Riyadh is once again reaching out to the religious forces whose influence MbS spent years curbing.
The CradIe
The images come as Saudi-backed formations lose ground to an offensive Sanaa launched under the Quranic slogan “And Allah is greater in might and stronger in punishment.”
The Ansarallah-aligned Yemeni Armed Forces’ (YAF) capture of western coastal districts, followed by advances through Taiz governorate, has exposed the coalition’s military divisions. The YAF puts its territorial control at around 95 percent of the governorate’s territory. Riyadh’s response has increasingly drawn on a familiar instrument of its war in Yemen, mobilizing sectarian hostility against Ansarallah.
Enlisting the two sacred cities
Since the summer of 2026, amid the US-Israeli war on Iran, Riyadh has revived sectarian incitement against Ansarallah with the help of Salafi groups that retain a prominent place among the coalition’s fighting forces. Having shifted from Emirati to Saudi patronage, these formations offer the kingdom a constituency whose doctrinal hostility toward Zaydis can be turned toward the battlefield.
Saudi Arabia has become increasingly intent on giving its policies religious legitimacy. Its account of a drone attack near Mecca on 15 September 2026, followed by claims that a cruise missile was intercepted in the Medina region on 15 October, provided material for campaigns invoking the defense of Islam’s holy cities.
Yemeni forces denied targeting the holy sites, rejecting the Medina allegation as a fabrication. Yemenis also held a mass demonstration in Sanaa “in defense of Mecca and the holy sites.”
Saudi media promoted the allegations, with Gulf and Yemeni outlets aligned with the coalition echoing them. The resulting campaigns sought to discredit Ansarallah, whose standing had risen through its military campaign in support of Gaza, and recast the confrontation as a defense of Muslim sanctities against a sectarian enemy.
Fatwas on demand
Alongside these allegations, Saudi Arabia mobilized its preachers against Ansarallah through fatwas issued “on demand.” The renewed coordination brings the kingdom’s religious and political establishments together after Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) spent years weakening the clerical structures that had underpinned their alliance.
Grand Mufti Saleh al-Fawzan, who assumed the post in October 2025, issued a statement directly condemning Ansarallah and lending religious authority to the campaign against it. His intervention placed the kingdom’s highest religious office behind the forces confronting Sanaa, presenting their mission as the defense of Muslim holy sites and obedience to legitimate rulers.
Fawzan’s statement also associated Ansarallah with Satan and cast resistance to its rule as a duty sanctioned by God.
The mufti was appointed on MbS’s recommendation and has a record of hostile positions toward the Muslim Brotherhood and Shia. In April 2026, Arabic media reported that his website and fatwa archive had become inaccessible, prompting speculation about the removal or review of material accumulated over decades. His latest intervention against Ansarallah gives that religious authority a prominent role in Riyadh’s renewed war effort.
On 25 September, the Saudi cleric said: “The Houthi group was founded on corruption in creed and corruption in approach, so it rebelled against its rulers and divided the country and its people.” He described it as “a misguided sect and a deviant group that declares the Companions unbelievers, considers Muslim blood lawful to shed, and permits the demolition and destruction of their mosques.” Restoring security in Yemen under its recognized leadership, he declared, was “among the most binding duties.”
Preaching for the front
The alignment between Yemen’s Salafi preachers and Saudi Wahhabi discourse is evident in the use of religious rulings to legitimize the war against Ansarallah. Ahmed bin Hassan al-Muallim, head of the Yemeni Scholars Association, called for mobilization as a religious and national duty. Islah MP and association spokesman Mohammed Nasser al-Hazmi al-Idrisi also played a role in inciting fighting against Ansarallah by adopting religious rhetoric that legitimizes confronting them and supports seeking Saudi Arabia’s assistance.
As Sanaa’s forces advance through Taiz, high-level sources connected to its negotiations with tribes and armed formations tell The Cradle that Saudi Arabia is working intensively to exploit sectarian divisions in the governorate. Those negotiations aim to avert clashes and bloodshed, while Riyadh seeks to mobilize the forces resisting Sanaa’s advance.
The sources describe escalating incitement inside mosques by the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Islah party and Salafi groups, using sectarian rhetoric to encourage fighting against Ansarallah. Against this backdrop, Ansarallah political bureau member Ali al-Imad warned that Saudi Arabia was mobilizing takfiri groups under military designations.
Multiple local sources tell The Cradle that similar rhetoric has spread through mosques and religious schools in southern governorates. In Lahj, recruitment advertisements obtained by The Cradle call for a Salafi brigade to support the kingdom’s war against Sanaa’s forces.
One requires applicants to follow a “Salafi approach” and describes recruitment for a “Tawhid Brigade” against the “Houthi Rafidhi tide,” using a derogatory term for Shia. Local sources characterize the proposed formation as takfiri and modeled on ISIS.
Buying the southern front
Saudi Arabia has also provided financial support to loyal Salafi military commanders in southern Yemen, seeking to strengthen their formations and expand their battlefield role. According to local sources, these formations include members of takfiri organizations whom Riyadh has pushed toward the fronts following Sanaa’s extension of control along the western coast to Bab al-Mandab.
Among the reported recipients are Major General Hamdi Hassan Mohammed Shukri, commander of the Fourth Military Region, the Giants Brigades’ Second Division, and the Seventh Infantry Brigade; Major General Abdulrahman Saleh Hassan al-Lahji, chief of staff of the Nation’s Shield Forces and commander of the Fourth Infantry Brigade; and Rashad al-Dhalei and Qusai al-Damani.
Abyan Today, citing political sources, reported that these commanders and others received around 600 million Saudi riyals from the Saudi “Special Committee.” The Islah-affiliated Taiz Axis was excluded, according to the same account, exposing divisions within the Saudi-backed camp and recriminations over withdrawals and surrender.
The effort to buy military loyalties is accompanied by an expansion of religious networks that can help sustain the formations on the ground. Alongside strengthening the Giants Brigades under Abdulrahman al-Muharrami, known as Abu Zara, Yemeni activist Adel al-Hasani says Riyadh established 62 religious centers during the truce, stretching from Bab al-Mandab to Mahra.
A separate report of his allegations names Saudi officer Falah al-Shahrani and Ambassador Mohammed al-Jaber as overseeing the network. Many are reportedly run by followers of Salafi preacher Yahya al-Hajuri and draw on religious authorities including Rabee al-Madkhali.
Since the Saudi–UAE confrontation intensified in late 2025, Riyadh has accelerated efforts to reorganize southern armed formations and win over their commanders, exploiting the decline in Emirati military influence after Abu Dhabi-backed forces were defeated in January 2026.
It was reported in February that the kingdom had budgeted nearly $3 billion for Yemeni military and civilian salaries, including roughly $1 billion for southern fighters previously paid by the UAE.
A divided Salafi camp
The setbacks suffered by Saudi-backed formations reflect fragmented leadership and conflicting political objectives as well as battlefield losses. Within Yemen’s Salafi movement, some leaders have rejected Riyadh’s attempt to inflame internal divisions.
Northern figures, including Sheikh Mohammed al-Imam, have treated the war against Ansarallah as strife among Muslims and signed coexistence and de-escalation agreements in areas including Saada, Dhamar, and Mabar.
Those agreements helped keep groups of fighters out of combat. Their refusal to treat the confrontation as a religious obligation has complicated the course Riyadh sought to impose on other Salafi formations, financing and arming them before pushing them into the fighting.
The divisions run through the religious networks on which the kingdom depends, as well as the military formations it has brought under its patronage. For those Salafi leaders who signed local agreements, coexistence with Ansarallah has offered a way to keep their communities outside the fighting, in direct conflict with the mobilization Riyadh is encouraging elsewhere.
Among Abu Dhabi-aligned forces, voices associated with the Southern Transitional Council (STC) have also warned that Riyadh’s renewed reliance on southern fighters reflects its military difficulties rather than a change in its political position.
They fear being used until the immediate threat recedes, then marginalized again. In their view, Saudi appeals to southern forces offer no assurance that the kingdom will accommodate their political demands once those fighters have served their immediate military purpose.
Sanaa has expanded its tribal contacts and exploited divisions among its opponents alongside its military campaign. Reports suggest these negotiations, security infiltrations, and strikes on weapons depots have helped weaken opposing formations and prepare the ground for further advances.
Researcher and political analyst Ahmed al-Hasani describes sectarianism as one of Saudi Arabia’s principal mobilization tools in Yemen. But he distinguishes between Salafi schools linked to Riyadh, others tied to Abu Dhabi, and those retaining some independence.
Imam’s school in Dhamar regards the war as internal strife, he explains, while Saudi Arabia continues courting figures from the Fuyush school in Aden without yet drawing them into battle, despite Saudi clerics’ fatwas – including Fawzan’s.
Hasani says to The Cradle that inflammatory preaching has spread through mosques, while the takfiri groups closest to ISIS operate outside traditional mosque and religious-school structures. They concentrate in rural areas and around front lines, serving on fronts including Bayda and Marib.
The Nation’s Shield Forces remain deployed along contact lines in Marib, Jawf, Shabwa, Bayhan, and Abyan, on alert against Ansarallah but without broad offensives currently underway in those sectors.
Recruiting beyond Yemen
As its allied formations lose strategic positions, Riyadh has looked abroad for reinforcements. Axios reported Saudi–Syrian discussions about sending troops to Yemen, amid separate accounts of efforts to recruit takfiri fighters who fought in Syria.
These moves coincided with the activation of the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement between Saudi Arabia, Turkiye, and Pakistan. Despite reports of Pakistani soldiers massing near Yemen’s border, Islamabad said its forces would not cross into Yemen and that their mission was confined to defending Saudi territory.
Religious mobilization has also extended beyond Yemen. Syrian pages and accounts from Damascus, Idlib, and Hama have followed the fighting, while Yemeni sources told Al-Akhbar that fighters were being transferred from Syria through Saudi territory, with Turkiye helping some reach fronts in Marib, Jawf, Aden, and Hadhramaut.
Former Iraqi interior minister Baqir Jabr al-Zubaidi said an air bridge had been organized to move Syrian fighters to Yemen after Gulf military campaigns faltered.
The Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq, a Sunni clerical organization, issued a statement calling for political, media, ideological, and battlefield support for anti-Ansarallah fighters. It also condemned the crushing of men who had laid down their weapons, describing the incident as a grave religious violation and calling for corrective action against those responsible.
Hadi Qubaisi, director of the Ufeed Center for Research and Studies and a researcher specializing in political affairs and political Islam, argues that:
“The reliance on bringing fighters from Syria to Yemen is based primarily on exploiting numbers, rather than reviving a jihadist project capable of attracting large numbers. If this were an actual jihadist mobilization, its echoes would have appeared in Tripoli and the Palestinian camps. But the appeal of this discourse has declined, particularly after the Gaza war and the gap it exposed between slogans and practical positions.”
Saudi Arabia has lost some of its capacity for religious mobilization, Qubaisi adds to The Cradle, while Syria’s authorities are controlling religious discourse and reshaping curricula. Sending limited numbers of fighters therefore differs from unleashing a broad recruitment campaign.
In Yemen, Islah and its allies have likewise used religious and takfiri rhetoric in their confrontation with Ansarallah. Their ability to translate that preaching into widespread recruitment has remained limited, despite the efforts to present participation in the fighting as a religious duty.
Qubaisi considers that the transfer of fighters to Yemen faces substantial obstacles, from the battlefield’s limited appeal and the absence of financial incentives offered elsewhere to divisions and infighting among southern armed forces.
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