Sana'a

A report of a contained fire near a terminal does not confirm damage to the refinery itself.

The same caution applied to a Houthi claim that its forces repelled a Saudi-backed advance near the Bab al-Mandeb Strait and inflicted heavy casualties, which Saudi Arabia had not confirmed, and a Monday's Houthi claim of a hit on King Khalid International Airport hours after it reopened, which the coalition answered by saying it had destroyed the missile and two launchers in Sana'a.

Egypt moved a step closer to the fight.

On Monday, the House of Representatives voted by a two-thirds majority to authorize President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to take the measures needed, in coordination with Riyadh, to defend Saudi territory, sovereignty, and holy sites.

And for a while that was Ansar Allah's demand of Saudi Arabia was let's implement that 2023 framework.

Uh, but since Saudi Arabia reignited the war by bombing the Sana'a international airport, and now Ansar Allah has all this momentum, they've taken more territory.

They're really hitting Saudi Arabia hard.

Um, Their demands right now for a ceasefire are lift the blockade and essentially withdraw from Yemen, get out of here.

I was able to get into Yemen and they were banned.

And I'd been in Yemen recording undercover, which was kind of funny because I just wouldn't go on camera, but I would voice my pieces from the protest movements and everything that was going on in Sana'a.

And I had friends calling saying, exactly how many Northern Irish women are there in Sana'a? Oh, God, no.

They were very, very pleased with my reporting because I had gone in and got the job done.

And so I got this phone call on my last day in Yemen saying, hey, what do you think about going to Syria? And I'd never been to Syria before.

But he himself, his government went to war with the Houthis way back in the 90s because it is this revivalist movement of Zaydi Islam that had been fighting for more rights against the government.

Eventually, when he got ousted, he, you know, in this incredibly wily moment in 2014, he allied with them, opened the doors.

Troops that were still loyal to him helped them take Sana'a, and they took over most of the capital.

And he didn't even take money for it.

When he wanted to study with Abdul Razzaq, a Sana'ani from Yemen, from Sana'a, he didn't have the wealth for it.

He didn't have the ability.

But he went for Hajj and they told him Abdul Razzaq has come for Hajj.

And so the question is, having a meeting with this man, what will it achieve if it is the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that is ultimately the ones that will make the decision as to whether the attacks continue or don't against Saudi Arabia?

While we're watching Saudi Arabia deal with the existential threat of Houthis, the Houthis are continuing their siege of Taiz, the city on the road between Aden and and Sana'a, Sana'a being the capital, former capital now possessed by the Houthis, Aden being the fortress established by the sovereign state of Yemen in the south, on the coast.

And Taiz is under siege.

We have a plea from Taiz within these last hours.

Saudi Arabia did not confirm either claim.

The Saudi-led coalition in Yemen said it destroyed two ballistic missile launchers in Sana'a.

One of them, it said, had fired a missile toward Riyadh and that missile was intercepted.

The coalition also said it destroyed five missile tunnels, four more launchers and a storage site.

So in this hour, we'll be speaking to our experts as well and also speaking about the history of what's happening in Yemen, how it began, what's happening currently, how it has changed over the course of the decade as well.

And just to mention briefly that Yemen's civil war began in 2014 when Houthi forces took control of the capital Sana'a and challenged the country's government.

And in March 2015, Saudi Arabia led a military coalition to support the government and fight the Houthis.

The Houthis, also known as Ansarullah, still control Sana'a and much of northwestern Yemen.

The internationally recognised government is led by the Presidential Leadership Council, but it faces divisions among its own supporters.

A UN-backed truce in 2022 reduced the fighting, but we know that no lasting peace deal was reached, and tensions have since continued and fighting has increased again in 2026.

His funeral wasn't until the summer.

And the Houthi leadership, whether or not they consulted with Iran about expanding their attacks or whether it was just this leads to a chain of events.

that would make the iranian regime satisfied i think there's also another question which is possession the president of uh of the islamic republic is something of well they say he's a moderate i would say he's probably ineffective or irrelevant And so the question is, having a meeting with this man, what will it achieve if it is the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that is ultimately the ones that will make the decision as to whether the attacks continue or don't against Saudi Arabia?

While we're watching Saudi Arabia deal with the existential threat of Houthis, the Houthis are continuing their siege of Taiz, the city on the road between Aden and Sanaa.

Sana'a being the capital, former capital now possessed by the Houthis.

Aden being the fortress established by the sovereign state of Yemen in the south, on the coast.