The conflict has opened a second front in the Middle East after the United States and Israel attacked Iran, adding to global uncertainty and turmoil in energy markets.

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Trump’s mess has rekindled Yemen’s civil war and a years-long conflict between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia

When the US and Israel launched a war of aggression against Iran in late February, Tehran’s allies in the Middle East jumped into the fray. Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia fired rockets at Israel, while Shia militias in Iraq attacked US bases and diplomatic outposts. But the Houthis, who control large parts of Yemen, mostly stayed on the sidelines.

Over the past few weeks, however, the Houthis have changed their tactics and have entered the conflict in full force. They led a rapid advance along Yemen’s Red Sea coast, seizing a strategic port city and several islands that gave the militia control over the Bab al-Mandab strait, a vital waterway for energy shipments and other global trade. Thanks to Donald Trump’s war, Iran and its allies now dominate the Middle East’s two major regional energy chokepoints: Bab al-Mandab and the strait of Hormuz.

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© Photograph: Yahya Arhab/EPA

© Photograph: Yahya Arhab/EPA

© Photograph: Yahya Arhab/EPA

The president vacillated but decided on Sunday not to join Saudi Arabia, for now, in joint strikes against the Houthis in Yemen. But he also needs the kingdom’s cooperation in his war against Iran.

© Kenny Holston/The New York Times

The Iranian-backed militia was engaged in fierce battles with Saudi-backed government forces in Yemen on Sunday, as it seeks to maintain momentum in the war.

© Reuters

The Houthis, an Iranian-backed militia, said they had fired a wave of missiles and drones at Riyadh, and on Saudi oil facilities.

© Reuters

Drones get most of the attention in this war, and deservedly so—but the snipers are still out there, two Ukrainian marksmen told Army Inform, and the same drones have made their work far harder to survive. It now turns on watching, not shooting: long stretches at a hidden position, a thermal scope always running, and a constant fight to stay unseen.

Across the drone-saturated front, cheap cameras overhead have rewritten nearly every job—infantry, logistics crews, and now marksmen—so that surviving depends less on firepower than on never being seen.

The job is mostly watching

The men—a squad leader in a special-purpose sniper company, callsign Efiop, and his partner Maister—serve in the National Guard of Ukraine's 3rd Operational Purpose Brigade Spartan. Maister worked a factory milling machine before joining in 2022. He saw what Russian troops were doing, he said, and Ukrainian children started dying: he went to fight for the children, and he has a daughter of his own. A team takes a sector and holds it around the clock through a thermal scope.

"We can sit 40 days and never fire a shot. Or we go in, and in a single day we take down a lot of them," Efiop said.

His longest stint at one spot ran 48 days, and the greatest distance he has worked was 2,540 meters—more than a mile and a half.

Up to 154 pounds on your back, over 12 miles to cross

Reaching a position is often the hardest part. A sniper carries a vest, helmet, an assault rifle and the sniper rifle, and what supplies will fit—60 to 70 kilograms, or 132 to 154 pounds. They stay more than a month, and a month's worth will not go on one back. That load sometimes crosses more than 20 kilometers, over 12 miles, of open ground with no tree line to hide behind.

"You don't walk, you run," Maister said.

Lately it has eased a little: food can be dropped in by a heavy Vampire bomber drone.

Drones rewrote the rulebook

The biggest shift came from the sky. Russian drones with thermal cameras can see a bullet in flight because it is warm, Efiop said, and then burn out the position.

"They caught us like that once. We took out three, they saw where we fired from and burned the spot. We moved right away, and everyone lived," Efiop noted.

Now the snipers watch remotely from a safer place instead of lying behind the scope for hours. Once, that safer setup saved a life outright: a mortar round came in and pierced only the rifle scope.

Clashes between Iranian-backed Houthi fighters and Saudi-backed government forces have been reported near oil-rich Marib Province.

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The Houthis, an Iran-backed militia in Yemen, said they had downed a Saudi jet, while Saudi authorities accused the group of firing a drone near Mecca. The Houthis denied doing so.

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The Houthis are increasingly using artificial intelligence and other tools to produce advanced weaponry on their own, making them less reliant on Iran.

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The two sides traded accusations of attacks as fighting inside Yemen remains fierce. The escalating conflict threatens to further destabilize the Middle East.

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The Iranian-backed militia has made strategic gains, becoming an unlikely power player in the Middle East.

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Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman asked the United States for more U.S. military help last week after the Iranian-backed Houthi forces in Yemen launched a broad offensive.

© Pool photo by Julie Sebadelha

Talks between the United States and Iran hit a dead end weeks ago, leaving Arab countries struggling to manage their ties to Tehran amid ongoing attacks.

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A drone attack from Iraq forced Saudi Arabia to close its East-West pipeline, the kingdom said, threatening a key workaround to Iran’s Persian Gulf blockade.

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Iran and its allies now hold sway over two key oil shipping routes, and Tehran is setting the stage for a diplomatic win that could enhance its stature.

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A strategic location on the Red Sea afforded the city centuries of trading dominance — and makes it a coveted target in today’s fighting in the Middle East.

© Khaled Abdullah/Reuters

Hunger and disease have tormented Yemen for years. Now, fighting between the Saudi-backed government and Iran-backed Houthis is pushing it to the brink.

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The militia captured the island in the Bab al-Mandab Strait, a choke point for trade. Saudi Arabia also announced it had shut down a critical oil pipeline after a drone attack launched from Iraq.

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