Yemen’s Houthis Warn Foreign Oil Companies to Get Out of Saudi Arabia, UAE as Ceasefire Crumbles

On Sunday, UN Envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg expressed “regret” over the failure of Yemen’s warring parties to extend a nationwide ceasefire agreed in April, and called on both sides to “fulfill their obligation to the Yemeni people to pursue every avenue for peace.” The Houthis and Yemen’s Gulf State-backed government have been at war since 2015.

Yemen’s Houthi militia have warned foreign oil companies to get their affairs in order and leave Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates post haste, hinting at the possibility of fresh drone and missile strikes against the Gulf nations’ energy infrastructure.

“As long as the American-Saudi aggression countries are not committed to a truce that gives the Yemeni people the right to exploit their oil wealth in favor of the salary of the Yemeni state employees, the [Houthi] armed forces give oil companies operating in the UAE and Saudi Arabia an opportunity to organize their situation and leave. Forewarned is forearmed,” Houthi spokesman Yahya Sare’e wrote in a pair of English-language tweets Sunday, shortly after the expiration of a deadline to extend the national ceasefire.

“If the Saudi and Emirati coalition continue to deprive our Yemeni people access to their resources, our military forces can, with God’s help, deprive them of their resources,” Sare’e added.

For its part, the Houthis’ Supreme Political Council warned that the militant group has “the airports, ports and oil companies of the aggress[or] countries in the crosshairs” and “will not stand idly by if the aggression and siege continue.”

The militant group has repeatedly accused the “coalition of aggression” and “traitors” among the Yemeni people of plundering oil supplies destined for the war-torn country, citing the coalition’s seizure of more than a dozen oil-laden vessels heading to Yemen between August and September, despite the all-clear for the deliveries under the UN-brokered ceasefire signed in April.

Ahmed Awad Bin Mubarak, the foreign minister of the Saudi coalition-backed Yemeni government, blamed the Houthis for the ceasefire’s disruption, assuring that his government had “made many concessions to extend the truce.”

In addition to the suspected oil piracy, the Houthis have also accused their adversaries of failing to live up to commitments to lift restrictions on flights to Sanaa Airport, and to lift the blockade around the port city of Hodeida.

The Russian Embassy in Yemen expressed concern Saturday about the consequences of the collapse of the ceasefire, calling for all parties to “intensify engagement with the UN Special Envoy in order to agree on an extension of the truce.” The Embassy stressed that there is no military solution to the Yemeni crisis, and that a truce is a must to assure an inclusive political settlement.

Houthis’ Missile Power

The Yemeni militia’s warning to foreign oil companies is no idle threat. In January and February, the militia group repeatedly targeted the UAE’s oil infrastructure over Abu Dhabi’s involvement in the Gulf coalition’s war in Yemen, with the country’s US-made Patriot and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile systems proving unable to intercept at least some of the projectiles. In 2019, large-scale Houthi attacks against two major Saudi oil facilities temporarily halved the Kingdom’s massive oil exports. In March, Saudi state television reported that a “hostile operation” had targeted the Jidah oil depot after the facility went up in a plum of smoke. Riyadh is planning to purchase seven THAAD systems between 2026 and 2028, and already has several hundred Patriots and other sophisticated air defenses from the US, France, Switzerland and Sweden in its inventory, but faced regular attacks on the country’s military bases, airports, oil facilities and cities by the Houthis.

The Gulf coalition began its military operation in Yemen in March 2015 in an attempt to restore the government of President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi –who had been ousted by the Houthis in a popular uprising sparked by cuts in fuel subsidies several months earlier. Seven years after launching the campaign, the coalition has made little progress on the ground. Hadi resigned from office in April, transferring power to an eight-member ‘presidential leadership council’ tasked with negotiating a permanent ceasefire.

The Houthis are a moderate Islamist political and militant movement that emerged from the Houthi tribe, which is predominant in northern Yemen. Achieving a measure of support for their anti-corruption, social justice, anti-imperialism, anti-Zionism and Yemeni nationalism message, the group is fighting for a non-sectarian republican form of governance the country.