ABC says the US is warning staff off the Yemen border; the Guardian says it met the Houthis and stood back

The week. Saudi warplanes struck Yemen and Houthi drones and missiles hit Saudi cities. The Houthis have seized islands in the Bab el-Mandeb strait. The Security Council met in emergency session on Tuesday.

Where the reports part. Two describe the same week and put Washington in two places.

The numbers. 450 Saudi air strikes this week — the figure is the Houthi military spokesman's, and Riyadh has not confirmed its own strikes. ABC's summary says Houthi strikes on a Saudi pipeline disrupted "up to 4 per cent of global oil shipments"; its own body blames that attack on Iran-aligned fighters in Iraq, and gives the 4 per cent as what traders say a prolonged closure could cut. Brent near $108; US diesel above $6.30 a gallon.

Not settled. Nobody is counted. No report we hold gives a death or injury toll, or names anyone killed. The only human figure is displacement: thousands fleeing to Djibouti. Only the Guardian has the Muscat meeting, and it names no source. Saudi officials and Aramco did not answer the report that asked.

What this is about. A war inside Yemen that has pulled in Saudi Arabia, Iran and the United States, and a narrow shipping lane at the bottom of the Red Sea that the fighting can close.

How it got here. Yemen's Houthi movement — formally Ansar Allah — seized the capital Sanaa in September 2014 and drove out the internationally recognised government. In March 2015 Saudi Arabia assembled a coalition and began bombing to put that government back. The war ran on until a UN-brokered truce in April 2022, which slowed it without ending it. After the Gaza war that began in October 2023, the Houthis began attacking ships in the Red Sea, saying they were acting over Gaza; the United States and Britain struck Houthi targets from January 2024, and in May 2025 President Trump said the US would halt that bombing campaign. The Guardian reports that the ceasefire between the two sides struck in 2025 is the agreement the Houthis told American officials still holds. The Guardian's earlier coverage ties the renewed violence in Yemen to the US–Iran war.

Who is in it. The Houthis, described in every report we hold as Iran-backed, hold much of northern Yemen and now, the reports say, islands in the strait. Saudi Arabia shares a long land border with Yemen and has fought the Houthis for a decade; the Houthis say Saudi-linked shipping is a target because of what they call Riyadh's blockade of Yemen. The United States has both a ceasefire with the Houthis and a long alliance with Riyadh — which is where this week's two reports disagree. Oman hosted the meeting the Guardian describes. The UN Security Council, which exists to deal with threats to international peace, met in emergency session on Tuesday.

What is at stake. Bab el-Mandeb is the gate between the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, and so the sea route to the Suez Canal.

Where it stands. Strikes both ways, oil prices up, thousands of Yemenis fleeing to Djibouti — and, in what we hold, nobody counted.