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For nearly five months, Yemen's Houthi rebels sat on the sidelines as their main backer, Iran, weathered devastating U.S. and Israeli attacks.
That changed in recent weeks with a resumption of fighting between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia - a close ally to the United States in the Iran war.
The Houthis, increasingly frustrated with what they say is a blockade by Saudi Arabia, launched strikes on the Saudi state oil company and announced a blockade of Saudi ships passing through the Red Sea. The move adds another crucial waterway, in addition to the Strait of Hormuz, to regional security concerns - and injects escalatory potential into a conflict that shows few signs of resolving and potential for expansion as it enters its sixth month.
Saudi Arabia responded Thursday to the blockade by announcing a defense coalition aimed at protecting international shipping and energy routes in the Red Sea.
Pro-Houthi commentator Hussain al-Bukhaiti, whose brother is a senior political officer in the group, predicted that there would be "more escalation" if Saudi Arabia does not accept Houthi demands, which include free movement at Yemen's ports and airports, the exchange of all prisoners of war and the use of Yemen's oil revenue - much of which is under Saudi control - to pay salaries for civil servants and for services across the country.
He said that the likelihood of Saudi Arabia accepting those demands is low, noting increased collaboration with the United States.
Since the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz by Iran in response to the U.S.-Israeli attack that began in February, Saudi Arabia has used its East-West pipeline to transport much of its oil to the Red Sea coast for export through the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, under the shadow of Houthi fighters.
That presented a target that appeared too tempting to pass up for the Houthis, whose willingness to step into the broader conflict remained an open question. Unlike Iranian-backed groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Shiite militias in Iraq, they had largely refrained from intervening in the war on Iran's behalf.
"Oil is the backbone of Saudi Arabia," al-Bukhaiti said. "If you want to hit someone, you hit them where it hurts."
Over the past weeks, the Houthis have done just that, appearing to strike a Saudi-flagged oil tanker and two petroleum facilities on the country's Red Sea coast, according to satellite imagery and official statements.
"When you have a pattern of people testing and reacting to each other, as the Houthis and Saudi are doing, the opportunity for misunderstandings is ripe," said Adam Baron, a fellow with the Future Security Program at New America, a Washington think tank, who studies the Houthis. "When you are testing red lines, ... there is a risk of things getting out of hand."
From 2015 to 2022, Yemen's Houthi rebels and Saudi Arabia fought a war that brought Yemen to the brink of famine and contributed to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Yemenis, according to findings by the U.N. Development Program. It ended with a fragile truce in 2022.
Efforts to go back to the negotiating table following that truce were complicated by the Houthis' decision to launch attacks on Israel and on ships in the Red Sea, in retaliation for Israel's campaign in the Gaza Strip, said Ahmed Nagi, a senior Yemen analyst for the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based research organization.
This time, the Houthis' decision to get involved in the war reflected both their dispute with Saudi Arabia and their commitment to supporting Iran, Nagi said.
The ongoing round of escalation began in July, when a plane from Iran arrived at Sanaa International Airport in Yemen - a red line for Saudi Arabia's government, which views such flights as a national security risk.
The Houthis then accused Saudi Arabia of bombing the airport.
"This was an excuse to escalate because of local demands," Nagi said, noting that the Houthis understood such flights would not be accepted by Saudi Arabia.
The timing, he said, was "not about Iran," although he said that Houthi intervention probably benefits both the Houthis and the Iranian regime. If in the past Iran had been a force moderating the Houthis, he said, that is no longer the case. And the Houthis also know that if Iran is weakened, he said, "by default they will also be weakened."
Mohammed Albasha of the U.S.-based risk advisory firm Basha Report, said that the Houthis are using instability in the region to try to change a status quo that's existed since 2022.
The truce left Houthis in control of northern Yemen, and an internationally recognized government that is backed by Saudi Arabia controlling the south.
They believe the strait off their shores "has quadrupled in value because of the Strait of Hormuz," he said. "So this is their opportunity to maximize pressure quickly and get what they want."
Al-Bukhaiti, the pro-Houthi commentator, said that the decision by the Houthis to get involved was their own, but added that there is "no shame" in Iran helping them, and vice versa, comparing it to the relationship between Israel and the United States. He said that all it would take is "one call" from Iran, and the Houthis would close the entire Bab al-Mandeb Strait.
So far, they have specified that their blockade is specifically against ships from Saudi Arabia. But the effect, still, has been that insurance premiums on all boats have shot up so much that traffic through the strait has slowed, according to maritime data tracking companies.
Houthi forces hit the Saudi-flagged oil tanker NCC because the vessel ignored warnings, Brigadier Gen. Yahya Saree, a Houthi spokesperson, said Tuesday.
The tanker, which was laden with oil, was seen Monday morning in the Red Sea, according to imagery analyzed by TankerTrackers.com. It appeared to have reversed course by Thursday, having moved north into the sea, imagery analyzed by the group shows. The tanker has not transmitted a tracking signal since July 23, according to the marine tracking firm Kpler.
While the tempo of strikes is nowhere near what it was a decade ago, when the Houthis and Saudi Arabia were in a full-fledged war, the escalation of the past week is "unprecedented in recent years," said Baron.
"The Houthis want more concessions, and they are testing the Saudi red lines," he said. "They also want to refute the narrative that U.S. and Israeli strikes have left them weak or incapable of doing something like this."
He said that the problem is that both sides "feel like they are living with a gun to their head ... and no one wants to live like that."
Already, Houthi attacks appear to have hit at least two facilities belonging to the Saudi state oil company, Aramco, along the Red Sea.
Satellite imagery of the Jazan refinery captured last weekend shows a plume of pitch-black smoke appearing to rise over an oil storage tank. Two days later, images show the roof of a large white oil storage tank in the same location, apparently blackened.
More than 600 miles south along the coast, at the Yanbu refinery complex, satellite imagery showed several areas of discoloration, including what appeared to be a darkened long building, but analysts said they could not attribute the changes to a particular cause. Saree, the Houthi military spokesperson, said the group had fired ballistic missiles and drones at both the Yanbu and Jazan facilities, which refine hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil per day.
Yanbu is also home to the main port of the East-West oil pipeline that has helped it skirt Iran's blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.
Nadwa Al-Dawsari, a nonresident scholar at the Middle East Institute, a Washington think tank, who studies Yemen and the Houthis, said that the group waited to enter the war because there was "no strategic value in entering the confrontation earlier."
"Iran and the Houthis tend to escalate in stages, preserving more consequential options until they are needed," she said. "Their intervention now reflects a deliberate decision to increase pressure while still stopping short of fully activating the Red Sea front."
She said that the Houthis' targets so far suggest "a deliberate and graduated escalation" that is intended to impose enough economic pressure on Saudi Arabia to extract concessions and increase pressure on the U.S.
But their stopping short of a "sustained, large-scale campaign against Saudi territory" is intentional, she said.
"They are signaling both capability and resolve," she said, "while preserving more consequential options should the conflict widen or diplomacy fail."
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