Yemen at risk of getting dragged back into war as Saudis and Houthis exchange airstrikes

CAIRO (AP) — A truce that ended nearly a decade of war in Yemen has mostly held since 2022. It is being severely tested four years later, as tensions tied to the war in Iran risk spilling over.

The civil war in Yemen that began in 2014 eventually pitted Iran-backed Houthi rebels against a Saudi-led coalition supporting the country’s government. While the Iran war that began on Feb. 28 reignited all sorts of regional rivalries, the peace between the Houthis and Saudis had mostly prevailed -- until Monday.

That’s when Houthis launched missiles and drones at Saudi Arabia’s Abha International Airport in response to airstrikes on Sanaa International Airport earlier in the day that they blamed on Saudi Arabia. No casualties were reported, but it was the most significant confrontation between these enemies in years, raising fears that they could be moving closer to another war.

Yemen, one of the world’s poorest countries, is still recovering from the civil war that plunged parts of the nation into famine.

Here’s a closer look at the renewed tensions:

Yemen’s civil war began in 2014 when the Houthis seized the capital, Sanaa, and much of northern Yemen and forced the government into exile.

A Saudi-led coalition intervened the following year to try to restore the government to power. The country is now divided between the Houthi-controlled north and a southern region mostly ruled by the internationally recognized government.

Tensions began to flare earlier this month when the Houthis accused Saudi Arabia of trying to prevent an Iranian plane from carrying a Houthi delegation to Tehran for the funeral of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

When the plane returned to Yemen on Monday, Saudi Arabia attacked the Sanaa airport to prevent it from landing, the Houthis said. The plane was diverted and landed safely at another airport.

Saudi Arabian officials did not respond to a request for comment about the airstrikes in Yemen.

Rashad al-Alimi, who leads Yemen’s internationally recognized government, said it had rejected a request from Iran to return the Houthi delegation. He accused the rebel group of receiving the Iranian flight “outside the legal and sovereign frameworks governing civil aviation.”

On Tuesday, Houthi military spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree said the Houthis are prepared to confront any violation of Yemen's airspace; he said on Telegram that the group downed a Saudi reconnaissance aircraft at dawn in Al Bayda province in central Yemen.

Ahmed Nagi, a senior Yemen analyst at the International Crisis Group, said Monday’s exchange of fire was about more than a single Iranian flight.

Saudi Arabia and Yemen’s internationally recognized government viewed the flight as an attempt to weaken their control over Yemen's airspace.

The Saudi-led coalition imposed an air and sea blockade on Yemen in 2015 to put pressure on the Houthis. By allowing a direct international flight to land without the approval of the Saudi-led coalition, the Houthis were seeking to establish a new reality in which they could independently make decisions over Yemen’s airspace and end what they view as a blockade of the international airport.

“The Houthis were testing a new red line. If they succeeded, they could become more emboldened, raise their demands, and seek to cross additional red lines,” Nagi said.

Farea al-Muslimi, a research fellow at the Chatham House think tank in London, said Saudi Arabia has so far shown restraint in the broader U.S.-Israeli war against Iran. But it is far less likely to stay on the sidelines when it perceives its influence in Yemen, which borders Saudi Arabia to the south, to be under threat.

It is too early to say whether Monday’s confrontation will lead to further escalation or was just an isolated incident.

But Abdel-Bari Taher, a political analyst in Yemen, said the country’s fragile security and economic landscape provides fertile ground for renewed conflict and regional power competition.

“The region now is in a state of an all-out confrontation," he said. "Yemen provides a conflict-prone environment because it’s divided with militias fighting each other and lacks full control over its maritime and airspace.”

Yemen also risks getting dragged into the broader conflict.

The Iran-backed Houthis have carried out numerous missile attacks against Israel throughout the war — and the rebel group has a history of attacking ships in the Red Sea, disrupting international trade.

Taher said Iran might try to use its Houthi allies as a way to gain negotiating leverage against the U.S. An interim ceasefire is on life support as the U.S. and Iran fight for control over the Strait of Hormuz, and the risks are rising of a return to all-out war.

FILE - Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree speaks at a rally against the U.S. and Israel in Sanaa, Yemen, April 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Osamah Abdulrahman, File)

Houthi supporters shout slogans as they demonstrate against airstrikes on Sanaa International Airport in Sanaa, Yemen, Monday, July 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Osamah Abdulrahman)

This image taken from video broadcast by Al-Masirah TV, a Houthi-controlled news channel, shows an explosion at the Sanaa International Airport compound during what the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen said were several Saudi airstrikes in Sanaa, Yemen, Monday, July 13, 2026. (Al-Masirah TV via AP)

Houthi supporters walk in front of posters of some top Iranian scientists who have been killed in Israeli strikes, in Sanaa, Yemen, Monday, July 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Osamah Abdulrahman)

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian forces launched one of their biggest drone attacks on Russia since Moscow’s invasion over four years ago, firing almost 800 drones only two days after a similar salvo, officials said Tuesday.

Meanwhile, a Russian missile strike on a village in northeastern Ukraine’s Kharkiv region killed at least 10 people and wounded 17 others as the barrage demolished homes, officials said.

The countries are locked in an escalating duel of long-range aerial strikes. Fighting on the roughly 1,250-kilometer (780-mile) front line in eastern and southern Ukraine is restricted by large numbers of drones and ground robots threatening troop movements, and neither side is making significant battlefield progress, analysts say.

In the past year, Ukraine has devised and deployed domestically produced long-range drones for strikes deep inside Russia. Its drone technology has impressed governments and defense manufacturers around the world.

Officials in Kyiv aim to make the Russian public feel the war’s consequences and pressure Russian President Vladimir Putin into negotiating a peace settlement. Putin has so far shown no sign he intends to stop the invasion.

“Putin continues to drag out the war instead of accepting Ukraine’s realistic ceasefire proposals and ending the bloodshed,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said in a post on X.

Russian air defenses overnight intercepted 791 Ukrainian drones over a number of regions, as well as annexed Crimea and the Black and the Azov seas, the Defense Ministry in Moscow said, in what was the second-largest drone attack since January 2025, according to an Associated Press tally.

More than 600 Ukrainian drones flew toward the Moscow region, where 180 were shot down, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said without elaborating.

Officials reported no deaths or major damage. Ukraine has increasingly launched swarms of hundreds of drones to try to overwhelm Russian air defenses.

In the region that surrounds the capital, three people were wounded, Gov. Andrei Vorobyov said.

Three people were also wounded in the adjacent Ryazan region where three private houses were damaged, Gov. Pavel Malkov said.

The overnight attack started a fire at a warehouse of Wildberries, Russia’s biggest online retailer, in an industrial zone. Ukraine has repeatedly targeted the company, which it says helps supply the Russian military, an allegation Moscow denies.

Wildberries said its facility sustained “insignificant damage.”

Coverage of the attack in state and Kremlin-backed Russian media was mostly muted, as is often the case. Russia’s main TV channels — state-run Russia 1 and Channel One — did not mention the attack at all in their morning news bulletins.

But Russian state news agency RIA Novosti featured it among the main news on its website’s homepage, describing it as “one of the most large-scale attacks on Moscow since the beginning of the summer.”

State newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta on its website prominently featured a roundup of what Moscow regional Gov. Andrei Vorobyov reported about the attack, describing it as “massive” in the headline. Pro-Kremlin tabloid MK featured a news brief about it on its home page.

A Russian missile strike on the village of Pechenihy in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region killed 10 civilians, according to preliminary information, said Oleh Syniehubov, head of the Kharkiv regional military administration.

Another 17 people were wounded, he said. Zelenskyy called it “a brutal attack” that damaged 10 homes, a cafe, a post office, a store and at least seven vehicles, according to Syniehubov.

“We will definitely respond to this Russian strike,” Zelenskyy said on social media.

Also, three people were killed and three others were wounded over the past day in Russian attacks on Ukraine’s Sumy region, Ukraine’s National Police said.

British Prime Minister Andy Burnham, who took office last month, said the U.K. will continue to stand by Ukraine after Russia said that Kyiv’s reported use of British drones for attacks on Russian soil would bring unidentified consequences.

“We are providing support so that Ukraine can defend itself, and that’s been the British position all the way through this conflict by previous prime ministers," Burnham said. “It remains the case with me.”

British newspaper The Sunday Times reported that two U.K. companies made drones used by Ukraine to hit Russia.

Following the report, the Russian Embassy in the U.K. said in a statement that “London’s actions will inevitably carry consequences.”

Hatton reported from Lisbon, Portugal. Brian Melley in London contributed.

Follow the AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

A street cleaner observes a daily nationwide minute of silence in memory of soldiers killed in the war with Russia, in Kyiv, Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

EDS NOTE: GRAPHIC CONTENT - In this photo, provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, rescuers carry a body that they removed from under the rubble of a private house following a Russian air attack in Pechenihy, Kharkiv region, Ukraine, Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2026. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)

A street cleaner observes a daily nationwide minute of silence in memory of soldiers killed in the war with Russia, in Kyiv, Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

In this photo, provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, fire is seen on the site of a Russian air attack in Pechenihy, Kharkiv region, Ukraine, Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2026. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)

In this photo, provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, rescuers carry a body that they removed from under the rubble of a private house following a Russian air attack in Pechenihy, Kharkiv region, Ukraine, Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2026. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)

In this photo provided by Moscow Region Governor Andrei Vorobyov's official telegram channel, flame and smoke rise from a construction site after a Ukrainian drone attack in an undisclosed area in the Moscow region, Russia, Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2026. (Moscow Region Governor Andrei Vorobyov's office via AP)

In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, fire is seen on the site of a Russian air attack in Pechenihy, Kharkiv region, Ukraine, Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2026. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)