•By Moji Danisa
The Houthis may not possess the military strength of Saudi Arabia, Israel, Iran or the United States, but their growing ability to disrupt the region has made them a force that cannot be ignored.
The Yemen-based movement has repeatedly demonstrated that relatively inexpensive drones and missiles can threaten some of the world’s most important energy infrastructure and shipping routes. Its latest attacks on Saudi Arabia have therefore raised concerns that the conflict could spread into yet another dangerous front across the Middle East.
Saudi Arabia sits at the centre of the global energy system. Any sustained attack on its oil facilities could affect production, exports and international oil prices, with consequences far beyond the kingdom. The memory of the 2019 attacks on Saudi oil installations remains particularly significant: millions of barrels of daily production were temporarily knocked offline, demonstrating the vulnerability of even heavily protected energy infrastructure.
The strategic importance of the Houthis is not limited to Saudi oil. Yemen lies beside the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a crucial maritime passage connecting the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden and providing access towards the Suez Canal. Any prolonged threat to shipping through the area can force vessels to take longer and more expensive routes around Africa, adding pressure to already fragile global supply chains.
The situation becomes even more complicated because the Houthis have deliberately connected their military campaign to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Since the Gaza war began, they have presented attacks against Israel and Israeli-linked interests as part of their campaign in support of the Palestinians.
This has effectively given the Gaza conflict another geographical dimension. What began as a war between Israel and Hamas has increasingly drawn in armed groups and states across the region, creating multiple points at which a local confrontation can become a wider conflict.
For Israel, the Houthi threat presents a difficult calculation. Responding forcefully could deter further attacks, but it could also widen the geographical scope of the conflict. For Saudi Arabia, the danger is equally serious – it must protect its territory and energy infrastructure while avoiding being drawn into another prolonged regional confrontation.
Then there is Iran.
The Houthis are closely aligned with Tehran and have received Iranian support, although they have their own political and military interests and should not simply be regarded as Iranian puppets. Nevertheless, their activities provide Iran with another source of regional leverage.
Iran’s strategic position around the Strait of Hormuz is already enormously important to global energy markets. The Houthis’ position near Bab el-Mandeb gives the broader Iran-aligned network influence around another critical maritime gateway.
That is what makes the current situation particularly worrying.
The Houthis do not need to defeat the United States, Israel or Saudi Arabia in a conventional war. Their strength lies in their ability to impose costs on much stronger adversaries. A relatively small number of missiles or drones can force expensive defensive operations, threaten oil installations, disrupt commercial shipping and create uncertainty in international markets.
The danger, therefore, is not that the Houthis will suddenly become a conventional military superpower. It is that they can become a persistent source of instability that powerful countries struggle to eliminate.
If attacks on Saudi energy facilities become sustained, while Houthi operations against shipping continue and the confrontation between Iran, Israel and the United States remains unresolved, the Middle East could find itself facing a dangerous chain reaction.
A conflict that began in Gaza could increasingly affect Yemen, Saudi Arabia, the Red Sea, the Gulf and global energy markets.
That is why the Houthis deserve serious attention. They may be a relatively small force, but geography, technology and regional alliances have given them something far more valuable than military size – the ability to make the consequences of Middle Eastern conflict felt far beyond the battlefield.
