RismadarVoice Reporters, August 20, 2026
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps has warned that Saudi Arabia will be unable to contain Yemen’s Houthi rebels as attacks by the group against the kingdom intensify.
IRGC spokesman Hossein Mohebi said on Thursday that Saudi Arabia would not be able to prevent the Houthis, also known as Ansarullah, from carrying out further attacks.
He argued that Saudi Arabia’s military actions against the Houthis would continue to provoke retaliation.
The comments come amid renewed fighting in Yemen, which has emerged as another front in the wider Middle East conflict that began on February 28 with US and Israeli strikes against Iran.
The latest escalation has also disrupted a fragile truce that had helped reduce fighting in Yemen after more than a decade of war.
The Houthis have intensified attacks and threatened shipping routes in the Red Sea, while Saudi Arabia has faced retaliatory strikes following its military actions against the group.
A Yemeni government minister said this week that the Houthis were preparing to seize territory near the Bab al-Mandab Strait, a strategic waterway linking the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden.
Three Houthi military sources and a spokesman for Yemeni government forces also told AFP that the rebels were planning to move south from their current areas of control.
The reported plans have raised concerns over the security of the Bab al-Mandab Strait, one of the world’s major maritime trade routes.
Yemen has remained divided since the Houthis seized large parts of the country, including the capital, Sanaa, triggering a Saudi-led military intervention in support of the internationally recognised government.
