If Aden Falls, the Yemen War Is Over: The Mecca Pact Must Fight Now
The Houthis are 80 km from Aden and hit it with missiles on November 11. If Yemen’s temporary capital falls, the war is lost. The Mecca pact must act now.
In this article
Context
Yes, the Houthis can take Aden, and they are closer to it than at any time since 2015. On November 2 their fighters were about 80 kilometres from the city after overrunning the Al-Maqatirah district of Lahj province, and on the night of November 11 two of their missiles struck military sites in Al Buraiqeh, on Aden’s western edge. If Aden falls, Yemen’s war is over, and Saudi Arabia will have lost it.
That is why the coalition Riyadh has spent the autumn assembling has run out of time to prepare. Turkey has ratified the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement, Syria has sent military personnel to the kingdom, and Egyptian air-defence units have been on Saudi soil for months. None of that has yet changed the map in southern Yemen. Turkey, Syria and Pakistan now have to act, and Egypt has to decide on what terms it will stand with them.
Key takeaways
- The Houthis, formally the Ansarullah movement, have pushed to within about 80 kilometres of Aden and are hitting the city with missiles; the strike of November 11 targeted what they called a Saudi command centre in Al Buraiqeh.
- Aden is the recognised government’s seat, main port and main airport. Losing it would cut off the government forces holding the Bab el-Mandeb coast and leave Saudi Arabia no harbour through which to land troops.
- Saudi Arabia cannot end this war and cannot win it without ground forces. The Mecca pact partners and Syria have to move from paperwork to the front now.
- Egypt is still outside the pact. It should join only on terms that commit it to defending Saudi Arabia, not on a blank cheque.
How close are the Houthis to Aden?
The Houthis opened their latest push in late October with an assault on government positions in Al-Maqatirah. Within three days, according to military sources on the government side, they held the whole district, and by November 2 the fighting had reached a military camp at the entrance to Tur al-Bahah, one of the main approaches to Aden. That put them about 50 kilometres from the city of Lahj and 80 kilometres from Aden itself. The last time they were this close was in the opening months of the war in 2015, when they briefly entered the city before being driven out.
The advance follows a pattern. In September the Houthis swept down the Red Sea coast and seized ground along the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. In early October they cut the main road south from Taiz, Yemen’s third-largest city, and encircled it; more than 100,000 people have since been displaced and the city is short of food, fuel and medicine. Aden has been under fire throughout: the airport was hit on October 7, and explosions struck near the presidential palace on October 15.
On the night of November 11 two powerful explosions shook Al Buraiqeh in western Aden, where coalition-linked forces are based. A local security official blamed Houthi missiles. Yahya Sarea, the Houthi military spokesman, said the group had hit “a Saudi military command centre and operations room” there and claimed heavy casualties; no independent figure has been given. The same night the Saudi-led coalition said it had intercepted five missiles and two drones fired at the kingdom, including three cruise missiles aimed at the Riyadh region and two drones heading towards Mecca and the south.
Silent Dossier’s judgment is that the next wave will fall on Aden. The missile strikes are preparing the ground for it, and the Houthis want to seize as much of Yemen as they can before any negotiation with Riyadh begins.
Analysis
Who controls Aden, and why does it matter?
Aden is the port city on Yemen’s southern coast, at the mouth of the Gulf of Aden and about 160 kilometres east of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, the narrow channel between the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. It has been the temporary capital of Yemen’s internationally recognised government since 2015, when the Houthis took Sanaa and the government fled south. Today it is held by government and allied southern forces backed by the Saudi-led coalition that intervened in March 2015.
Aden is decisive because it is the government’s main seaport, main airport and administrative capital in one place. It is also the harbour where ships carrying troops and supplies for the government side come in. And it anchors the eastern end of the front that runs west to the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, where government units, including the Giants Brigades, hold the coast.
If the Houthis take Aden, those units are surrounded. The Houthis would control the whole of the Bab el-Mandeb and all of western Yemen, and what remained of the country would no longer be the centre of the war. Saudi Arabia would then find it extremely hard to send ground forces to help the government, because the ships that would carry them dock in Aden.
Analysis
What Syria’s troops are really for
Syria’s role shows how badly Riyadh needs soldiers. President Ahmed al-Sharaa met Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh on November 4; the two governments signed agreements in which Syria’s Foreign Ministry called defence cooperation the most notable, and Riyadh pledged $403 million in loans for Syrian reconstruction.
Until this week Damascus denied every report of Syrian forces in Saudi Arabia or Yemen. Then Syrian officials said military advisers were already in the kingdom and that a first force of about 600 special forces would arrive within days. A Syrian government official described the mission as “training, expertise exchange and military consultations” and dismissed reports that Syrian fighters were headed for Yemen.
That explanation does not hold. Six hundred Syrian special forces are not going to Saudi Arabia to train the Saudi army. Yemeni military officials say Syrians are already leading drone operations against the Houthis inside Yemen, and that up to 3,000 Syrian troops could be deployed to Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Damascus denies it, but the Yemen front is where those soldiers are needed, and it is where they are going.
Even 3,000 is far too few. The latest estimates put the Houthis’ strength at about 150,000 fighters, and every partner Riyadh has found so far is offering hundreds, or at most a few thousand.
Analysis
Turkey, Pakistan and the Mecca pact have to fight now
The Mecca Joint Defence Agreement was signed in Mecca on August 7 by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. Its 16 articles bind each member to assist the others if one faces armed attack, and it provides for joint training, intelligence sharing and defence-industry cooperation. Turkey’s parliament ratified it on November 5 by 279 votes to 119. Ratification does not send a single Turkish soldier; deploying troops needs further steps in Ankara.
Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, is paying for a war that is draining it. Its quarterly budget deficit more than doubled as oil revenue fell, it has asked international banks for a syndicated loan of $6 billion to $8 billion, and every foreign army it invites will need a joint command and control system that Riyadh will pay for. Houthi missiles and drones aimed at Mecca and western Saudi Arabia have hurt the tourism and investment the kingdom was counting on. Riyadh can neither stop this war nor finish it: it has no ground force pressing the Houthis, and talks have produced no peace agreement.
The pact has spent long enough getting ready. If Aden falls, the war is over, and every month of committee votes and technical arrangements will have bought nothing. Turkey, Syria and Pakistan have to put forces where the Houthis are advancing, and they have to do it before the next wave hits Aden.
Analysis
Where Egypt stands
Egypt was the first to come. Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty confirmed on November 10 that Egyptian air-defence units have been protecting sensitive sites in Saudi Arabia, including the holy sites, for months, since Iran first fired on the kingdom; Egypt’s parliament gave President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi a broad mandate to defend the kingdom on October 26. Silent Dossier explained what Cairo admitted and what comes next.
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Egypt has not joined the Mecca pact, and Saudi Arabia wants it in. Abdelatty said in August that Egypt was reviewing membership against its constitution and the legal obligations it would bring; Turkey’s foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, said a few technical issues stood in the way. The issue is the size of the commitment. Riyadh is spending vast sums on this war, and from Egypt it wants a blank cheque.
Egypt should not sign one. Cairo does not know where the pact will end, and a collective-defence clause that includes Pakistan could pull Egypt into a conflict with India that has nothing to do with it. The right answer is a proposal that has already circulated: Egypt joins on condition that its obligation is to defend Saudi Arabia, and Saudi Arabia alone. Until then, Egyptian forces stay in the kingdom, on the ground they were invited to defend, and they do not cross into Yemen.
What to watch next
The test is Aden. Watch whether the Houthis break through at Tur al-Bahah and reach the Lahj-Aden road, whether the missile strikes on Al Buraiqeh turn into a ground assault, and whether the 600 Syrian special forces appear on the Yemen front rather than in Saudi training camps. Watch Ankara for the vote that would actually send Turkish forces, and Islamabad for any sign that Pakistan will do more than sign. Silent Dossier has followed how the war reached Riyadh itself, in the strike on the Aramco tower.
The conclusion does not change with the news cycle. Saudi Arabia has built its coalition; now it has to use it. If Aden falls, the Houthis will have won Yemen’s war, and no alliance signed afterwards will win it back.
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