UAE, Saudi Arabia deny reports of involvement in talks about land offensive in Yemen

The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia on Wednesday denied media reports they were involved in talks with the U.S. over a possible land offensive by military factions in Yemen against the Houthi group that controls much of the country.

A senior UAE official dismissed the reports, calling them unsubstantiated, while a Saudi official source said the reports were false.

The Wall Street Journal on Monday reported that Yemeni factions were planning a ground offensive along the Red Sea coast to take advantage of U.S. bombing of the Houthis and that the UAE had raised that plan with U.S. officials.

Bloomberg reported on Wednesday that Yemeni forces opposed to the Iran-aligned Houthis were in talks with the U.S. and Gulf allies about a possible land offensive.

Lana Nusseibeh, the UAE's assistant minister for political affairs, told Reuters in reference to the media reports on the issue: "Among all the wild unsubstantiated stories going around, that one surely wins the misleading-news-of-the-week award, by a wide margin."

The Pentagon did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The UAE was part of a Saudi-led coalition that launched a military campaign in Yemen from early 2015 to support the Gulf-backed government against the Houthis, who had seized the capital Sanaa in 2014.

The UAE ended much of its presence in Yemen in 2019 and major fighting in the civil war paused in 2022 with a truce and peace talks, leaving the Houthis in control of swathes of the country and much of the population.

The Houthis, who are closely aligned with Iran and opposed to Israel, began attacking Red Sea shipping in November 2023 in what they said was a show of solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza war.

U.S. President Donald Trump escalated airstrikes against the Houthis in March, warning the group that if its attacks on shipping did not stop, "hell will rain down upon you like nothing you have ever seen before".

The Houthis, who waged a series of civil wars against the Yemeni government from 2003 to 2009, withstood years of bombardment by the Saudi-led coalition from 2015 with little change to the main front lines in the conflict.

The Red Sea coast, where the Wall Street Journal reported that Yemeni factions were planning an offensive, was the site of a major, ultimately unsuccessful assault by coalition-backed forces on Hodeidah, the biggest port held by the Houthis.

The coalition had to navigate differences between pro-government, Sunni Muslim Islamist and southern separatist factions among its Yemeni allies. Saudi Arabia and the UAE supported different factions, analysts say.

Saudi Arabia wound down its campaign in Yemen with peace talks and a truce in 2022, shortly before agreeing to a diplomatic rapprochement with Iran.