The Saudi-backed Yemeni forces battling the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels claim they have regained a large swath of territory in a new counteroffensive launched on Monday. This includes the recapture of the Red Sea port city of Mokha and other key positions near the highly-strategic Bab al-Mandeb Strait (BAM). As we reported last month, the Houthis had taken these areas during an offensive of their own.
“On Monday, the Nation Shield Forces, the Giants Brigades, and the Tihama Resistance—supported by the Popular Resistance—seized control of the city of Al-Mokha in western Taiz Governorate following fierce battles against the terrorist Houthi militias backed by the Iranian regime,” the official Yemeni Saba news outlet reported. “The forces, aided by air support, succeeded in capturing Al-Mokha after clashes with the terrorist Houthi militias, which had controlled the city since early last September. The battles, which took place at various locations surrounding Al-Mokha, involved the use of diverse weaponry and resulted in casualties among the terrorist Houthi militias, the capture of several of their members, and the flight of others.”
Dubbed Operation Yemen Dawn, the counteroffensive aims to “restore state institutions, liberate the capital Sana’a, and end the Houthi terrorist militia coup,” Rashad al-Alimi, president of the internationally recognized government of Yemen, stated Monday on X.
“With God’s aid, the will of our people, the valor of our armed forces and all military formations, and the support of our brothers and friends, Yemen will march toward a new dawn of freedom, peace, and stability,” al-Alimi added.
على بركة الله، انطلقت عملية "فجر اليمن" لاستعادة مؤسسات الدولة، وتحرير العاصمة صنعاء، وإنهاء انقلاب الميليشيات الحوثية الإرهابية.
— د/ رشاد محمد العليمي (@PresidentRashad) October 5, 2026
بعون الله، وإرادة شعبنا وبسالة قواتنا المسلحة وكافة التشكيلات العسكرية، ودعم أشقائنا وأصدقائنا، سيمضي اليمن نحو فجر جديد من الحرية والسلام والاستقرار. pic.twitter.com/bP1h9EVdu2
The claims about the recapture of Mokha follow statements made earlier on Monday that the National Shield Forces and Giants Brigades, “liberated Dhubab [also spelled Dhobab] District and strategic positions around the Bab al-Mandab Strait in western Taiz Governorate on Monday following clashes with Iran-backed Houthi militias,” Saba claimed. “The clashes left a number of Houthi fighters dead or wounded, while others fled under pressure from the military operation. Several military vehicles and pieces of equipment were also destroyed or disabled. The forces are continuing clearance and security operations in the liberated areas and cutting Houthi supply routes.”
In addition, the Kingdom’s Maj. Gen. Turki al-Maliki, spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition, stated that “100 fighter jets were providing support to the forces of Yemen’s internationally recognized government fighting against the Houthis,” according to The Associated Press. “He said the coalition has secured ‘air protection’ of the strategic Bab el-Mandeb Strait and destroyed hundreds of Houthi targets as part of the ongoing campaign.”
After Yemeni officials announced the new counteroffensive on Sunday, al-Maliki vowed “full operational support” to the Yemeni government forces, until the Houthis are “eliminated,” the AP added.
On Monday, the Humanitarian Operations Coordination Center (HOCC), an organization closely aligned with the Houthis, confirmed increased Saudi airstrikes and threatened a response. HOCC warned “all airlines operating in Saudi airspace that it is unsafe, with the exception of the airspace over ‘Mecca and Medina,'” the official Houthi Telegram channel reported.
HOCC did not elaborate on that warning.
While TWZ cannot verify these claims, independent Yemen analyst Mohammed al-Basha said it appears that the anti-Houthi forces have gained ground on the Red Sea coast.
The founder of the widely quoted Basha Report stated on X that he had “high confidence” that Yemeni government forces recaptured Dhobab Airport, “cutting off the Houthi supply route between Mocha and Bab al-Mandab.” He added that “Southern Giants Forces are now heading towards the city of Dhobab, Al-Omari Camp, and Bab al-Mandab.”
بثقة عالية
— Basha باشا (@BashaReport) October 5, 2026
الساعة العاشرة صباح الاثنين ٥ أكتوبر
استعادة مطار ذوباب وقطع طريق إمداد الحوثي بين المخا وباب المندب
قوات العمالقة الجنوبية الان تتجه نحو مدينة ذوباب ومعسكر العمري وباب المندب https://t.co/6eHYJ3cnza
Videos have emerged showing what appears to be Saudi-backed forces running over Houthi fighters. The Houthis have called this a war crime.
Several videos emerging of Saudi-backed government forces driving over and shooting fleeing Houthi fighters caught off guard by their offensive in southwestern Yemen.
— Status-6 (@Archer83Able) October 5, 2026
Pretty mad. pic.twitter.com/HGo1kGboPW
Amid the spike in fighting, the State Department issued a new warning to Americans in Saudi Arabia.
“Due to the ongoing security situation in Saudi Arabia and the potential for aerial drone or missile attacks on Saudi Arabia, the U.S. Mission strongly encourages all U.S. citizens to remain vigilant and follow the guidance of national alerts released by Saudi Arabia’s Civil Defense,” the department stated on X.
Saudi Arabia: Due to the ongoing security situation in Saudi Arabia and the potential for aerial drone or missile attacks on Saudi Arabia, the U.S. Mission strongly encourages all U.S. citizens to remain vigilant and follow the guidance of national alerts released by Saudi… pic.twitter.com/QzVaER1WZ8
— TravelGov (@TravelGov) October 5, 2026
Yemen Dawn was launched in the wake of large-scale Houthi advances. As we noted earlier in this story, the rebel group captured the port of Mokha and two key islands in the Red Sea, increasing its control over the Bab al-Mandab Strait (BAM). That moved the front lines to the key city of Taiz, which sits astride a major roadway linking it to the port city of Aden. The Houthis recently captured strategic hilltops near Taiz, advancing on the last road between the city and Aden, which serves as the interim capital of the Yemeni government.
The conflict between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis grew out of a civil war in Yemen that erupted in 2014. It expanded a year later when a Saudi-led coalition joined forces with the government ousted by the Houthis and raged on until the parties reached a tenuous ceasefire in 2022. The Saudis held off on getting involved in the recent Red Sea conflict which saw the U.S. and coalition warships duking it out with the Houthis, and eventually led to a U.S.-led air campaign over Yemen. Tensions, however, reignited after that conflict ended when the Houthis joined the U.S.-Iran conflict on the side of their major supporter.
Earlier this year, the Houthis imposed a blockade on the BAM and began striking Saudi ships in the southern part of the Red Sea as well as targeting critical energy terminals on that body of water and Saudi refineries. Iranian proxies have also struck the vital East-West pipeline that carries oil to the Red Sea to bypass the Strait of Hormuz, where Iran has vastly curtailed shipping after the launch of Operation Epic Fury. That line has reportedly since reopened after being shut down following a long-range drone attack.
On Monday, Turkey and Pakistan said they will undertake a “rapid deployment” of troops to Saudi Arabia under the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement, a pact designed to assist the Kingdom’s fight against the Houthis, the Middle East Eye reported.
“The announcement on Monday came after representatives of the three countries held an emergency meeting in Riyadh where they condemned recent attacks on Saudi Arabia, in particular those targeting the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, without mentioning the Houthis by name,” the publication added.
Concern about maintaining the flow of energy resources from the region has spurred France and the U.K. to send additional forces to help the Saudis.
As we reported two weeks ago, French President Emmanuel Macron said he was sending “soldiers, radar systems and defense systems, to protect” the Kingdom’s Yanbu oil facilities. Two days before Macron’s announcement, U.K.’s Royal Air Force (RAF) said it would deploy one of its Voyager aerial refueling jets to help Saudi Arabia defend against Houthi attacks. As with the French move, it is a response to concerns about the flow of oil.
You can see Macron’s announcement in the following video.
Nous agissons pour protéger nos compatriotes des conséquences de la crise au Moyen-Orient. Objectifs : sécuriser les approvisionnements et faire baisser les prix à la pompe. pic.twitter.com/kvrgHcV4E4
— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) September 24, 2026
The U.S. also appears to be increasing its assistance to Saudi Arabia. Though President Donald Trump turned down the Kingdom’s request to directly attack the Houthis, the U.S. is “providing aerial refueling for Saudi warplanes conducting defensive air patrols,” The New York Times reported on Sunday. That’s in addition to the previously known assistance to Riyadh provided by “more than 200 U.S. intelligence and military analysts working in Saudi command centers helping to analyze and select targets in support of its Yemeni allies,” the newspaper added.
The stark reality, especially facing European leaders like Macron, is that if Saudi oil infrastructure and transport nodes near the Red Sea are destroyed or the pipeline that feeds them is shut down for months, the last major oil lifeline from the region — and especially to Europe — will be closed off, sparking a deeper energy crisis.
Iran has already severely curtailed the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz since the U.S. and Israel attacked it on Feb. 28. The movement of oil has been further impeded by a U.S. blockade on Iranian ports. However, transits have been increasing as of late, thanks in large measure to U.S. military escorts that U.S. Central Command claims have allowed more than a billion barrels of crude to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.
Still, the price of Brent crude continues to hover over $100 per barrel due to a combination of factors that still make this a very dangerous region. This includes the ongoing threats from the Houthis in the BAM and the aforementioned spike in fighting between the Houthis and Saudi-backed forces. In addition, there are continuing Iranian attacks on shipping, including one today and three over the weekend, the skyrocketing cost of insuring vessels and the possibility Gulf countries may be paying Iran to allow their oil through. Such payments, essentially a toll, are “potentially handing Tehran a significant portion of the value of the cargo,” Al Jazeera noted.
Asked about the Saudi-backed counteroffensive, Trump said “It will all work out very well.”
Question: What's your view on the Saudi and Yemeni counter attack against the Houthis?
— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) October 5, 2026
TRUMP: It will all work out very well. It's gonna work out very well. pic.twitter.com/L1lCG3GqJV
Meanwhile, talks between the U.S. and Iran to end hostilities between the countries remain at an impasse, though the two sides have not directly attacked each other in weeks. The U.S. rejected Iran’s conditions for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, and Tehran says it is preparing a reply to the U.S. counterproposal, CBS News reported Monday morning.
For his part, Trump continues to waver, suggesting the U.S. could “leave tomorrow” or resume striking Iran.
Trump on his war in Iran:
— Headquarters (@HQNewsNow) October 3, 2026
We could leave tomorrow. I said 2 or 3 weeks, and the fake news kills me. pic.twitter.com/eEYaGbIgUv
It is far too early to tell whether the new Saudi-backed counteroffensive in Yemen will have any lasting effect on the battlefield. The coalition arrayed against the Houthis isn’t known to be highly robust and the quality of its forces have been in question. Still, it has been clear that the Saudis and their allies had to act strongly, and this would be exactly that.
Contact the author: howard@twz.com
The post Houthis Lose Ground Along Strategic Bab Al Mandeb Strait In Saudi-Backed Counteroffensive appeared first on TWZ.
30 de setembro – o prazo final para uma possível ação militar iraniana contra o bloqueio naval de Trump – chegou e passou. O Irã manteve sua posição – sem, na essência, disparar contra a Marinha dos EUA que impunha o “bloqueio” (tãooooo distante). Mas o espetáculo precisa continuar. Como plano B, tivemos um espetáculo no horário nobre – na verdade, uma dupla farsa: a versão remixada do 11 de setembro na FlyDubai.
Junte-se a nós no Telegram , X e VK.
Escreva para nós: info@strategic-culture.su
Essa manobra patética nunca foi um “ataque terrorista”; foi uma operação psicológica do Mossad mal elaborada, com muitos detalhes improváveis, incluindo um encanador que assumiu o controle do avião porque viu isso na TV.
Os manipuladores foram o culto da morte na Ásia Ocidental, os próprios Emirados Árabes Unidos e Washington. A narrativa oficial é para pessoas com QI abaixo de 50: um copiloto “jihadista” – convenientemente de Omã, pois a demonização exige isso – tenta fazer um avião cheio de sionistas se chocar contra o solo. Os proverbiais passageiros heroicos – incluindo o encanador – o dominam com as próprias mãos.
O culto da morte está fazendo de tudo para isentar os emiradenses de qualquer responsabilidade. O foco está no “terrorista” omanense.
Isso é o que se chama de tríade perfeita: os muçulmanos são e sempre serão terroristas; o culto da morte é sempre uma vítima; e a Arábia Saudita precisa entregar o “terrorista” ao culto da morte.
Fácil, então, para um copiloto contrabandear uma faca no aeroporto de Dubai, que é extremamente vigiado, a bordo de uma das rotas mais vigiadas do planeta. E quanto à Força Aérea do culto da morte, incapaz de impedir o pouso do avião em Tabuk?
Porque o plano sempre foi pousar em Tabuk. Essa é a maior base aérea saudita no noroeste e a mais próxima de Israel; o culto da morte vem tentando há anos obter acesso a ela. Agora eles podem acabar conseguindo o pacote completo: acesso ao espaço aéreo saudita; informações privilegiadas; e muito mais, cortesia da pressão conjunta de Abu Dhabi e Washington.
No Transition Protocol, constatamos que, quando o líder do culto da morte voou “secretamente” para Abu Dhabi para se encontrar com o chefe dos Emirados Árabes Unidos, MbZ, em uma reunião bilateral, ele também pode ter se encontrado com pessoas de vários países árabes, incluindo Catar, Omã, Líbia e Marrocos.
Os sauditas negaram veementemente que fizessem parte do pacote. O mesmo fez a Jordânia. Omã aparece apenas por meio de uma fonte israelense. Não há confirmação oficial por parte do Catar, Omã, Marrocos ou Líbia.
Teerã, de qualquer forma, reagiu com extrema irritação, alertando para “consequências muito perigosas”. A determinação iraniana é clara – não deixar que esses chihuahuas atrapalhem o processo fundamental de reduzir ao máximo a influência dos EUA e de Israel na Ásia Ocidental.
Islamabad, por sua vez, continua a perseguir a tarefa sisífica de avançar aos poucos em direção a um progresso mínimo, mediando tanto entre a Arábia Saudita e o Ansarallah quanto entre os EUA e o Irã.
O Catar entregou ao ministro das Relações Exteriores do Irã, Abbas Araghchi, a resposta dos EUA em Doha na última terça-feira. O desentendimento parece girar em torno da sequência dos passos, e não dos componentes. O texto, da forma como está, é uma espécie de versão aprimorada do notório Memorando de Entendimento “gato morto” – também conhecido como o quadro de Islamabad. Ninguém está apostando que a carroça morta ressuscitará – de novo.
Rússia, Irã, Iêmen: vamos dar uma surra nesses desgraçados sem piedade
Agora vamos ao que realmente importa: o Iêmen. E até que ponto os durões de Sana’a estão dispostos a infligir aniquilação a Riade. A destruição das instalações petrolíferas é fácil demais – é apenas o começo. O Iêmen está em fúria. E eles não vão parar por nada.
Já podemos ver uma confluência surpreendente entre a Casa de Saud, a Marinha dos EUA fora da Pérsia e a OTAN no país 404: todos estão sendo massacrados sem piedade. A Rússia e o Irã nem sequer começaram ainda. E falando do Iêmen.
Sergey Karaganov, no início desta semana, mais uma vez anunciou publicamente: a Stavka russa tomou finalmente a decisão fatídica de acabar com o sofrimento dos neonazistas de Kiev. E, em uma sessão extraoficial de duas horas no Valdai, nos arredores de Moscou, o Grande Mestre Sergey Lavrov, totalmente relaxado, reafirmou mais uma vez que a Rússia está pronta para a guerra na Europa. E sim, será rápida. Sem limites.
O Ansarallah e as Forças Armadas do Iêmen aguardam que três vetores se concretizem: uma inevitável “Hora Zero” soando por toda a Ásia Ocidental; o potente fervilhar e a ebulição de confrontos intra-reais e intertribais dentro da Arábia Saudita; e todas as peças do quebra-cabeça se encaixando para que a “Tempestade Iemenita” que se aproxima seja desencadeada sobre a Arábia Saudita.
Atualmente, Riade não reconhece nenhum ataque vindo do Iêmen, enquanto Sana’a anuncia todos os dias, com a precisão de um relógio, o número de ataques aéreos sauditas contra o Iêmen – visando mercados, fazendas, residências, pontes, instalações hídricas e redes de telecomunicações: o proverbial manual do Sindicato de Epstein.
O Irã, por sua vez, já aumentou a aposta, atacando Bu Hasa, da ADNOC, a sudoeste de Abu Dhabi: trata-se de um dos maiores campos terrestres de petróleo e gás dos Emirados Árabes Unidos, que abastece o estratégico oleoduto Habshan-Fujairah, a única rota de exportação dos Emirados que contorna o Estreito de Ormuz.
O próprio desvio da Arábia Saudita, o oleoduto Leste-Oeste, foi atingido há três semanas e bombardeado novamente pelo Iêmen no início desta semana, em Abqaiq.
Atacar a ADNOC e Abqaiq quase simultaneamente pode significar a retirada de até 13 milhões de barris de petróleo por dia do mercado. Nunca é demais lembrar a todos que o Irã e o Iêmen vêm como um pacote. É esse pacote que importa – e nenhum falso ataque de bandeira falsa, tipo um 11 de setembro em miniatura, vai mudar isso.
Tradução: Comunidad Saker Latinoamericana
Yemen is spiraling back toward full-scale war after its Saudi-backed government launched a major offensive on Sunday to retake territory captured by the Iran-backed group Ansar Allah, also known as the Houthis. President Rashad al-Alimi said the armed forces would seek to retake all Houthi-controlled territory, which is home to about 70% of Yemen’s population, […]
The post US backs major offensive as Yemen slides back toward all-out war appeared first on Asia Times.
By Kamran Yeganegi | The Cradle | October 3, 2026
Saudi oil tankers are loading again at Yanbu, less than three weeks after drone strikes shut down the East–West Pipeline that supplies the Red Sea port. On 24 September, crude was reported to be flowing west again, although no ship had yet loaded a cargo.
By 29 September, trade sources and shipping data showed that loadings had resumed. The interruption and recovery have offered a costly demonstration of what an oil route around the Strait of Hormuz can, and cannot, do.
Yanbu, Ceyhan and Baniyas sit at three very different points on that spectrum.
Yanbu has a 1,200-kilometer pipeline in operation and an established export terminal. Ceyhan is already loading Iraqi crude, though current Iraqi flows are measured in hundreds of thousands–not millions–of barrels a day. Baniyas could eventually give Iraq a major Mediterranean outlet, but for now it remains a project that depends on new infrastructure and financing, political agreements, and protection across two fragile states.
The comparison begins with the oil that reaches ships during a crisis. Pipeline capacity matters only as much as the pumps, terminals, and security along the route allow.
Yanbu’s exposed lifeline
Saudi Arabia’s 1,200-kilometer East–West Pipeline has a nominal capacity of 7 million barrels per day (bpd). Before the September strikes, reported flows through the system were already below that capacity. Three pumping stations were damaged, and the shutdown halted crude loadings at Yanbu. Riyadh blamed Iraqi resistance factions; the Islamic Resistance in Iraq denied responsibility for the strike. Baghdad condemned the strike and opened an investigation.
Restarting the line on 22 September did not immediately restore exports. Crude had to reach Yanbu and replenish stocks before tankers could load. Two vessels scheduled for 23 September left without cargo, according to shipping data cited by Reuters. Loadings resumed days later, after a strike on pumping stations hundreds of kilometers inland had kept the port idle.
Yanbu was moving between 2 million and 2.65 million bpd when tankers returned. Traders expected flows to rise to 3 million to 4 million bpd, but a return to the pre-attack level of roughly 5.5 million bpd could take another month.
The voyage has become more expensive, too. Quoted war-risk premiums for Saudi-linked tankers calling at Yanbu have risen to around 3 percent of vessel value, up from below 1 percent in early July. For a $100 million tanker carrying two million barrels, a 3 percent premium adds roughly $1.50 to the cost of each barrel, before fuel or freight. Yanbu may bypass Hormuz, but insurers are charging heavily for the detour.
Yanbu still leaves Asia-bound cargoes exposed to the southern Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab. Attacks and warnings by Yemen’s Ansarallah-aligned army have made passage through those waters more costly and uncertain. Heidmar Maritime Holdings chief executive Pankaj Khanna has highlighted another problem for shipowners: the Red Sea lacks the US naval protection sometimes available around Hormuz.
Saudi Arabia has escaped one strait only to send its oil toward another. Cargoes bound for Europe can head north through the Red Sea, but Asian customers require the southern passage. That split limits how freely Riyadh can reroute shipments when risks around Bab al-Mandab rise.
Ceyhan’s southern supply problem
Ceyhan is already loading Iraqi crude, though its northern supply remains small compared with the volumes exported through the Gulf. Flows stood at roughly 200,000 bpd in mid-September, down from about 250,000 bpd before the war. Baghdad’s challenge is getting oil from its vast southern fields into that northern export system.
Iraq has begun moving southern oil north by road. A September trial sent 209 tanker trucks carrying about 38,000 barrels to Kirkuk over two days. Basra Oil Company later said around 250,000 bpd was being transported north for onward export through Ceyhan.
Truck convoys are useful during a crisis, but they cannot replace a high-capacity pipeline. The first trial averaged about 182 barrels per truck. Moving 250,000 barrels at that rate would require roughly 1,370 loaded truck trips, with vehicles returning south for the next run. Road conditions and loading points impose additional constraints. Expanding Ceyhan therefore depends less on the Turkish terminal than on a reliable south-to-north connection within Iraq.
Energy analyst Richard Bronze of Energy Aspects has warned against treating bypass infrastructure as a substitute for Hormuz altogether. “The idea that the strait will stop mattering or become worthless is pure rhetoric,” he told Arab News. For Iraq, the road to Ceyhan provides an outlet. It cannot yet carry southern crude at a scale that would loosen Baghdad’s reliance on the Gulf.
Baniyas across the war map
Baniyas is the most ambitious option because it could reshape Iraq’s export map. Iraq has approved preliminary studies comparing routes including Basra–Haditha–Kirkuk–Ceyhan and Basra–Haditha–Baniyas, with a consortium that includes Chevron, TI Capital, and Qatar’s UCC. Chatham House estimates the wider Iraq–Syria network at around $15 billion, with a proposed initial capacity of roughly 2 million bpd and construction potentially taking about four years.
Syrian officials have given a somewhat shorter timeframe. Syrian Petroleum Company chief Youssef Qablawi said in August that the Haditha–Baniyas project could take around 30 months to three years after final agreements and engineering work. Even the shorter timetable places Baniyas beyond the present shipping crisis, assuming agreements and funding are secured.
The route’s security problem is also more complex than a line drawn on a map. A pipeline from Haditha toward Syria would traverse western Iraq, including areas where ISIS cells remain a concern, before entering eastern Syria, where state authority remains uneven and armed groups continue to operate.
Chatham House noted in September that armed actors, including ISIS, have attacked oil wells and tanker trucks in eastern Syria, while Iraq’s fragmented security system leaves multiple actors capable of obstructing or extracting rents from infrastructure.
Israel’s strikes and military presence in Syria would loom over any pipeline to Baniyas. There is no evidence that Israel plans to attack the project, but a route through Syrian territory would depend on security guarantees Damascus cannot yet provide.
Baniyas itself is more functional than the word “reconstruction” sometimes suggests. Iraqi-origin fuel oil has already been trucked through Syria and handled at the terminal, demonstrating that a commercial logistics chain can operate.
The existing trade gives the project a foothold, but handling trucked fuel oil is far removed from loading 1–2 million bpd of pipeline crude. Storage, pumping systems, berths and terminal reliability would have to be scaled accordingly.
The old Kirkuk–Baniyas line was badly damaged, and the planned network may take a different route. Existing truck traffic therefore offers little indication of the cost or the construction work required to handle sustained crude flows.
Sanctions are another constraint, though less severe than under Bashar al-Assad. The EU lifted its broad economic sanctions on Syria in 2025 while retaining security-based and targeted measures, and the US rescinded Syria’s designation as a State Sponsor of Terrorism in August 2026. That lowers, but does not eliminate, banking, insurance, due-diligence and counterparty risk for a multi-billion-dollar project.
Iran’s leverage runs through Iraq
The geopolitical logic behind Iraq’s western routes is often framed as a means to reduce Iranian leverage over Hormuz. Iran’s influence in Iraq also extends through energy trade, political networks, and armed factions embedded in Iraq’s fragmented security order.
At the same time, Tehran does not treat Iraq exactly as it treats other Gulf states. Mostafa Khoshcheshm, a political commentator on Iranian television, told Al Jazeera in August that Iran viewed Iraq as a “friendly state” and had allowed some Iraqi oil tankers to pass Hormuz.
He said Baghdad had “always stood up to the United States.” His view is one Iranian reading of Baghdad’s position. An Iraqi move toward Gulf- and US-backed western export corridors would also alter the economic leverage surrounding it.
An expansion through Baniyas or Ceyhan would give Baghdad more room to negotiate export terms without severing its ties to Iran. Gulf investment would bring new transit partners and sources of capital, though it would not automatically shift Iraq’s political alignment.
The security question cuts both ways. Iran-aligned resistance factions could be a source of vulnerability if they viewed a corridor as threatening their strategic interests. ISIS remnants and local power brokers could also obstruct it, while transit-state disputes might halt flows without an attack. Yanbu’s damaged pumps are a warning about the vulnerability of a land corridor.
Iraq’s other proposed exits face obstacles of their own. Reviving the dormant Iraq Pipeline through Saudi Arabia (IPSA) would require Riyadh’s agreement and extensive repairs. The Basra–Aqaba route would have to be built across western Iraq and Jordan.
Egypt’s SUMED pipeline is already operating, but Baghdad has no direct way to feed Iraqi crude into it. For now, the southern Gulf terminals remain Iraq’s only outlet capable of handling exports at scale.
What reaches the tanker?
As of early October, Yanbu can move the largest potential volume because the pipeline and port already exist, but its 7 million bpd nameplate figure overstates the immediately exportable capacity, while Red Sea shipping costs and the Bab al-Mandab remain concerns.
Ceyhan can now load Iraqi crude, but expansion depends on resolving Iraq’s internal north–south logistics. Baniyas offers the largest geopolitical transformation, but it remains years, billions of dollars, and security agreements away from moving crude at scale.
Hormuz remains central to the region’s oil trade even as states invest in alternatives. Yanbu, Ceyhan and Baniyas each shift some exposure from the strait to pumping stations, desert corridors, insurers or transit governments. Their value will be measured by the barrels reaching ships when the Gulf route is under threat, not by the capacity listed in a project plan.
By Robert Inlakesh | MintPress News | October 2, 2026
Scrambling to halt the ongoing offensive of Yemen’s Armed Forces, Israel and Saudi Arabia have strengthened ties through a joint covert campaign aimed at salvaging what remains of their supremacy in the Red Sea region. Tel Aviv and Riyadh’s losses of key military strongholds in Yemen’s Western coast, has ushered in a new era of soft-normalisation.
Saudi Arabia has carried out hundreds of airstrikes in Yemen, resulting in thousands of casualties since its renewed bombing campaign began this July. It now heavily relies on Israeli targeting intelligence backing in order to conduct dozens of strikes across Yemeni territory on a daily basis, including attacks on civilian market places and residential buildings.
Meanwhile, Israeli officials heaped praise on Riyadh this Wednesday for facilitating the first ever commercial flight between Israel and Saudi, following the Kingdom’s intervention to aid Israeli passengers on-board a Flydubai plane that was forced to undergo an emergency landing.
In contrast, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) initiated the renewal of the Saudi-Yemen war, by bombing the runway of Sana’a International Airport in order to prevent an Iranian civilian jetliner from landing inside the country. This measure was taken to enforce a long-standing aerial blockade on Yemen, while Israeli aircraft freely use Saudi airspace.
Riyadh’s pivot to the Israeli orbit entails a covertly coordinated campaign centered around Yemen, bearing regional consequences – from joint intelligence operations, target bank sharing, direct meetings between officials and a calibrated propaganda campaign.
In early September, Israel’s national broadcaster Kan News reported that Tel Aviv had begun supplying intelligence to aid Saudi Arabia in building up a target bank to strike inside of Yemen. Neither side has any formal diplomatic ties and yet Israel is already aiding Saudi Arabia in the military sphere — a development that would usually be a major regional scandal, yet the primarily Gulf State funded Arabic-language media has all but ignored it.
Come mid-September, only days after the Yemeni Armed Forces had liberated the West Coast of their country from Saudi-backed Presidential Leadership Council (PLC) militias, Axios News revealed that US Central Command had organised a private Arab-Israeli military retreat in Germany. At the private retreat, both Israeli and Saudi military officials were able to directly discuss issues concerning Iran and Yemen’s Ansarallah-led government.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman recently visited Cairo, formally meeting Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi to discuss issues of trade and foreign affairs. On the sidelines of this trip, CENCTOM officials repeatedly presented a proposal to form a regional command structure and coordination mechanism, that would include Israel, in order to properly confront the Ansarallah-led forces in Yemen.
Even more damning is that when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Abu Dhabi on September 27, he didn’t only attend a meeting with Emirati-ruler Mohamed bin Zayed – according to Israeli Channel 14 News, Netanyahu also secretly met with a Saudi delegate.
While analysts argued over whether the recently signed ‘Mecca Pact’ – between Riyadh, Islamabad and Ankara – was signalling the beginning of ‘Sunni Muslim NATO’, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has instead drifted towards a covert strategic alliance with Israel instead. Collusion between the two leaderships – which between them rule over all three of the Islamic Holy Sites – has reached historic heights.
Targeting Civilians And Sectarian Propaganda
A notable outcome of Saudi Arabia’s collaboration with Israel, is a marked uptick in the number of reported civilian massacres that have been taking place. The corporate media’s reporting on such attacks have drawn enormous parallels to the way similar strikes were covered in the Gaza Strip.
Take for example a recent strike carried out by Saudi fighter jets in the Taiz governorate, which killed at least seven civilians in a marketplace and destroyed a food storage site. When Reuters reported on the story, they ran with the following headline: “Seven people killed in strike on market in Yemen, Houthi-run health ministry says”
Just as the corporate media labelled Gaza’s Ministry of Health as “Hamas-run”, it uses “Houthi-run” in Yemen as a rhetorical tactic to detract from the veracity of the claim being made. In Gaza, Hamas is indeed the political Party that heads the local government of the territory, technically making this linguistic trick somewhat accurate, despite it being clear cut propaganda. However, in the case of Yemen it isn’t even vaguely accurate, as the political Party that controls the government is called Ansarallah, “the Houthis” are a family from northern Yemen.
Saudi Airstrikes also targeted other civilian locations such as residential buildings in the Mokha Port area, recently taken over by the Ansarallah-led government’s forces, killing at least 6. While US Central Command has been cited as arguing that Tel Aviv’s targeting data provided to Riyadh is essential, there has been no evidence that the intelligence provided has led to any material change on the battlefield.
It is not currently possible to verify whether the civilian infrastructure struck by Saudi Arabia’s airforce were targets located by Israeli intelligence gathering efforts or not, it is clear that Israel’s own strikes on Yemen have killed overwhelmingly civilians.
Both Israel and Saudi Arabia do indeed have shared interests in Yemen. Both seek the overthrow of the nation’s Sana’a based government. The recent capture of the Bab al-Mandab coastline by the Yemeni Armed Forces threatens both Tel Aviv and Riyadh, as they are the only two nations which Sana’a has reason to impose a blockade on.
The Yemeni imposed blockade on Israel, beginning in late 2023, completely bankrupted the southern Israeli Port of Eilat. This measure was taken in support of Gaza and the blockade ended with the implementation of the October 8, 2025 ceasefire. In the case of Saudi Arabia, a blockade has been imposed upon them in the Red Sea as a retaliatory measure against the long-standing Saudi blockade of Yemen.
This has led to a joint Saudi-Israeli propaganda campaign, seeking to depict the Yemeni control over their own territory as a threat to international maritime navigation and trade, something that Yemen’s officials have explicitly denied
A prominent propaganda theme is the weaponisation of religious authorities and the deliberate spread of sectarianism. Take prominent Saudi Islamic Scholar Dr. Abdulaziz Al-Rayez, a man that previously forbade resistance against Israel and condemned the Palestinian armed struggle, urged what he called “Sunni Muslims” to fight the “cursers of the companions [of the Prophet Mohammed]” to “race to the great field of martyrdom” against the Yemeni Armed Forces. Al-Rayez promotes factually inaccurate sectarianism, deeming the Sana’a based government as an evil Shia opposition to a righteous Saudi-backed Sunni force.
Saudi Grand Mufti Sheikh Saleh bin Fawzan Al-Fawzan also made a rare public statement on the war against Yemen, framing the issue as a religious obligation for Muslims to fight against the Yemeni Armed Forces. Additionally a top Saudi-linked Pakistani cleric, infamous for praising Osama bin Laden as “a Muslim warrior”, deemed Ansarallah to be “terrorists” and claimed that they are not even Muslims.
Across Gulf State owned Arabic-language media there has been a virulently anti-Ansarallah coverage of the war, with various pundits attempting to claim that the Zaydi Muslim sect in Yemen are conspiring with Iran to usher in a Shia Muslim tyranny across West Asia; aimed oppressing the Sunni majority.
While Saudi Arabia conspires alongside Israel to strike targets across Yemen and its officials meet with their Israeli counterparts, a concerted propaganda effort attempts to convince the region’s public that Riyadh is the victim; weaponising sectarianism as a means of distracting from its continued pivot towards the Israeli sphere of influence.
Robert Inlakesh is a political analyst, journalist and documentary filmmaker currently based in London, UK. He has reported from and lived in the occupied Palestinian territories and hosts the show ‘Palestine Files’. Director of ‘Steal of the Century: Trump’s Palestine-Israel Catastrophe’. Follow him on Twitter @falasteen47
Western media is a dirty tool of intelligence agencies. War with Iran is coming. Who blinks first?
Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su
The false flag attacks are coming in fast and furious in an attempt to keep both Donald Trump and Bibi Netanyahu in office beyond their normal expiry date. What they really reveal, though, is the extent of how Western media is now a dirty tool of intelligence agencies.
With both leaders of the U.S. and Israel facing an unprecedented challenge to their office, is it not reasonable to assume that both will use their power to indulge in skulduggery and dirty tricks to survive? For Trump, he knows he is facing impeachment if he loses both houses, and I have speculated in earlier articles that he will be looking at unprecedented ways of either calling off the midterm elections or refusing to acknowledge their results – using a pretext of war with Iran. For something, in legal terms, like that to be pulled off, the circumstances would have to be on a scale of Pearl Harbour or 9/11. America would have not only to be at war, but under attack on its own soil for Trump to attempt such a stunt, which many argue isn’t possible in the constitution. But Trump is always breaking rules and pushing the boundaries of what he can do in office, and so it would not be uncharacteristic for him and his legal team to be burning the midnight oil plotting something which is so huge and so significant.
The same story plays out for Benjamin Netanyahu, who is facing seven counts of corruption if his case ever gets heard in Israel. A surefire way of making sure it doesn’t is to keep Israel in a permanent state of war with Iran and to raise the stakes to the point where it appears that this tiny country is under attack.
And so, at the risk of being called a conspiracy theorist, many will assume a false flag attack – or even a series of them – might be coming our way soon, both in Israel and in the West – for the justification of war. Trump’s claims that the U.S. will resume bombing after the midterm elections may well have been a masterly move, when all along he is planning an attack sooner against Iran. To go ahead earlier with a large-scale attack is of course very risky, as, if gas prices go even higher or we see U.S. casualties, this could be a final suicide pill that Trump takes even before Americans go to the polls. But this is a U.S. president who believes he is significantly more intelligent than he really is, and who has fired all the advisers around him who can give him sound advice which would probably not chime with his childish, moronic ideas about what America’s military capability is in the Middle East. Yet it would seem that the plan is to not allow Iran the possibility of a pre-emptive strike.
How else could any cynical analyst interpret two key “attacks” on both Israel and the West recently brought to us dutifully by Western mainstream media? The so-called terror attack on the Dubai flight heading towards Israel is very suspicious, not least of all because Iran issued a warning just a few hours before it happened that a false flag attack was going to take place on a plane, framing Iran. A scuffle in the cockpit which involved a stabbing certainly happened, but the plane spiralling out of control for it to be rescued at the last moment by Israeli pilots who just so happened to be aboard and were able to apprehend the pilot sounds like a really bad Hollywood movie script with B-class actors. The timing is questionable, as is how fast Netanyahu and media were ready to present it to the world as a terror attack.
Just a few days earlier we saw a similar fanciful story in the UK at an RAF airbase where men were arrested under terrorism laws, with Andy Burnham reacting quickly to blame Iran. But where is the evidence? Was Burnham asked to go ahead with a false flag attack by Trump when they met earlier in the month at the UN assembly in New York? The men, although arrested and charged under terrorism laws, were remarkably allowed to walk free on bail. And nothing in their vans, which were parked in woods, has been found which would suggest they were planning any attacks. Were these men set up? Were they paid to do a certain job late at night knowing they were certain to be intercepted? If Iran were behind such fun and games, surely there would not be this level of amateur dramatics.
A more sober take on both the Israeli hostage flight and the UK airbase being a target of terrorism is that they were both staged by the desperate leaders of both the U.S. and Israel in a bid to prepare the Western public for an imminent war which, clearly, the UK will play a considerable role in – despite the window dressing of its foreign minister’s statements about bringing Israel into line on its Gaza genocide (which was also probably a PR ruse).
In many ways this was inevitable, made even more so by the temptation of using Western press as willing partners in crime in a massive, gross misrepresentation of facts to serve a bigger agenda of the elites who own legacy media. A war with Iran is coming on a scale which is certainly going to be greater than the previous “incursions”. The only real question is who blinks first and kicks it off. But the old rules always apply for those who want to seek the truth. In Western media, never believe those who are presented as the culprits, as these usual suspects are nearly always not those who have the finger on the trigger. And in any case, ask yourself: why would Iran need to plan such attacks? What would it gain? The only winners are those who have presented themselves as victims to justify what they are about to do. The lies in the past which we have been presented by both the U.S./UK and of course Israel (which is really the grand master of packing fake news, in particular video) are too great, too exhaustive to ignore. And as long as Western media is happy to play its role, what we are witnessing is what their real role is required to be – given that nearly all of them are loss-making ventures.
Daniel Davis / Deep Dive – October 3, 2026
RT | October 2, 2026
Yemen’s Houthis have denied targeting a power station in the city of Medina. A Saudi-led coalition earlier accused the militant group of targeting the facility supplying power to the Prophet’s Mosque – one of the holiest sites in the Muslim world.
A senior Houthi official branded the accusation a “lie” aimed at tarnishing the group’s image and reinforcing similar claims made by the coalition in the past.
On Thursday, the Saudi coalition’s spokesman, Major General Turki al-Maliki, accused the Yemeni militants of striking the Taibah electricity distribution station in Medina earlier this week in what he called a “cowardly terrorist act” and a part of an alleged broader campaign by the Houthis to “target the Two Holy Mosques.”
In mid-September, Saudi Arabia accused the Houthis of launching a drone towards the holy city of Mecca. The unmanned aerial vehicle was intercepted and destroyed, it added. The Yemeni movement’s leader, Abdel-Malik al-Houthi, dismissed that claim as a “heinous lie” in a televised address at the time, claiming Riyadh was “weaponizing lies” to advance its own agenda.
The developments have sparked concerns in Türkiye and Pakistan, which signed a joint defense agreement with Saudi Arabia in August. Speaking to the United Nations General Assembly last week, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif called any “threat to the sanctity” of the Muslim holy cities of Mecca and Medina a “red line that must never be crossed.”
Ankara denounced this week’s alleged Medina attack. “Any attack targeting the sanctity, peace, and security of the Two Holy Mosques is an unacceptable affront directed at the shared sensitivities of the entire Islamic world,” the Turkish government spokesman, Burhanettin Duran, said on X on Friday. He vowed that Türkiye “will continue to stand by Saudi Arabia.”
The developments come amid the continued escalation between the Houthis and the Saudi-led coalition. Riyadh has backed Yemen’s internationally recognized government against the Houthis since intervening in the country’s civil war in 2015.
Large-scale fighting largely subsided after a UN-brokered truce in 2022, but the conflict erupted again this summer after an airport in the Houthi-controlled Yemeni capital of Sanaa was bombed to prevent a returning Houthi delegation that had flown to Iran from landing.
We did get prime time spectacle – actually a double fake: the remixed 9/11 on FlyDubai.
Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su
September 30 – the deadline for a possible Iranian kinetic move against the Trump naval blockade – came and went. Iran stuck to its guns – without essentially releasing them on the “blockading” (sooooo far away) U.S. Navy. But the show must go on. As Plan B, we did get prime time spectacle – actually a double fake: the remixed 9/11 on FlyDubai.
This pathetic stunt was never a “terror attack”; it was a mediocre-packaged Mossad psy op with lots of improbable extras, complete with a plumber who took control of the plane because he saw it on TV.
The manipulators were the death cult in West Asia, the UAE itself and Washington. The official narrative is for people with an IQ below 50: a “jihadist” co-pilot – conveniently from Oman, demonization requires it – tries to crash a plane full of Zionists. The proverbial heroic passengers – plumber included – overpower him with their bare hands.
The death cult is pulling all stops to absolve Emiratis of any responsibility. The focus is on the Omani “terrorist”.
Talk about the perfect trifecta: Muslims are and will always be terrorists; the death cult is always a victim; and Saudi Arabia needs to hand over the “terrorist” to the death cult.
Piece of cake then for a co-pilot to smuggle a knife at ultra-surveilled Dubai airport onboard one of the most surveilled routes on the planet. And what about the death cult Air Force being unable to stop the landing of the plane in Tabuk.
Because the plan was always to land in Tabuk. That’s the largest Saudi airbase in the northwest, and the closest to Israel; the death cult has been trying for years to get access to it. Now they may end up getting The Full Monty: access to Saudi airspace; privileged intel; and more, courtesy of joint pressure by Abu Dhabi and Washington.
At Transition Protocol we established that when the leader of the death cult “secretly” flew to Abu Dhabi to meet UAE head honcho MbZ in a bilateral, he also may have met people from several Arab nations, including Qatar, Oman, Libya and Morocco.
The Saudis vehemently denied they were part of the package. So did Jordan. Oman appears only via one Israeli source. There’s no official confirmation by Qatar, Oman, Morocco or Libya.
Tehran anyway reacted with extreme irritation, warning of “very dangerous consequences”. The Iranian determination is clear – not to let those chihuahuas derail the fundamental process of reducing to the max U.S./Israeli influence in West Asia.
Islamabad for its part continues to pursue the Sisyphean task of inching towards minimalistic progress mediating both Saudi Arabia–Ansarallah and U.S.-Iran.
Qatar did hand Iran Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi the U.S. answer in Doha this past Tuesday. The clash seems to be over sequencing, rather than components. The text, as it stands, is a sort of enhanced version of the notorious dead cat MoU – also known as the Islamabad framework. Nobody is betting the dead cart will resurrect – again.
Russia, Iran, Yemen: let’s pummel those bastards with no mercy
Now let’s get to the real nitty-gritty: Yemen. And what degree of annihilation Sana’a’s badasses are prepared to inflict on Riyadh. Obliteration of oil installations is too easy – just the soft opening. Yemen is raging. And they will stop at nothing.
We can already see a startling confluence between the House of Saud, the U.S. Navy outside of Persia, and NATO in country 404: they are all being pummeled with no mercy. Russia and Iran haven’t even started yet. And talk about Yemen.
Sergey Karaganov earlier this week once again called it in public: Russia’s Stavka has finally reached the fateful decision to put the Kiev neo-nazis out of their misery. And at an off the record, two-hour long session at the Valdai outside of Moscow, Grandmaster Sergey Lavrov, totally relaxed, reaffirmed again that Russia is ready for Europe’s war. And yes, it will be swift. No holds barred.
Ansarallah and the Yemeni Armed Forces are waiting for 3 vectors to gel: an inescapable Zero Hour ringin’ all across West Asia; the potent simmering and ebulition of intra-royal and inter-tribal clashes inside Saudi Arabia; and all pieces of the puzzle falling in place for the Coming Yemeni Storm to be unleashed over Saudi.
As it stands, Riyadh does not acknowledge any attacks from Yemen, while Sana’a announces every day, like clockwork, the number of Saudi airstrikes on Yemen – targeting markets, farms, homes, bridges, water facilities, telecom networks: the proverbial Epstein Syndicate playbook.
Iran for its part has already upped the ante, striking ADNOC’s Bu Hasa southwest of Abu Dhabi: that’s one of the UAE’s largest onshore oil and gas fields, feeding the strategic Habshan-Fujairah pipeline, the UAE’s only export route bypassing the Strait of Hormuz.
Saudi Arabia’s own bypass, the East-West pipeline, has been struck 3 weeks ago and re-bombed by Yemen earlier this week, at Abqaiq.
Hitting ADNOC and Abqaiq nearly simultaneously may account for taking as many as 13 million barrels of oil a day off market. It’s never enough to remind everyone that Iran and Yemen come as a package. That’s the package that counts – and no puny false flag crypto 9/11 will change that.
Greece will extend the presence of its air defense battery of Patriot missiles in Saudi Arabia for at least another month, top defense and foreign policy officials agreed on Thursday. In a session chaired by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the Government Council on National Security and Foreign Affairs (KYSEA) took into consideration the increased tension […]
The post Greece renews mandate for Patriot missiles in Saudi Arabia appeared first on Keep Talking Greece.
Il Patto della Mecca è un segno di solidarietà, non di guerra. La Turchia lo sa bene: lo Yemen è la “tomba dei turchi”.
Il Patto della Mecca è messo alla prova
Il 19 settembre 2026, ai microfoni dell’emittente turca NTV, il ministro degli Esteri Hakan Fidan ha pronunciato una frase insieme misurata e densa di conseguenze. L’Arabia Saudita, sotto il fuoco degli Houthi, «potrebbe avere alcune necessità militari, soprattutto su questioni tecniche», e la Turchia «non avrebbe problemi a soddisfarle». Nessuna dichiarazione di guerra, nessun contingente annunciato. Eppure, per la prima volta, il Patto della Mecca — l’alleanza difensiva che lega Riyadh, Ankara e Islamabad — veniva evocato come strumento operativo e non come architettura sulla carta. La domanda che circola nei commenti più mordaci è se Ankara stia per ripetere l’errore che due volte le costò carissimo: mettere piede negli altopiani dello Yemen. La risposta seria è più interessante della provocazione, e va nella direzione opposta.
L’accordo firmato alla Mecca il 7 agosto 2026 da Mohammed bin Salman, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan e Shehbaz Sharif è modellato sull’articolo 5 della NATO: un attacco armato contro uno dei tre è un attacco contro tutti. Il fronte che oggi lo sollecita è yemenita. Dal luglio 2026, dopo aver dichiarato il blocco dei porti sauditi e dello Stretto di Bab al-Mandab, gli Houthi hanno colpito ripetutamente il territorio del Regno, fino agli attacchi su Riyadh e sull’impianto Aramco di Yanbu. È il prolungamento, sul versante saudita, della guerra più ampia aperta dai raid statunitensi e israeliani sullo Yemen.
Il dato che conta, però, è la distanza fra il linguaggio del trattato e la postura reale dei suoi membri. Fidan offre sostegno «tecnico», non truppe. Islamabad precisa che nessuna reazione militare è in discussione e che agirà «quando sarà il momento». Washington, dal canto suo, ha respinto le richieste saudite di appoggio diretto. Tutti invocano la solidarietà; nessuno impegna forze sul terreno. Quella reticenza condivisa non è timidezza diplomatica: è il vero oggetto dell’analisi.
La lunga storia di vittorie yemenite contro la Turchia
Fra i tre firmatari, la Turchia è l’unico per cui lo Yemen non è un’astrazione strategica ma una ferita di archivio. Gli ottomani vi entrarono due volte, e due volte ne uscirono sconfitti. La prima occupazione data al 1538, dettata dalla necessità di proteggere le rotte del Mar Rosso dai portoghesi e di custodire l’accesso ai luoghi santi. Presero la Tihama e Sanaa, ma l’altopiano zaydita non fu mai domato per intero; dopo quasi un secolo di guerra intermittente, entro il 1635 gli imam qasimidi li avevano espulsi dal paese. Sul primo ciclo, ricordiamo la conquista del 1538, la rifondazione dell’imamato zaydita a opera di al-Mansur al-Qasim (1597) e la completa espulsione ottomana entro il 1635-1636 a opera degli imam qasimidi. La seconda occupazione si consuma tra l’occupazione della Tihama (1849), la presa di Sanaa (1872) e il ritiro definitivo dopo il 1918.
Il ritorno, a metà Ottocento, fu peggiore. L’occupazione della Tihama e la presa di Sanaa, incentivate dall’apertura del Canale di Suez nel 1869 e dal controllo del Mar Rosso, inaugurarono decenni di rivolta permanente. Le sollevazioni dell’imam Yahya resero l’altopiano ingovernabile con la forza, finché il Trattato di Daan del 9 ottobre 1911 ne riconobbe l’autorità sugli zayditi: la registrazione formale di uno stallo che nessuna spedizione riusciva a rompere. Il ritiro definitivo arrivò dopo il 1918. Il bilancio, lungo la seconda occupazione e la campagna della Grande Guerra, si conta in decine di migliaia di caduti; a ucciderli fu più la malattia che la battaglia. Non a caso lo Yemen entrò nel lessico ottomano come «tomba dei turchi», e il cimitero militare di Sanaa ne custodisce ancora l’inventario. Le perdite ottomane in Yemen lungo la seconda occupazione e la campagna dell’Arabia meridionale nella Grande Guerra si contano nell’ordine delle decine di migliaia complessive, con la malattia — non il combattimento — quale causa prevalente, in linea con la mortalità dell’esercito ottomano nel suo insieme. Il cimitero militare turco di Sanaa, restaurato nel 2011, ne conserva la memoria.
Ridurre tutto alla nostalgia neo-ottomana sarebbe però un errore di prospettiva, perché il problema non è ottomano: è geografico e sociale. Lo stesso terreno ha disfatto altri. L’Egitto nasseriano vi si impantanò tra il 1962 e il 1967, in quello che molti chiamarono il suo Vietnam; la coalizione a guida saudita, dal 2015, ha riversato sull’altopiano anni di potenza aerea e denaro senza mai sottometterlo. L’intervento egiziano nella guerra civile nord-yemenita (1962-1967), costato a Nasser un logoramento spesso paragonato a un «Vietnam» arabo, e la coalizione a guida saudita attiva dal 2015 confermano lo stesso esito: potenza di fuoco e risorse ingenti, altopiano mai sottomesso.
La ragione è strutturale. La verticalità del territorio, i villaggi-fortezza, una struttura tribale che assorbe e sopravvive all’occupante, e una tradizione religioso-politica — la dottrina zaydita del dovere di insorgere contro il sovrano ingiusto — che rigenera la resistenza a ogni generazione: sono i fattori che premiano il difensore e dissanguano chi proietta forza dall’esterno. Gli Houthi sono l’ultima incarnazione di questa costante, non un’anomalia. Ed è precisamente per questo che gli attori esterni scelgono il registro navale — il Mar Rosso, Bab al-Mandab, la forza marittima a guida saudita di cui si parla: perché li tiene lontani dalla terra.
Una memoria incancellabile
La provocazione da cui siamo partiti — la Turchia «impaziente» di rivivere la sua disfatta — capovolge dunque la logica dei fatti. La memoria dello Yemen non tenta Ankara: la disciplina. La Turchia di Erdoğan si è proiettata in molti teatri, dalla Siria alla Libia, dal Nord dell’Iraq al Caucaso attraverso l’Azerbaigian, ma sempre dove poteva applicare forza decisiva e circoscritta o agire per procura, mai dentro un’insurrezione d’altopiano priva di via d’uscita. Il fraseggio prudente di Fidan — bisogni «tecnici», patto che «non sostituisce le alleanze esistenti» e semmai «potrà allargarsi» — è il linguaggio di una potenza che vuole il dividendo politico della solidarietà senza la sua ipoteca militare.
Letto in chiave multipolare, il Patto della Mecca è un riallineamento sunnita sotto regia saudita-turco-pakistana, una copertura che matura mentre le garanzie statunitensi si mostrano condizionate, ma un trattato di difesa collettiva calibrato sull’articolo 5 incontra il suo limite proprio qui: quel modello risponde all’aggressione di uno Stato attraverso un confine, non possiede una dottrina contro un attore non statale che non si può conquistare e non si lascia dissuadere. È lo scarto tra la grammatica dell’alleanza e la natura dell’avversario.
Sul piano previsionale, e con un orizzonte di dodici mesi: è probabile che il sostegno turco resti tecnico — difesa aerea, sorveglianza, munizioni, consiglieri — anziché tradursi in dispiegamento combattente; è altamente improbabile che Ankara impegni truppe di terra in Yemen.
Gli indicatori che smentirebbero questa lettura sono netti e osservabili: l’arrivo di reparti da combattimento turchi o pakistani, un’attivazione formale della clausola di mutua difesa, il passaggio dall’interdizione navale nel Mar Rosso a operazioni terrestri sull’altopiano. Fino ad allora, il valore del patto sarà di segnale e di deterrenza per associazione, non di strumento contro gli Houthi.
Il cimitero degli imperi, del resto, non ha bisogno di essere riaperto per continuare a funzionare: gli basta essere ricordato.
When Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan agreed to a mutual defense pact in August, it was principally seen as a political commitment. The “Mecca alliance,” as it was dubbed, stipulated that an armed attack on one would be treated as an attack on all three, accompanied by deeper military cooperation. That pact is no longer […]
The post Baptism of Houthi fire for Mecca mutual defense pact appeared first on Asia Times.
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