Key Facts
- Intervention start date
- 26 March 2015
- Coalition members
- 9 countries from West Asia and North Africa
- Initial operation name
- Operation Decisive Storm
- Follow-on operation name
- Operation Restoring Hope (from 22 April 2015)
- Ceasefire announcement
- 29 March 2022
- Status as of April 2024
- Open hostilities largely ceased; negotiations ongoing
Strategic Narrative Overview
The intervention opened with Operation Decisive Storm, a campaign of airstrikes and a naval blockade targeting Houthi positions. On 22 April 2015, the coalition declared initial objectives met and shifted to Operation Restoring Hope, combining diplomatic and military efforts. Ground forces from Egypt, the UAE, Sudan, and others were deployed. The conflict expanded to include loyalists of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh alongside Houthi fighters, with Iran supplying both factions. By 2019 the conflict had reached a broadly acknowledged military stalemate.
01 / The Origins
In September 2014, Houthi insurgents ousted Yemeni president Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi from Sanaa during the ongoing Yemeni civil war. UN-mediated power-sharing talks collapsed, and Hadi fled to Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia, viewing the Houthi advance as an extension of Iranian influence along its southern border, assembled a nine-nation Arab coalition and launched a military intervention on 26 March 2015, framing it as a response to Hadi's request to restore his internationally recognised government.
03 / The Outcome
Saudi Arabia declared its first unilateral ceasefire in 2020. On 29 March 2022 the coalition announced a halt to all hostilities to enable political talks. Bilateral Saudi-Houthi negotiations followed, mediated by Oman under UN auspices, and most restrictions on commercial goods were lifted by April 2023. As of April 2024 open fighting has largely stopped, though a final settlement remains elusive, complicated by Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping that resumed in October 2023.
Belligerents & Mobilization Analysis
Side A
2 belligerents
Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, Mohammed bin Salman (Saudi defence minister/crown prince).
Side B
2 belligerents
Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, Ali Abdullah Saleh (until death 2017).
Kinetic Engagement Axis
Scroll horizontally to view full axis. Events plotted relatively.