I’m going to do a fast and soiled replace on the most recent information, most of which comes from the Yemen-Saudi entrance, after which will observe with quotes from some longer evaluation items.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi calls an emergency session of the Egyptian parliament to contemplate defending Muhammad bin Salman’s Saudi regime whereas the UAE agrees to renew funding its mercenaries in Yemen. Ansar Allah claims to have downed a Saudi Apache helicopter off Najran and a reconnaissance drone over Hajjah.
Riyadh’s alarms have been triggered, and explosions have been heard within the Saudi capital. US embassy confirmed the arrest of US residents for violating Saudi rules in opposition to photographing broken websites. The Saudis additionally claimed to have intercepted an Ansar Allah missile geared toward Yanbu.
The NYT reviews on the flagship occasions, together with the City Biking World Championships, the Misk Basis international discussion board (cancelled), the Saudi Worldwide golf match, the Six Kings Slam tennis exhibition, and the EU-GCC summit (postponed), the WPC Vitality Congress, and the Future Funding Initiative (disrupted).
The Grey Woman is simply too hifalutin’ to say the high-dollar fight sports activities occasions which can be in danger, together with a boxing match that includes Mexican star Canelo Alvarez on Halloween and a WWE pro-wrestling occasion and Final Combating Championship card in November.
In the meantime, Saudi airstrikes proceed to blast Yemen, killing extra girls and kids as Ansar Allah forces push into western Taiz and blast Saudi-aligned forces in Badr, close to Aden.
NEW: Ansarallah pushes into western Taiz metropolis on a number of fronts and consolidates management over Jabal Han.
Ansar forces have superior into a number of neighborhoods in western Taiz cit, southwestern Yemen, whereas clashing with the thirty fifth Armored Brigade of the Taiz Navy Axis. They’re at the moment urgent down each fundamental roads in direction of the junction within the strategic transportation hub of Bir Basha. With the present territorial beneficial properties, Ansarallah has additionally established efficient management over all of Jabal Han, which overlooks town from the west.
By contributor @bonzerbarry
— Drop Website (@DropSiteNews) October 17, 2026
Iran introduced assist for a “political course of” to resolve the Saudi-Ansar Allah battle on the 52nd Organisation of Islamic Cooperation Council of Overseas Ministers in Baghdad. In the identical speech, Araghchi stated Iran has conveyed “a concrete seven-day plan” via Qatar underneath which “the Strait could be reopened and regular maritime passage restored inside seven days. The selection now rests with the USA.”
On Thursday, Trump advised Newsmax, “Now, we’re taking a look at Pickaxe Mountain. We might must go there. We’ll take a shot at that one. We’ll knock it out quick.” On Friday evening, IRIB correspondent Morteza Ghoroghi reported that the US had requested Iran for permission to strike the Pickaxe Mountain nuclear website with out retaliation and that Iran refused, per The Hormuz Letter, which additionally quoted Ghoroghi saying “Trump’s statements immediately level to battle throughout the subsequent 24 hours.” No US or Iranian official assertion on the report has surfaced, and the 24 hours have handed with out strikes.
The IRGC Navy says two supertankers, every carrying over 2 million barrels of crude, hit mines within the Strait of Hormuz and declared, “The Strait of Hormuz is closed.” A CENTCOM spokesman advised Fox Information the strait “is open.”
One other tanker was hit off the Saudi coast by an “unknown projectile.”
Will Schyver provides some tactical evaluation:
Be aware that the Yemeni fighter in a go well with jacket assumes a well-conceived place, with most cowl, and fires a belt-fed machine gun into the fortification to suppress their hearth. Then it cuts to him firing the RPG overhead to manage the coup de grâce.
That is actual battle.
— Will Schryver (@imetatronink) October 17, 2026
مقاتل يمني يكسر كل قواعد التدريب العسكري وأعرافه بطريقة استخدامه لسلاح الـRPG! https://t.co/XZdLuaKjbd
— ابو يمن (@Dis545a) October 14, 2026
Dr. Shireen Al-Adeimi, a Yemeni-American scholar at Michigan State College is price listening to. Right here she is speaking to Ryan Grim of Drop Website and Dr. Annelle Sheline of the Quincy Institute.
Right here she is giving Aidan Simardone background on Ansar Allah:
Now let’s examine some extra mainstream evaluation. Right here’s how the Related Press describes the Yemeni rebels’ rising power:
At numerous instances during the last decade, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, the USA, Britain and Israel have carried out punishing air raids on the rebels — solely to see them develop even stronger.
The Saudis have struggled to counter the most recent assaults, even with far superior U.S.-supplied arms. A senior Saudi diplomat advised reporters this week that Iran was encouraging the escalation and that over the summer season the Houthis had spurned a suggestion to barter.
The Houthis function in a big and mountainous territory the place they’ll disperse fighters and navy infrastructure whereas threatening main oil amenities and key commerce routes.
…
The Houthis have already got a wide selection of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones — many resembling Iranian fashions — that may attain all of the Gulf states in addition to Israel. They’ve additionally used refined anti-ship missiles and naval drones to strike vessels within the Purple Sea, threatening a important commerce route.
…a report by U.N. consultants in 2024 documented in depth navy ties between the Houthis, Iran and its different allies.
That report estimated that the Houthis had recruited as much as 350,000 fighters by 2024, up from simply 30,000 in 2015, when Saudi Arabia intervened in Yemen’s civil battle in opposition to the Houthis and imposed a naval blockade.
Qatar’s Al Jazeera has its personal perspective, which hinges on the specious declare that “Yemen’s authorities” (ie the Saudi-aligned forces) are sustaining their “Daybreak of Yemen” offensive in opposition to Ansar Allah — though I ought to word they’re obeying Betteridge’s Regulation of Headlines — after they enquire, Can Yemen’s authorities forces maintain their offensive in opposition to the Houthis?
Frequent Houthi missile assaults – mixed with the Iranian-backed group’s territorial beneficial properties across the metropolis of Taiz in southwestern Yemen – have severed key provide routes and threatened different roads, ports, and airports that authorities forces depend on for provides.
The disruptions may undermine the federal government’s Daybreak of Yemen operation, which goals to recapture territory held by the Houthi group. This contains the capital, Sanaa, which the Houthis seized in the beginning of the battle in 2014.
Authorities officers, nonetheless, say provide points won’t halt the offensive, emphasising that their forces can overcome logistical challenges.
“The Houthi group constantly makes an attempt to sever provide strains to authorities forces, however they’ve been unable to halt these provides. So, navy operations in opposition to the Houthis will proceed,” Colonel Wadah al-Dubaish, spokesperson for the government-aligned Joint Forces on Yemen’s West Coast, advised Al Jazeera.
However losses to the Houthis over the previous few months have been damaging to the federal government.
The New York Occasions’ abstract of why the battle began and re-started can be very attention-grabbing:
The battle between the Houthis and the Saudi-backed authorities forces started in 2014, when the militia seized Sanaa. A truce was reached in 2022 however got here underneath strain this summer season, when the Houthis accused Saudi Arabia of bombing the airport in Sanaa. The cease-fire collapsed totally final month, when Houthi fighters took management of Yemen’s Purple Sea shoreline and declared a blockade on Saudi delivery.
“When the Houthis accused Saudi Arabia”…classic narrative management proper there and that type of factor results in the next, which jogs my memory to the UN condemnation of Iran for responding to being attacked by Israel and the U.S. earlier this yr:
The United Nations Safety Council on Friday condemned the Houthi assaults on Saudi Arabia, and known as for full enforcement of a 2015 decision demanding that the group relinquish captured territory and weapons. Saudi officers welcomed the Council’s assertion and reaffirmed what they known as the dominion’s proper to defend itself underneath worldwide regulation.
Larry Johnson has a bit extra perception, after explaining that circa 2017 Ansar Allah missiles have been infamous for hardly ever hitting what they geared toward, and detailing how they’ve develop into lethal correct within the present spherical of combating, he speculates on the potential sources for that enchancment which has them scoring “hits on particular amenities at ranges of 1,000 kilometers or extra, in opposition to one of many densest air-defense networks within the area”:
I spent a profession round focusing on and navy planning, and I do know what that sample means. Accuracy at lengthy vary doesn’t come from a greater rocket motor. A Scud-derived missile flying on inertial steering alone accumulates error all through its flight, and its reentry automobile provides extra. Getting from a miss of a number of hundred meters to tens of meters requires correcting the trajectory late in flight, via satellite-navigation updates, a maneuvering reentry automobile, or a terminal seeker. Regardless of the {hardware}, it additionally requires exact goal coordinates. Neither of these is one thing Ansar Allah can manufacture within the mountains of Saada.
The missile our bodies are Iranian lineage. That’s not critically disputed. However Iran’s personal precision beneficial properties level to their supply, and right here there are two candidates, not one.
The primary is Russia. Since Iran’s 2020 strike on Ain al-Asad, there have been persistent reviews that Fateh-family missiles use GLONASS, Russia’s satellite tv for pc navigation system. For Iran to make use of the encrypted, jam-resistant navy GLONASS sign, Russia must hand over the cryptographic keys.
The second is China, and I’d not low cost it. China’s BeiDou constellation is bigger than GPS, and its restricted, authorized-user service is constructed to withstand jamming and spoofing. Researchers who observe the China-Iran relationship level to a reported 2015 settlement to combine BeiDou into Iran’s navy infrastructure, and to reviews that Beijing opened its encrypted navy sign to Tehran after the 2021 strategic partnership. By some accounts Iran accomplished its transfer off American GPS and onto BeiDou in June 2025, proper after the 12-day battle. Former French intelligence chief Alain Juillet has argued that the advance in Iranian missile accuracy since then is greatest defined by BeiDou entry. Tehran has by no means confirmed any of this. It says solely that it makes use of each out there supply and relies on none.
Scott Horton and Darryl Cooper are anti-war Libertarians and Cooper is a veteran and navy historian whose politics are (rightfully) despised by many on the left however I discovered his evaluation on this occasion to be definitely worth the hear primarily as an perception into how the anti-war proper views the scenario:
I’ll shut with Trita Parsi who’s on the surface fringe of the MSM Overton Window:
Keep protected, y’all.
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