# Trump offers Saudis intelligence help against Houthis while Houthi advances reshape Red Sea front

*Friday, September 11, 2026 at 6:05 PM UTC — Hamer Intelligence Services Desk*

**Published**: 2026-09-11T18:05:28.092Z (1h ago)
**Category**: conflict | **Region**: Middle East
**Importance**: 8/10
**Sources**: OSINT
**Permalink**: https://hamerintel.com/data/articles/17543.md
**Source**: https://hamerintel.com/summaries

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**Deck**: President Trump has refused Saudi requests for direct U.S. strikes on Yemen’s Houthis, offering intelligence and targeting support instead, as Houthi forces kill a senior Saudi‑backed commander and seize key ground from Hodeida to the Bab el‑Mandeb Strait.

The war in Yemen is tightening around one of the world’s most important shipping chokepoints just as Washington draws a hard line on its own role.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has twice urged President Trump to launch U.S. strikes against Houthi targets, according to accounts of the contacts. Trump has rejected those appeals. Instead, the United States is offering intelligence and targeting support to Saudi Arabia and its Yemeni allies while keeping American airpower out of the direct fight.

That decision comes as the Houthis inflict visible losses on Saudi‑backed forces. Yemeni reports say Houthi fighters killed Brigadier General Farouk al Kholani, commander of the Hodeida axis and one of the most prominent officers in the Tihama region. According to the same account, they also killed his son and daughter and abducted another daughter. Al Kholani was described as a veteran of the 2017–2018 campaign to push the Houthis back along the western coast.

On other fronts, Houthi units are still pressing their advantage. They have seized the strategic Red Sea port of Mocha, moving closer to the Bab el‑Mandeb Strait and increasing pressure on shipping through the southern Red Sea. The Houthis have also taken control of Mayyun (Perim) Island in the strait after Saudi‑backed government forces withdrew, completing what local officials and eyewitnesses describe as a takeover of the area from the port of Mokha down the coast.

At the same time, Saudi‑aligned forces grouped under Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council (PLC) are trying to hit back. They’ve announced a new series of airstrikes in southwest Yemen in an area declared a military target, warning civilians to avoid roads linking Taiz with Mokha and Mokha with Dhubab. On the ground, Houthi fighters reportedly destroyed a PLC armored vehicle in Al‑Jawf using a Dehlavieh anti‑tank guided missile, a system produced and supplied by Iran.

The United States is now more tightly bound into this air campaign through intelligence. Trump has said Washington will provide information to Saudi Arabia to help target the Houthis in Yemen, rather than entering the conflict with its own strikes. That choice gives Riyadh access to U.S. surveillance and analysis while leaving Saudi aircraft and Yemeni allies to carry out the attacks.

For Saudi leaders, the mix of support and restraint underscores a difficult reality. U.S. intelligence and targeting assistance are valuable against dispersed, mobile Houthi units, but they don’t change the fact that Saudi Arabia will bear the brunt of the costs and risks as the Houthis expand their reach toward Bab el‑Mandeb.

What will matter next is whether Saudi‑backed forces can replace al Kholani’s leadership and slow the Houthi advance, and whether the promised U.S. intelligence support translates into a more effective air campaign without pulling American forces further into the war.