Ansar-Allah rout Saudi mercenaries in Yemen

Developing Just Leadership

Ayman Ahmed

Rabi' al-Thani 19, 1448 2026-10-01

Main Stories

by Ayman Ahmed (Main Stories, Crescent International Vol. 56, No. 8, Rabi' al-Thani, 1448)

Over three days last month (September 10–12), the Ansar-Allah inflicted a crushing defeat on Saudi mercenaries, driving them out of the entire western coast of Yemen. They liberated 5400 sq km of territory along the Red Sea coast from Saudi-backed mercenaries’ clutches. The Ansar-Allah now fully control the vital Bab al Mandab strait through which some 11 percent of the world’s oil flows.

Thousands of mercenaries were killed, wounded or captured together with massive quantities of military hardware and surveillance equipment.

Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Muhammad bin Salman (MbS) begged Donald Trump twice on September 10 for help in halting Ansar-Allah advances. The US president refused, telling him to seek help from fellow Arabian countries. Following Ansar-Allah’s retaliatory strikes on US aircraft carriers in the Mediterranean in 2025, Trump had begged for a ceasefire and withdrew his armada far from Ansar-Allah’s missile range.

Rebuffed by Trump, MbS then turned to Pakistan and Turkiye, who are part of the Makkah pact. He rceived rhetorical support but no practical help. It was the same story with Britain as well as Egypt. He did not get more than polite hearing. The Egyptian dictator Abdel Fattah el-Sisi agreed that the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab should be open for international shipping but offered no practical help.

On September 15, MbS met CENTCOM commander Admiral Brad Cooper in Jeddah to again press for US help. Cooper put him in touch with the Israelis. They will provide intelligence on Ansar-Allah’s positions for the Saudis to attack. This is what the Bani Saud have been doing, with little success.

The Bani Saud then turned to an old trick accusing the Ansar-Allah of launching attacks on Makkah and al-Madinah. This was followed by Saudi agents amplifying in unison this nonsensical propaganda in the media.

The President of Yemen’s Supreme Political Council, Mahdi al-Mashat, dismissed the Saudi claims. He said “the one who gifted the Kiswah of the Holy Ka‘aba to the criminal Epstein is the one targeting Makkah and the Islamic sanctities.”

The Bani Saud have been holding vulgar concerts within earshot of the Ka‘aba as well as maintain close ties with the mushriks and zionists yet they have the gall to accuse the Ansar-Allah of targeting Makkah.

We will consider the Saudi mercenaries’ worst defeat since the Bani Saud launched their illegal war on Yemen in March 2015 shortly. But first, let us reflect on the implications of the Saudi defeat at the hands of Ansar-Allah.

The Ansar-Allah’s military operation is codenamed “God Is Strongest in Might and Severe in Punishment.” They now fully control shipping traffic through the Bab al-Mandab Strait. It is the second chokepoint that the Axis of Resistance now controls, the other being the Strait of Hormuz.

The Yemeni Armed Forces (YAF), as they refer to themselves, control such vital sea ports as Hodeidah, Al-Mokha, Al-Khokha and Dhubab alond the Red Sea coast. They also control Mayyun Island (aka Perrim) located right in Bab al-Mandab. This gives the Yemeni Armed Forces total control over shipping traffic through the strait which is only 11 miles wide at this point.

On the western shore is Djibouti, infested with foreign military bases of the US, France, China, Japan and Italy. None of these countries is close to the region yet they maintain military (and naval) bases in a show of force.

Even Japan that presents itself as a peaceful country, has a military base in Djibouti, as does China. It is the only base China maintains outside its territory anywhere in the world.

The western coast of Yemen was seized and held by Saudi mercenary forces in 2017 and 2018. As a result, a siege was imposed on the Yemeni people led by Ansar-Allah who had taken control of Sana‘a, the capital city, in 2014.

It has led to the starvation of millions of people. Hundreds of thousands of Yemeni civilians have died. More than a million children were afflicted by cholera resulting in nearly 100,000 deaths because of the Saudi blockade of medicine. Like the zionist war criminals in Gaza, the Bani Saud-imposed siege caused massive suffering among Yemen’s civilian population, especially children.

How did the heavily-armed Saudi mercenary forces suffer such a humiliating defeat at the hands of lightly-armed Ansar-Allah fighters in such a short period of time?

The mercenaries are badly divided. They have no unified command structure. Besides, they lack the motivation to fight. Ansar-Allah, on the other hand, are fighting to liberate their land from foreign occupation. The mercenaries are there for money.

People fighting to liberate their land and maintain their dignity and independence are always more motivated than those fighting to subjugate them.

The latest round of fighting can be traced to the Saudi bombing of Sana‘a airport in mid-July. A Mahan Air flight bringing the Ansar-Allah delegation back from Tehran was prevented from landing at Sana‘a. The Saudis bombed the airport. Demonstrating immense courage, the Mahan Air pilots landed the plane at Hodeidah.

The Ansar-Allah delegation had gone to Tehran to attend the funeral ceremonies held for Iran’s martyred leader, Imam Seyyed Ali Khamenei. The Mahan Air flight from Sana‘a had taken the Yemeni delegation and wounded Yemenis for treatment. Saudi bombing of the airport was a criminal act and it breached the ceasefire brokered by the UN in April 2022.

The Ansar-Allah decided to retaliate. Their intelligence chief, Abu Ali al-Hakim learned of the Saudi plot to launch an attack by joining forces with the Americans under the pretext of opening the Bab al Mandab to “international shipping”. The plan further envisioned drawing the Ansar-Allah internally through their mercenaries to enable the Americans to occupy the Bab al-Mandab.

Before the US-Saudi plot could be operationalized, the Ansar-Allah struck. The Saudi-backed mercenaries’ positions were obliterated. Some of them were killed, others fled. This paved the way for the rapid advances the Ansar-Allah made along the Red Sea coast.

Despite massive Saudi bombing attacks, the Ansar-Allah have held their ground. On September 16, they shot down a Saudi F-15 fighter plane in Taiz. A number of US-supplied Saudi drones have also been shot down.

The Ansar-Allah have now dug trenches in the mountains overlooking the Bab al-Mandab, making any counter-offensive extremely difficult.

The Saudi attempt to bring in their mercenary forces from the south also failed. Those groups are only interested in securing their turf against rival groups in the south. They neither have the desire, nor the vision to think of Yemen’s larger situation. That is what mercenaries always do.

The Ansar-Allah have issued their demands to the Saudis. Lift the blockade of Yemen or the siege of Saudi oil flow will continue. If the Bani Saud bomb Yemen, the Ansar-Allah will hit their infrastructure, especially their oil facilities in Jizan and Yanbu. The Ansar-Allah have successfully struck both.

Similarly, the much-touted Saudi East-West oil pipeline was blown up by Iraq’s Hashd al-Shabi forces, another part of the Axis of Resistance. Recent reports say that it has been repaired but the amount of oil flowing through it is limited.

The Axis of Resistance now controls two vital chokepoints. It has Trump by the throat. Saudi oil exports have come to a halt. Gas prices in the US have skyrocketed and diesel has disappeared from gas stations in some states.