Saudi Arabia faces hard choices as Houthis gain in Yemen

Saudi Arabia is being increasingly affected by the rapidly escalating conflict across its southern border in Yemen , where the Iran-backed Houthis are fighting Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces.

Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia injured another 13 people on Monday night  bringing the total number of people injured since the conflict escalated in July to about 100.

In July, the Houthis also blocked Saudi oil shipping in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a key waterway that had been serving as an alternative route for Saudi oil exports amid Iran's blockade of the nearby Strait of Hormuz.

Last week, Saudi Arabia's alternative lifeline for oil export, the East-West pipeline, was allegedly targeted by Iranian proxy militias in Iraq. On Tuesday, officials said that it might take weeks to repair the damage to the pipeline which runs 1,200 kilometers (745 miles) across the country and ends at the port of Yanbu on the Red Sea .

"Riyadh faces a genuine dilemma," Neil Quilliam, associate fellow of the Middle East and North Africa program at the London-based think tank Chatham House, told DW. "The Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is trying to protect both Saudi security and Saudi economic development simultaneously," he said. "The difficulty is that the Houthis are increasingly able to threaten both."

Saudi Arabia has one of the most heavily armed and technologically sophisticated militaries in the Middle East, especially in combat aviation and air defense.

But the country is "reluctant to become drawn back into a costly military campaign in Yemen," Quilliam said.

A Saudi-led military coalition intervened in Yemen in 2015 to support the government's fight against Houthi insurgents. After seven years of intense war between the Houthis and the Saudi-backed government, the fighting eased in 2022 with a UN-brokered truce .