Yemeni Leader Calls for General Mobilization Against Houthis

Yemen’s Presidential Council Urges Nationwide Mobilization as Houthi Gains Raise Shipping Fears

Tempatdonasi.com – Yemen’s internationally recognized leadership has called on citizens to support a broad national mobilization after the Houthi movement strengthened its position along the country’s Red Sea coast and escalated attacks against neighboring Saudi Arabia.

Rashad al-Alimi, chairman of the Saudi-backed Presidential Leadership Council and supreme commander of Yemen’s armed forces, made the appeal in a televised speech on Friday. His call comes at a sensitive moment for Yemen’s government, which has faced a major setback following a rapid Houthi offensive that placed the entire Yemeni Red Sea coastline under the group’s control.

I call upon the sons of our great people to engage in general mobilization and national mobilization, to rally around their armed and security forces.

Al-Alimi urged Yemenis to unite behind government troops and security institutions, framing the mobilization as an effort to restore the country’s state authority. The appeal signals renewed pressure on the government to respond after years in which major front lines had remained comparatively quiet.

Focus on restoring national institutions

In his address, al-Alimi said the campaign was intended to rebuild state institutions and reassert Yemen’s sovereignty across all of its territory. That goal includes Sanaa, the Yemeni capital, which has remained under Houthi control since 2014.

The objective is to restore state institutions and extend sovereignty over the entire national territory.

The reference to Sanaa underlined the depth of the political division that has shaped Yemen’s conflict for more than a decade. While the government operates from areas outside the capital, the Houthis continue to control the city and other heavily populated parts of northern Yemen.

Al-Alimi also announced that a forthcoming amnesty would offer pardons to people who leave the Houthi ranks and align themselves with the government. The proposal appears aimed at encouraging defections while presenting the government’s appeal as one directed not only at military forces, but also at communities living in territories held by the Houthis.

Addressing residents in those areas, he asked families not to send their children to fight alongside the movement. He sought to distinguish ordinary civilians from the armed conflict itself.

The state does not view you as a party to the conflict but as its people and partners.

Red Sea control increases international concern

The Houthis’ seizure of Yemen’s entire Red Sea coast has heightened concern beyond the country’s borders. Control of that coastline gives the group full influence over the Yemeni side of the Bab al-Mandab Strait, one of the world’s most strategically important maritime passages.

The strait links the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden and is a key route for commercial shipping moving between the Mediterranean, the Suez Canal, the Indian Ocean and wider global markets. Any sustained instability around the chokepoint can raise fears over the safety and reliability of maritime traffic, particularly for cargo and energy shipments.

The territorial gains also deepen the military and political challenge for Yemen’s government. Coastal access carries strategic value because it affects trade routes, ports and the ability of outside actors to move through nearby waters. With the Houthis now holding the coast, pressure has increased on the Presidential Leadership Council to show that it can rebuild military and public backing.

Conflict flares after a period of relative calm

The Houthis have been fighting Yemen’s Saudi-backed government for more than ten years. A truce reached in 2022 largely froze the conflict, reducing the scale of fighting in many parts of the country even though no comprehensive political settlement was reached.

That relative calm has increasingly come under strain. In recent weeks, the Houthis have stepped up missile and drone attacks directed at Saudi Arabia, widening the immediate security risks linked to Yemen’s internal conflict. The group has also declared a maritime blockade and struck Saudi targets in an effort to hinder the kingdom’s oil exports.

The Houthis say Saudi Arabia has imposed a siege on Yemeni areas under their control. Their attack on Riyadh over the weekend was the first such strike on the Saudi capital in years, marking a significant escalation in a conflict that had appeared largely contained since the 2022 truce.

For Yemenis, the renewed confrontation raises the prospect that a conflict long shaped by political fragmentation, regional rivalry and humanitarian hardship could enter another volatile phase. Al-Alimi’s mobilization call places the government’s response at the center of that next stage, while the Houthi gains along the Red Sea ensure that the consequences will be watched closely both inside Yemen and across the region.