Houthis Push for Yemen Highlands as Trump Halts Airstrikes

Houthi fighters are pressing to capture strategic highland positions in Yemen in an effort to sever the Red Sea coast from territory still held by Saudi-backed government forces, according to Yemeni military sources.

The advance follows a report that President Donald Trump halted planned US airstrikes on the group at the last moment, even as personnel were loading bombs onto aircraft. The report could not be independently verified, and the US military's Central Command did not respond to a request for comment.

The Houthis, who have held Yemen's capital since 2014, swept through the Red Sea coast this month, routing forces loyal to the internationally recognised government based in the south. Saudi Arabia has carried out hundreds of strikes on Houthi positions in the highlands in recent days, but air power has done little to halt the advance as government forces have collapsed.

Five Yemeni military sources said the Houthis are now targeting the Kahboub Mountains, a strategic range spanning Taiz and Lahij provinces that separates the Red Sea coast from the government-held south. Fighting has concentrated on the outskirts of the remote Al-Wazi'iyah district in Taiz and around Ras al-Ara on the Indian Ocean coast, between the mouth of the Red Sea captured last week and the government's base in Aden.

Securing the heights would protect the rear of Houthi forces around the Bab al-Mandab Strait and allow them to open new fronts, the sources said, shielding exposed positions taken near Dhubab on the Red Sea and on Perim Island.

The Houthis said they fired on Riyadh over the weekend, the first apparent strikes on the Saudi capital since the escalation began. Loud booms were followed by columns of smoke near the airport. Saudi Arabia has not commented.

The fighting has created a dilemma for Trump, who faces pressure to defend a close ally but is wary of widening a war he launched against Iran in February. The United States bombed the Houthis for two months in early 2025 before Trump halted the strikes under a ceasefire and has stayed out since. Washington has so far rebuffed repeated appeals from Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to join the fight.

Houthi control of Bab al-Mandab threatens the main alternative route Saudi Arabia uses for oil exports that bypass disruption in the Strait of Hormuz. Riyadh has responded by increasing shipments through Hormuz, with a small number of tankers sailing with transponders off and charging record fees of as much as a quarter of cargo value, before transferring oil to other ships in the Indian Ocean. Satellite data shows Saudi exports through Hormuz reaching 2.9 million barrels per day in recent days, up from 700,000 in August, partly offsetting a halt to loadings at the Red Sea port of Yanbu.

The shift has helped cap global crude prices, which have retreated towards $100 a barrel after nearing $110 last week, though consumers still face record costs for refined fuels. The US retail price of diesel hit another all-time high on Monday above $6.51 a gallon, up from around $3.75 before the war began.

In the latest reported attack in Hormuz, a British maritime security agency said a ship entering the strait was hit by a projectile, causing minor injuries to crew.

Diplomacy has largely stalled since a June interim agreement between the United States and Iran collapsed within weeks. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian is due to fly to New York on Tuesday for the UN General Assembly, his first such visit since Trump launched "Operation Epic Fury" against his country alongside Israel in February.

According to the United Nations, nearly 700 people have been killed and thousands injured in the flare-up, with more than 120,000 Yemenis displaced inside the country and thousands more fleeing by boat across the Red Sea to Africa.