near the Red Sea coast west of Hays, where the NRF was holding the front line against the Houthis in southern Hodeida province.
June 13-15, 2026
The office of the STC president in Aden, described by pro-STC media as the group’s “main headquarters”, was shut down for at least two days as PLC-aligned fighters blocked officials and staff from entering. The actual STC president is not believed to be occupying the office, having allegedly fled to the UAE in early January, though the STC has never confirmed this (all of his public participation in Yemeni politics since has been conducted over the internet and by telephone).
June 21, 2026
According to a Houthi-aligned news outlet, the Giants Brigades and another PLC-aligned force seized a “Coast Guard” building in Aden after a battle with STC forces, who it said were resisting the appointment of a pro-Saudi commander.
June 24, 2026
A community leader fleeing the Houthi-controlled part of Jawf province arrived at Al Rayyan Camp - in the province’s sparsely-populated, PLC-controlled eastern part - and issued a ceremonial call for help from other kinship-based community militias across Yemen. He had been arrested by the Houthis after swearing to protect a woman claiming to be a long-lost daughter of Saddam Hussein, the late former leader of fellow Arab country Iraq (some 1,300 kilometers to Yemen’s north, not shown on map). The Houthis had also arrested the woman herself and humiliated the community leader, allegedly forcing him to make false statements against her. The Houthi government claimed to have proven through DNA testing that her claimed identity was false.
Over the coming weeks, thousands of fighters would arrive at the camp to rally for the “dignity” of their traditional code of ethics, traveling from provinces across the country, including those under both Houthi and PLC control, in what several observers called an unprecedented mobilization. The convenor of the movement, which would come to call itself the “Dignity Mobilization” (Nakf al-Karama) said his only objective was to rescue the woman, though some of the participating fighters wanted to declare a broader war against the Houthis for a perceived pattern of contempt toward traditional community structures. (By late July, anti-Houthi media would also report multiple armed clashes between the Houthi military and community militias in other parts of Jawf province, including within Houthi-controlled areas.)
Also on June 24, an anti-PLC news outlet reported that Yemeni Emergency Forces fighters took over the airport of Seiyun town in Hadramawt, apparently as part of a power struggle with fellow PLC-aligned force the Homeland Shield. The Emergency Forces previously had withdrawn to the far northwest of the province in January 2026 before reportedly returning to Seiyun in April.
July-August 2026: First Phase of Yemen Ceasefire Breakdown
July 4, 2026
In a surprise offensive near Hays, close to the Red Sea coast, the Houthis temporarily seized several positions from PLC-affiliated forces, before the locations were recaptured in a PLC counterattack. The fighting reportedly left 50 Houthi and 16 PLC fighters dead.
July 13, 2026
The PLC said it conducted an airstrike on the airport in Sana’a, Yemen’s official capital city, which was currently under Houthi governance. It said the purpose of the strike was to prevent an Iranian plane from landing there. The Houthi government accused Saudi Arabia - the PLC’s closest international ally, and an enemy of Iran - of being behind the strike, and retaliated by firing a ballistic missile at an airport in Abha, Saudi Arabia. Reports suggested that the first strike had done damage to the runway in Sana’a, while Saudi Arabia implied that it had intercepted the missiles bound for Abha (pro-Houthi media reported that the Sana’a runway was repaired within two days).
In the following weeks, the back-and-forth strikes would increasingly be seen as marking the end of the four-year unofficial truce between the Houthis and the PLC, which had broadly held despite continuous skirmishes along the front lines.
The Iranian plane was reportedly carrying a Houthi delegation returning from the funeral of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei (often known by his religious title “Ayatollah”), who had been killed in US/Israeli airstrikes at the end of February. The plane was diverted before landing, afterwards touching down safely at the recently-repaired airport of Houthi-controlled port city Hodeida. It would later be reported that the plane also carried military advisors from Iran, who would assist in the Houthis’ lightning offensive two months later, as well as drone engines and missile warheads.
The same Iranian plane had previously landed in Sana’a in early July, transporting Yemenis evacuating from Iran, before picking up the Houthi delegation and flying it to Iran. The Houthi government had characterized the plane’s first arrival as “breaking the blockade” of Saudi-led control over Yemeni airspace, though some sources claimed the Saudi-led coalition had chosen to allow it in (and the airport had already been serving flights to and from non-Iran-allied fellow Middle Eastern country Jordan, 1,500 kilometers to Yemen’s northwest - not shown on map).
July 14, 2026
A battle ensued in Lawdar, Abyan province, as alleged AQAP fighters attacked a military headquarters of the “National Security Forces”, a PLC paramilitary formation formed from the former STC-affiliated Security Belt force and a few smaller groups. The attack was said to have been repelled, but killed two National Security fighters. (The previous February, the PLC councilman who also serves as the chief of the Giants Brigades had ordered the head of National Security in Abyan replaced, alongside the commander of another force in the province. This was part of a campaign by the PLC leadership to consolidate its control of former STC-affiliated units by removing commanders of uncertain allegiance. These or other commanders in Abyan apparently rejected their dismissals, leading to limited armed clashes between their loyalists and pro-PLC forces.)
From March to August 2026, the ACLED conflict database recorded a number of similar or smaller AQAP attacks on PLC-aligned forces in central Abyan. They were particularly concentrated in and around Mudiyah town - where the formerly STC-aligned forces have a contentious relationship with local community networks - but also extended to Al Wadhea in the south, near which AQAP was said to have a mountain hideout.
July 14-26, 2026
The Houthis shot down another Saudi-operated Wing Loong II drone over Bayda province. Twelve days later, they reportedly downed a Saudi-operated Baykar Bayraktar Akinci - a Turkish-made combat drone - over Jawf province.
July 20, 2026
The Houthi government said it was declaring a blockade on ports in Saudi Arabia, in response to what it called "an unjust and oppressive siege" against Houthi-controlled Yemen by Saudi forces.
Despite not substantially blocking off trade to Saudi Arabia, the declaration would cause modest disruption to shipping traffic through the Red Sea over the next few days, amid fears that Houthi attacks could effectively close the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, as their ally Iran had partially achieved in the Strait of Hormuz (1,000 kilometers northeast of Yemen, not shown on map). The most relevant issue for Saudi Arabia related to its Red Sea port of Yanbu (1,000 kilometers northwest of Yemen, not shown on map), which is connected to eastern Saudi oil fields by desert pipelines - its main backup oil export channel amid the Hormuz crisis. However, there are two entrances to the Red Sea, with the Suez Canal at the far end from Yemen also accessible to ships from Yanbu.
July 22-24, 2026
In their first reported action on the declared blockade, the Houthis said they had attacked two Saudi-registered oil tankers in the Red Sea. Saudi sources confirmed that a fire had broken out on one of the ships, but the other attack was not independently confirmed.
Two days later, another Saudi ship was reported to have taken “minor damage” in an attack in the Red Sea. In retaliation, Saudi Arabia carried out airstrikes on Houthi facilities at Hodeida city and the island next to Ras Isa.
July 23, 2026
The leader of the Hadramawt Tribal Alliance (HTA) militia network, known as a pro-Saudi figure, was blocked by Saudi or PLC personnel from re-entering Yemen after having been invited to Saudi Arabia in January. He was also a high-ranking official in the PLC-aligned provincial government of Hadramawt. The reasons for blocking his re-entry were not stated, but the incident came amid new disagreements between his organization and the PLC leadership over distribution of expected income from the planned revival of Yemen’s Hadramawt-based oil economy. In May, a Houthi-aligned news outlet had alleged that Saudi Arabia was trying to dismantle the HTA by backing breakaway factions, while an April report had said that armed forces associated with the HTA had announced their intention to integrate into the PLC military.
A month later, the HTA leader, as well as his family members, would reportedly still be unable to re-enter Yemen.
July 28, 2026
Another Saudi-registered tanker ship, owned by the Saudi government, was confirmed to have been struck by Houthi missiles in the Red Sea.
July 28-30, 2026
The leadership of the anti-Houthi militia mobilization in Jawf province said it was moving its staging area from Al Rayyan Camp to a new site closer to the Houthi control line, called Camp Munqidha (the word munqidha can be translated as “savior”, though at least one source suggests it was already the name of a mountain in the area).
Reports from the following month would describe a policy of receiving newly participating militias in the area of Al Rayyan Camp, while sending already-inducted ones to an area near the frontlines, though it wasn’t entirely clear whether this was still the same Camp Munqidha site.
August 4, 2026
The Houthis stated they had struck a target at Saudi Arabia’s Najran airport, near the border with Yemen, following reported Saudi drone incursions into Houthi territory.
August 4-5, 2026
An India-registered cargo sailboat was hit by an explosion in the Red Sea and sank. All 14 crewmembers, most of them citizens of India, were rescued by the PLC-affiliated Yemeni coast guard, and brought to the port town of Mukha (Mocha). The PLC government accused the Houthis of sinking the ship, while the Houthis didn’t comment or claim responsibility. It was unclear what the ship was carrying or whether it had any ties to Saudi Arabia.
The next day, the Houthis claimed to have launched missile attacks against two Saudi oil tankers, one in the Red Sea and one in the Gulf of Aden. One of the two purported attacks was confirmed by the United Nations (UN) to have targeted a Dominica-registered, Saudi-owned and operated tanker ship in the Gulf of Aden. The Houthis said they struck the ship and forced it to turn around, while the ship’s crew said there had only been an explosion nearby. The Houthis also claimed to have hit the second targeted ship in the Red Sea, a Saudi-registered tanker, though journalists were unable to independently confirm the attack. A Houthi spokesperson claimed this was the eighth ship his government had attacked since declaring the blockade on July 20, though the UN was only able to confirm three.
August 7, 2026
In a development that would prove relevant to Yemen later in the year, Saudi Arabia signed a mutual defense pact with fellow Muslim-led regional powers Pakistan and Türkiye (formerly Turkey), committing each to defend the others against external attacks. Pakistan, located to the east of Saudi Arabia on the far side of Iran, is the nearest nuclear-armed country other than Israel, while Türkiye, located some 500 kilometers north of Saudi Arabia at their nearest point, is a major military power and a member of the NATO alliance with the US and most European countries. Each of the three countries in the new pact had previously cooperated militarily with each of the others, but not been strongly committed to defending each other.
August 6-9, 2026
PLC-aligned forces said Houthi missile attacks on their military camps in Marib and Hadramawt provinces killed 58 soldiers and injured more than 50 - a remarkable spike in violence as fighting along Yemen’s frontlines continued to be limited since the 2022 truce, despite the long-distance attacks ongoing between the Houthi government and Saudi Arabia. The camps targeted reportedly included one in the far east of Marib, and ones in the areas of Al Abr and Wadiah Crossing in Hadramawt, with the Emergency Forces mentioned as a major target. The next day, a new round of missile attacks and shelling in Marib province allegedly killed another eight PLC soldiers and two civilians, targeting a camp near Marib city. The PLC claimed its forces carried out widespread retaliatory attacks on August 8. On August 9, seven or eight people were thought to have been killed in a Houthi missile attack on the PLC-governed Red Sea town of Mukha, including four soldiers and three civilians.
August 9-18, 2026
The Houthis claimed to strike a government-owned oil refinery in Jazan, Saudi Arabia, near the Yemeni border, three times in the span of nine days. Saudi Arabia confirmed that at least one attack caused a fire at the facility.
August 11, 2026
According to the PLC, the Houthis fired on a commercial ship in the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, killing four crewmembers and two PLC-aligned fighters. The ship was registered in Tanzania, and the dead civilian crewmembers were said to be citizens of Pakistan and Indonesia. The PLC said its two fighters were killed in a second stage of the attack, while trying to conduct a coast guard rescue. The ship, apparently owned by an Egyptian company, was accused by the Houthis of carrying weapons, though the PLC government said it was carrying food supplies.
August 15-16, 2026
The PLC military said a Houthi missile attack on civilian port facilities in PLC-held Mukha town killed a security guard and left two people missing. Over the next day, the PLC government claimed it “carried out 181 military operations” against the Houthis across the country, apparently referring to Saudi airstrikes.
August 17-24, 2026
The Houthis claimed to have hit a Saudi military vessel and four escort ships in a missile attack somewhere in the Red Sea. One week later, they attacked another Saudi ship in the Red Sea, at a location far to the north of Yemen.
August 23, 2026
A Houthi-aligned news outlet alleged that Saudi forces based in eastern Marib province were recruiting AQAP fighters to serve in the PLC-aligned Homeland Shield and Emergency Forces paramilitary forces. It said the recruits came from the province’s fertile central bottomlands, an area known as “Wadi Abidah” (see April 30 timeline entry), where the Houthis accuse core PLC bloc Islah of allowing AQAP to flourish under its protection.
Early September 2026: All-out War Returns to Yemen with Houthi Red Sea Offensive
September 1, 2026
The PLC government said that Yemeni and Saudi forces had killed the global spokesperson of the so-called “Islamic State” (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) during a commando raid within Seiyun town, Hadramawt province. Some sources alleged that US ground troops had also been involved, and that the Yemeni man killed was also the head of IS’s self-declared “Yemen province”. IS is not believed to control any territory in Yemen (and only barely ever has), and is much less influential there than Al Qaeda. However, underground IS operatives in Yemen, who a UN report estimated to number about 150, are thought to remain connected to the group’s networks in Africa and the Middle East.
September 3, 2026
An online report described a meeting of a local chapter of the STC that purportedly represented both the western part of Socotra province’s main island and the populated outlying island of Abd al-Kuri. This seemed to suggest the possibility that the STC was still active on the smaller island despite the apparent withdrawal of the UAE forces that once supported it.
September 3-8, 2026
Forces loyal to the Houthi government launched a large-scale offensive on the Red Sea coast, reportedly aiming to cut off the Mukha-Taiz road and drive out PLC forces, represented there by the badly-outnumbered National Resistance Forces (NRF), an out-of-practice militia formerly backed by the UAE. During the first 24 hours of fighting, a total of 129 people were killed, including 66 PLC-aligned and 62 Houthi-aligned fighters, as well as one civilian.
Near the start of the offensive, the Houthis gained ground both along the coast around Hays town and in a separate area far inland from there, to the west of Taiz city. On the latter front, they succeeded at cutting off PLC supply lines from Taiz to coastal Mukha after defeating unprepared PLC-affiliated regular army forces in the mountains. These forces, backed by Saudi Arabia and close to Yemen’s Islah party, had allegedly disregarded warnings from the NRF, who they distrusted as a former ally of pro-southern-separatist foreign power the UAE (NRF leader Tareq Saleh, discussed in the September 8-9 entry below, had also fought directly against Islah years earlier, during a period of alliance with the Houthis themselves, before the NRF was formed).
In a counter-offensive over the next six days, PLC forces re-captured Hays, with the NRF briefly regaining its footing amid uncoordinated backup from the newly-arrived Giants Brigades, a fellow former UAE-backed group. At some point they would also receive haphazard support from elements of the Saudi-built Homeland Shield forces. Away from the coast, the PLC also claimed that its fighters recaptured several inland areas southwest of Taiz city. And on the opposite front, it reportedly seized areas of southern Marib province, and in Jawf province claimed to take Al Labanat base and Yatmah town.
Conflict tracker Suriyak contradicted the PLC’s optimistic narrative, reporting that the Houthis managed to capture almost 30 sites in the mountainous inland area west and southwest of Taiz between September 4 and 8, with the PLC recapturing only two. (Suriyak is openly sympathetic to the Houthi cause, but has a record of reporting seriously on both gains and losses, and is generally proven correct after the fact.) By one account, PLC forces in other parts of inland Taiz failed to mobilize to counteract the Houthis army’s achievements there. Suriyak also said that in Jawf province, Houthi forces fought off the PLC attack on Al Labanat and recaptured Yatmah after only a brief seizure by PLC forces.
Also in Jawf province, an airstrike by the Saudi-led coalition left at least 23 people dead at a Houthi-run prison in provincial capital Al Hazm, while the Houthis reportedly shot down a Saudi-operated, Chinese-made CASC Rainbow combat drone. Meanwhile, the Dignity Mobilization militias in Jawf’s east reportedly announced that they were deploying to the frontlines, apparently as part of a newly-agreed alliance with the PLC. The day after the Saudi strike in Al Hazm, a wave of Houthi drone and missile attacks on oil facilities and other sites in nearby parts of Saudi Arabia reportedly injured 73 people, also causing fires at the facilities.
Elsewhere in Yemen, the PLC-aligned Giants Forces would claim to have captured two areas inside Bayda province near the border of Abyan and Lahij. Suriyak would later report that the effort was eventually “called off…without any substantial changes on the ground”.
By September 7, the death toll from the fighting in Yemen had reached more than 300, including 84 PLC and 57 Houthi fighters who had died over just the previous day (each number coming from sources on their own side). By the next day, deaths reported from the two sides had already surpassed 500, including 278 Houthi and 216 PLC fighters, as well as 29 civilians.
September 8, 2026
A rare report on events in the remote desert of northern Hadramawt province, recorded in the ACLED conflict database, said PLC-aligned Yemeni Emergency Forces fighters raided the house of a community leader in the Manwakh area.
September 8-9, 2026
After recapturing Hays on September 8 or 9 (also seizing the Red Sea coastal town to the west), Houthi troops continued south amid a collapse in pro-PLC positions and a failure of the NRF and Giants Brigades to cooperate effectively. Both forces withdrew towards Mukha to avoid being surrounded, while PLC-aligned forces already stationed in Mukha fled. Some sources also said Houthi experts had breached the PLC alliance’s communications, listening in and even sending fraudulent orders to retreat. After advancing south from Hays along inland roads, the Houthi army turned west towards Mukha, sending their opponents into further disarray after overrunning the NRF command and control center, located at a high point some 20 kilometers east of the town. In the process, they had captured at least 10 different sites, including another military base at a key intersection, further cutting off PLC access to Mukha.
Brigadier General Tareq Saleh, the head of the NRF, had fled the war front as his headquarters came under attack by Houthi missiles. He would arrive three days later in Saudi Arabia, after initially retreating to the PLC cabinet’s headquarters in Aden. Besides commanding the NRF, Saleh is also one of the eight sitting members of Yemen’s Riyadh-based Presidential Leadership Council (PLC) itself. He is the nephew of former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh, who was pushed out of office in 2012, then allied with the Houthis to capture the capital in 2014, and was finally killed by Houthi forces in 2017 during a public falling-out. The younger Saleh had remained aligned with his uncle during that time, but afterwards created the NRF as a politically independent force opposing the Houthis with UAE support. (Unlike fellow UAE ally the STC, Saleh and his NRF were not southern separatists, allowing him to remain part of the council when the separatists were expelled amid the UAE’s early 2026 troop withdrawal).
Meanwhile, Suriyak reported that PLC fighters finally really did capture Jawf province’s Al Labanat military camp, as well as two nearby mountains.
The same day, a convoy including the PLC defense minister was attacked during a visit to STC-dominated Dhale province, during which he purportedly “received a briefing” on troop readiness from fellow anti-Houthi commanders there. STC-friendly media said that “a soldier and two children” were injured in the ensuing skirmish, with at least one vehicle destroyed and one more set on fire. A source told international media the attack was carried out by STC supporters, with many vehicles set aflame before the attackers were driven off. The defense minister would be delayed by the confrontation, adding to accusations that he had abandoned the real front lines along the Red Sea coast.
September 10-14, 2026
On September 10, the retreat of PLC-aligned forces continued on Yemen’s west coast, with the Houthis capturing the key port town of Mukha, as well as nine nearby areas, thus seizing 3,000 square kilometers in six days and leaving 70 percent of Taiz province under their control. The PLC forces had already abandoned the town ahead of the Houthis’ arrival, with the NRF reportedly departing without warning at dawn. Mukha, a town of growing size and importance, had been held by the UAE-backed anti-Houthi forces for almost a decade, since they captured it in early 2017.
Towards the end of the day, Houthi forces continued south of Mukha, seizing Dhubab and reaching the Lahij provincial border, expanding their control to cover 80 percent of Taiz province. They also reportedly seized the Hanish islands in the Red Sea, after hundreds of PLC fighters withdrew from them, and on the mainland reached just 15 kilometers from the narrows of the Bab al-Mandeb Strait. Overall, the Houthis had secured a 130-kilometer stretch of the Red Sea coast. In the northwestern province of Hajjah, they reportedly shot down a Saudi-operated, Turkish-made Vestel Karayel drone.
On September 11, the Houthis captured Perim Island, also known as Mayyun or Mayun, located at the narrowest point of Red Sea’s southern entrance. PLC-aligned forces on the island, including the national navy and elements of the Giants Brigades, reportedly had withdrawn the previous day.
West and southwest of Taiz, Suriyak said the Houthis seized more than a dozen areas between September 10 and 13, including one of those previously recaptured by the PLC. The Houthis’ accumulated territorial gains across Taiz province over ten days had reached a total of some 5,000 square kilometers. A source from the PLC-aligned NRF said more than 500 PLC fighters had been killed and around 1,500 injured between August 9 and September 10, claiming that they had in turn killed 1,000 Houthi troops. A health authority reported that more than 700 Houthi fighters were killed during the whole of the offensive. Suriyak said that 5,000 PLC soldiers and large amounts of functional equipment had also been captured by the advancing Houthi forces. Meanwhile, the Houthi government said it had freed 210 of its own personnel who had been imprisoned in Mukha. The PLC-affiliated Human Rights Ministry reported that more than 150 civilians were killed and over 200 injured during the ten days of fighting.
The PLC collapse on the Red Sea coast was seen by some as the result of “a complete failure of political leadership”, while others blamed weak command and control among the PLC-aligned forces themselves. PLC-aligned battalions at Mukha were also reported to have been “seriously depleted” going into the fighting, at only 20 percent of their supposed strength, with the remainder on the official rosters filled with “ghost names” receiving salaries. Conversely, some of the reinforcements that did arrive reportedly hadn’t been paid in months.
Blame also was cast on Saudi Arabia, which had strong-armed the UAE into withdrawing from Yemen at the beginning of the year, apparently without any effort to fill the vacuum left along the Red Sea coast by the UAE troops’ departure. Meanwhile, neither Saudi Arabia nor fellow anti-Houthi power the US waged a major air campaign to defend the coast. Most Saudi airstrikes came only after the PLC forces had withdrawn, appearing to focus on destroying weapons captured by the Houthis, while the US reportedly turned down Saudi requests for help. A report the following month would suggest that formerly UAE-backed forces - possibly including both the NRF and the Giants Brigades - had been receiving neither funding from the UAE nor promises of air support from Saudi Arabia.
The Houthis’ gains were said to grant them “massive strategic leverage against Saudi Arabia, the United States, and international powers” if consolidated, with the potential to act as a game changer in Yemen’s 12-year-old civil war. One Yemeni analyst said the PLC was now facing “a long-term war of attrition”, while an Israeli analyst called the Houthi capture of the Strait “a major, almost unprecedented, strategic achievement” for both the Houthis and their ally Iran. The Houthi government had gained not just land, but an entire UAE-built security structure, including military facilities, equipment, weapons, and ammunition - not to mention the ability to strike ships entering the Red Sea without the need for long-range weapons. Houthi diplomats would subsequently try to reassure the world that they didn’t intend to use their new power for anything drastic, though it wasn’t clear whether all members of the Houthi organization were on board.
Advisors from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) - one of that country’s two separate armed forces commands - were reported to have been present in the field, supporting the Houthis during their offensive. Some, but not all, of the advisors were said to have arrived on the Iranian flight that touched down in Yemen on July 13. Among the advisors’ numbers were some from fellow Arab country Lebanon’s Hezbollah paramilitary organization, which had pioneered Iran-backed support for the Houthis starting two decades earlier.
In Jawf province, Suriyak said that on September 12, PLC-aligned forces had attempted to further advance north of Al Labanat base, but were repelled. The tracker said the Houthis subsequently launched a counterattack and recaptured the two mountaintops they had lost several days earlier, but that the base remained under PLC control until the Houthis finally recaptured it two days later. Somewhere in Yemen, the Saudi military reportedly lost a second CASC Rainbow combat drone, with this one mistakenly shot down by PLC-aligned forces.
Amid the fighting, Saudi Arabia had shut down its critical East-West oil pipeline on September 11, after it was hit and significantly damaged in a drone strike originating from Iraq the previous day (likely launched by an Iran-affiliated militia in that country). It was said that the pipeline - used to bypass the partially-Iran-blockaded Strait of Hormuz and export oil from the Red Sea port of Yanbu - would be mostly out of service for three to five weeks while undergoing repairs. The pipeline had been carrying about 4% of the world’s oil supply, and its shutdown would trigger a significant spike in oil prices, among other logistical challenges. (The shutdown would appear to moot the central goal of the Houthis’ proclaimed “blockade” of Saudi shipping, thought to primarily target the same oil exports from Yanbu. However, Saudi Arabia had already largely compensated for the Houthi attacks, routing its oil shipments away from Yemen, where they could pass out of the Red Sea safely to the north through the Suez Canal and Egypt.)
Late September 2026: Fighting slows and moves inland
September 14, 2026
In the aftermath of their coastal takeover, the Houthis were reported to be gaining on the city of Taiz, as well as Marib in the east, where Yemen’s largest gas and oil fields are located. One independent research group said the latter Houthi advances were taking place in Marib’s north, through flat and open plains, bypassing PLC defenses west of the city. The same source said the Houthis were in “advanced negotiations” with traditional community leaders in Marib, with a peaceful handover of the city expected the following week (though this would not actually come to pass). However, conflict tracker Suriyak would later report that “an extensive network of fortifications” in Marib made it the “most static front in Yemen”, and that nothing was likely to change soon unless a negotiated settlement was reached.
In Lahij province of Yemen’s southwest, Suriyak reported that the Houthis captured seven areas, including several mountaintops, along the provincial border with Taiz. Their gains were reported to include the mountain area of Kahbub near the Bab al-Mandeb Strait.*
In neighboring Saudi Arabia, a military airbase in Khamis Mushait was targeted by Houthi missiles and drones, in retaliation for hundreds of alleged Saudi airstrikes in Yemen over the past few days. The Houthis claimed the attack inflicted "significant losses”, but this wasn’t independently confirmed.
*According to several maps consulted by PolGeoNow, Kahbub (Kahboub) is the name of an isolated outcrop amid the gentle coastal slope east of Dhubab, and this is where our map now marks it. However, it’s been reported that the name is also used to refer more broadly to a series of physical features forming the front line in the general area, which could possibly account for another report that “Kahbub” is 40 kilometers from Taiz, whereas the peak according to most maps is actually some 80 kilometers from that city (and directly on the border of Taiz province). For example, one report from Yemeni media refers to multiple “elevated positions” “across the entire Kahboub highlands”. An Al Jazeera English report that Kahbub is 40 kilometers from the Bab al-Mandeb Strait is consistent with the mapped location, despite the same report containing a graphic labeling a “Kahboub Mountain Range” much farther inland, some 80 kilometers from the strait (incorrectly marked with a distance indicator line labeled “~40km”). A separate article from Al Jazeera’s Arabic service includes a graphic labeling Kahbub in the same place as other maps.
September 15, 2026
Saudi Arabia claimed that it shot down a Houthi drone south of the holy city of Mecca (inside Saudi Arabia, 500 kilometers northwest of Yemen - not shown on map). The Houthis denied targeting the city. Meanwhile, PLC forces claimed to have recaptured the base at Al Labanat in Jawf, but anonymous soldiers told journalists they only controlled some downhill portions of the site.
September 16, 2026
A Saudi-operated, US-made F-15 fighter jet was confirmed to have crashed in the Houthi-controlled part of Marib province, with Houthi forces taking credit for shooting it down, and sharing an alleged video of the moment it was hit by one of their missiles. Though video evidence of the plane’s wreckage on the ground was independently verified, and sources told US newspaper the Wall Street Journal that it “had been downed”, journalists were unable to confirm that it had been struck by a Houthi weapon. The fate of the two crewmembers was unknown.
The same day, the Houthis apparently also claimed to have shot down a Saudi drone over the same province.
September 16-17, 2026
A civilian citizen of Bangladesh reportedly died in Saudi Arabia after falling down a stairway, apparently while trying to evacuate in response to a missile alert.
The next day, a Yemeni resident of Saudi Arabia was reported killed “in a drone interception” east of Mecca. A strike on an airbase in the same area damaged an Italian-operated, European-made Eurofighter Typhoon fighter jet associated with Italian forces stationed at the base. The base hosts part of a force of several hundred Italian personnel - but just four Eurofighter Typhoon jets - stationed in Saudi Arabia and neighboring countries to help defend their airspace against Iran-allied attacks (while controversially operating under the legal framework of the US-led anti-ISIS coalition).
September 17-18, 2026
Conflict tracker Suriyak said the Houthis temporarily seized three more areas southwest of Taiz city before withdrawing the following day.
September 17-21, 2026
Suriyak said Houthi forces began fortifying their positions along the Taiz-Lahij provincial border. Despite this, pro-PLC forces, including local community militias and elements of the Giants Brigades and Homeland Shield, claimed to have halted the Houthi offensive at the heights of Kahbub. The PLC claimed that its forces had killed more than 200 Houthi fighters over the past 48 hours and regained control of “all elevated positions in the area.”
Suriyak reported that on September 18, Houthi forces broke through the PLC coalition’s defensive line in an area about 25 kilometers northeast of Kahbub, capturing a settlement and a mountain, while the PLC continued to repel Houthi attacks in another area further yet to the northeast. Over the next three days, reporting said the Houthis continued their attempts to take full control of the heights of Kahbub from the Giants Brigades, though it wasn’t clear to what extent it might be referring to the same inland area to the northeast of Kahbub proper where Suriyak reported fighting on September 18. Suriyak subsequently said that Houthi troops continued advancing in that same area and to the northeast, taking control of three more mountaintops on the Taiz-Lahij provincial border. The PLC, for its part, claimed to have recaptured several mountainous areas in Taiz province, while a source in Taiz described the fighting as “a back-and-forth battle with no significant advances”. A southern separatist news outlet, which considers the Giants Brigades to be “southern forces” alongside the STC despite their cooperation with the PLC leadership, also reported the purported gains. As of September 21, the World Health Organization (WHO) counted at least 674 people killed in the fighting between Houthi and opposing forces.
September 19, 2026
For the first time since the escalation of the conflict in July, the Houthis launched a ballistic missile at Saudi Arabia’s capital city, Riyadh (which is also the headquarters of Yemen’s PLC government leadership). Drone strikes were also carried out, and four other Saudi cities were reportedly targeted. Saudi Arabia claimed that all attacks were repelled, but UK news agency the BBC reported that “a column of black smoke was seen rising from fuel tanks” near Riyadh’s international airport.
Meanwhile, the PLC reported that 13 of its soldiers had been killed during clashes with the Houthis over the previous two days.
September 22, 2026
The Houthi government said Saudi airstrikes killed 17 people across more than one province, including eight civilians and nine PLC-affiliated detainees at a prison in Al Hazm, Jawf province (a PLC military source denied that the prison strike had taken place). Meanwhile, the Houthis said 118 of their people had been killed during the previous two days (in both battles and airstrikes), and the PLC said it had lost 36 fighters.
In the eastern province of Hadramawt, a suspected US drone strike killed an alleged AQAP operative on the beach in Burum town, just south of Mukalla, where local police said a nighttime meeting was thought to be taking place.
In Saudi Arabia, the East-West oil pipeline reportedly resumed operations at less than 40% capacity, 11 days after being shut down after damage from Iran-linked attacks. The Saudi government would later say it had actually reopened five or six days earlier.
September 23, 2026
Houthi forces entered a valley south of Taiz through which the last remaining PLC-controlled Taiz-Aden highway ran, but sources agreed that they withdrew after several hours of fighting.
September 24, 2026
Suriyak reported that the Taiz-Lahij provincial border had stabilized, though back-and-forth fighting continued, with the Houthis capturing another mountaintop in the mountains of southern Taiz province, while the PLC recaptured two mountains and some hills in the same area and to the south on the Lahij provincial border. One of the mountains recaptured by the PLC was said to be of particular strategic importance, since it overlooked a large surrounding area.
September 27, 2026
Another Saudi-operated Vestel Karayel drone was said to have been shot down by Houthi forces in Hajjah province of northwestern Yemen.
September 28, 2026
The World Health Organization reported that as of September 26, 838 people had been killed and 3,643 injured in Yemen since August 6.
September 29, 2026
The ACLED conflict database recorded a local report that an Iranian military base was under construction on the more northerly of the Hanish Islands in the Red Sea, being built by Iran’s IRGC force in alliance with the Houthis.
September 29-30, 2026
Suriyak said the Houthis recaptured the strategic mountain they had lost in southern Taiz province five days earlier, and that the next day they seized a key high point in the other contested area to the south, straddling the Taiz-Lahij provincial border. The fighting involved clashes between the Giants Brigades and Houthi forces in what was described as “the Kahbub front”, while Homeland Shield forces were reportedly involved in the fighting deeper in the mountains.
Following this conflict? Check for updates to our map by viewing all Yemen reports on PolGeoNow.
Graphic of Yemeni flag is in the public domain (source). Full reference for ACLED database referenced in January 6-10, 2026 timeline entry: Raleigh, Clionadh, Andrew Linke, Håvard Hegre and Joakim Karlsen. (2010). “Introducing ACLED - Armed Conflict Location and Event Data.” Journal of Peace Research 47(5) 651-660. https://www.acleddata.com/