Saudi Arabia Tried to Push the Houthis Back. Now the War Is Hitting Home.

Twelve years after Saudi Arabia entered Yemen's war to push the Houthis out of the capital and back into the mountains, the fighting is reaching Riyadh.

The Houthis are Iran-aligned fighters based in Yemen. Saudi Arabia joined the war against them with a similar goal to the one Yemen's government still states today, to drive them from power centers and contain them in their northern stronghold. That effort has not worked for 12 years.

In the latest strike, the Houthis fired three ballistic missiles at Yemeni government security forces during a training exercise. Local sources reported at least 58 people were killed and more than 200 were injured.

At the same time, the Houthis are striking Saudi targets almost daily, including energy infrastructure and airports in Riyadh, Dammam, and the south. The attacks have disrupted flights to and from Saudi Arabia, closed Riyadh airport, and forced organizers to postpone Saudi Arabia's main investment meeting, nicknamed Davos in the Desert, to 2027.

The result is a reversal that travelers can see on the ground. Timur Azhari, a chief correspondent covering the region, had to drive through the desert from Riyadh to Bahrain to catch a flight to Dubai. More people are now taking land routes out of Saudi Arabia, and embassies and companies are telling citizens and employees to fly from neighboring Gulf states.

That is a sharp flip from earlier in the wider regional conflict, when, as Azhari put it, Saudi Arabia became "sort of the haven for people fleeing Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait" during Iranian attacks. Now the Yemen war has come home in a way it had not for a decade, with almost daily attacks.