crs_reports: R48942

Congressional Research Service reports with summaries, authors, and topic classifications.

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R48942 Yemen: In Brief 2026-05-12T04:00:00Z 2026-05-14T15:22:56Z Active Reports Christopher M. Blanchard Middle East & North Africa, Yemen Yemen has been politically, economically, and militarily divided for more than a decade; its slow-burning internal conflicts are at risk of reigniting amid multisided confrontations between regional and global actors. Yemen descended into conflict in 2014 prompting years of foreign military interventions, regional security disruptions, and lingering confrontations that have posed national security challenges for the United States and its partners. As of 2026, the Iran-backed Ansar Allah movement (aka the Houthis, a U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization) and its aligned de facto government control the national capital, Sana’a, and much of western Yemen, home to most of Yemen’s population. A Saudi Arabia-based, internationally recognized government (IRG) nominally administers non-Houthi held areas at the direction of a Presidential Leadership Council (PLC), whose members represent anti-Houthi forces with distinct agendas. Until January 2026, the PLC included leaders of the Southern Transitional Council (STC), an independence-seeking coalition of southern Yemeni forces backed by the United Arab Emirates. That month, Saudi military strikes halted an STC campaign to assert security control across the south, leading to the expulsion of STC figures from the PLC and simmering IRG-STC tensions. With Saudi support, the IRG is seeking to unify Yemeni factions and consolidate command and control over forces in non-Houthi held areas. As of April 2026, the IRG’s reach remains limited, local authorities and armed groups remain influential, and STC supporters continue to call for self-determination. Saudi Arabia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Israel all act in Yemen in pursuit of what their governments perceive to be their national interests. As the leader of an anti-Houthi multilateral coalition and now chief sponsor of Yemen’s residual national government, Saudi Arabia has played a prominent if inconclusive role in Yemen’s politics and security. Differences between Saudi Arabia and the UAE within the Saudi led anti-Houthi coalition, including over UAE support to the STC, resulted in confrontation and Saudi military intervention in Yemen in late 2025, followed by the UAE’s exit from Yemen and increased Saudi engagement across non-Houthi held areas. Saudi-Houthi talks, brokered by the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Yemen, have continued in Amman, Jordan, but no new steps toward implementation of a UN-sponsored conflict resolution roadmap have been announced. From 2023 to 2025, the Houthis disrupted shipping in the Red Sea corridor by launching drone and missile attacks against commercial and naval vessels, along with hundreds of attacks on Israel. Since 2025, the Trump Administration has sought to manage Houthi disruptions through force, sanctions, and limited negotiation. From March to May 2025, the Administration launched Operation Rough Rider, a campaign of strikes on Houthi targets that degraded but did not eliminate the Houthis’ missile and drone capacities. A May 2025 U.S.-Houthi ceasefire ended Houthi attacks on U.S. vessels, but maritime transit had not returned to pre-crisis levels even before the U.S.-Israeli military operations against Iran began in February 2026. As of May 2026, the Houthis had conducted limited new attacks on Israel in the context of the 2026 U.S./Israel-Iran conflict but had not resumed strikes on vessels. Disruptions to transit in the Strait of Hormuz increased the importance of the Red Sea corridor for international energy markets. These conditions could make renewed Houthi attacks on targets in Gulf States and/or vessels near Yemen more consequential. As the Houthis weigh their possible leverage, they may consider Iran’s support capacity, likely U.S. and regional responses, and the risks of renewed conflict. https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/R/PDF/R48942/R48942.2.pdf https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/R/HTML/R48942.html

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