Guest Articles

Dubai, 28 October 2026: Yemen's war sat at the edge of the Gulf business story for years. That changed in July, when the Houthis resumed attacks on Saudi Arabia, and it escalated sharply in October, when Saudi-backed government forces launched Operation Dawn of Yemen to retake Sanaa from the Houthis.

The coalition says Houthi attacks on Riyadh's main airport between 7 and 11 October killed 17 people and injured 333. Houthi missiles and drones have since reached Dammam, Abha, Taif and Yanbu. If you have staff, projects or customers in Saudi Arabia, it's time to plan for a conflict that isn't going away soon.

What it means for business

Riyadh airport has partly reopened with limited flights, but several carriers have extended their Saudi cancellations into November and December, and Dubai has become the region's practical gateway. The Future Investment Initiative (FII), due to take place this week, has been postponed to 2027.

Saudi Arabia's stock market fell to a five-year low last week, and UAE markets also briefly felt the impact. Both have since won back most of those losses on hopes of diplomacy, but that recovery rests on talks, not agreements.

Employers are making hard calls. The US has ordered its non-essential staff out of Saudi Arabia, and those who remain need special permission to use any Saudi airport. Aramco has reportedly moved its Dhahran headquarters staff to remote working. Both decisions have become benchmarks for other organisations weighing up their duty of care.

Understanding the risk

A US official says Saudi defences stop more than 90% of missiles aimed at protected sites, but over half of recent attacks have landed outside that cover. Interceptions don't mean no impact either: falling debris has damaged homes in the south-west, a building and a construction site in Riyadh, and has come down near Mecca and Medina. That moves risk towards secondary airports, logistics hubs and staff housing. The UK and France are helping defend Saudi airspace, but their defensive role points to a long campaign.

The information war

The attacks are only half of the Houthi campaign. The other half is fought online, by one of the region's most organised propaganda machines. It casts the war as "resistance" and Saudi Arabia as the aggressor, to audiences across Yemen, the Arab world and the Yemeni community in the Kingdom.

This month it has been aimed squarely at confidence. The Houthis have warned airlines and travellers away from Saudi airports, and declared Riyadh airport still "unsafe" as soon as it began to reopen. They have claimed hits on airports, refineries and pipelines that Saudi Arabia hasn't confirmed, and denied attacks that were intercepted. 

This week they claimed a missile had caused "massive fires" at Ras Tanura, the Kingdom's largest refinery. Saudi Arabia hasn't confirmed a strike, and the only independent report is of a fire near the terminal that was contained within hours.

Their disinformation tactics work because false claims travel faster than the facts. By the time a correction appears, a claim may already have shaped a travel decision or a board conversation. The aim is to make the Kingdom feel less safe than it is.

The next six months

The most likely path is a long, drawn-out conflict, with airports opening and closing and more events slipping into 2027.

Things could get worse if the fighting spreads to Red Sea shipping or draws other countries in more directly. For businesses, that would mean longer travel disruption, higher shipping and insurance costs, and more pressure on supply chains. The weeks after the US midterms on 3 November are worth watching closely.

A pause is most likely to come through diplomacy. Saudi Arabia's defence minister has held talks in Tehran, and Iran has offered to help settle the dispute. The tone is warmer, but nothing has been agreed yet.

What to do now

Three things to watch. Whether Riyadh airport gets back to normal, whether the US steps up its involvement, and whether the talks produce anything concrete.

Prepare before you need to move. Know who can authorise a relocation, and plan routes out, including overland.

Check your contracts and set triggers. Review insurance and force majeure terms now, and agree in advance what would change your travel policy, such as an airport closure.

Benchmark your decisions. If you don't follow the US or Aramco, be ready to explain why.

Check what you hear. Treat claims as claims until someone independent confirms them.

Brief your staff on local rules. Filming or sharing footage of interceptions, or of where debris lands, is a criminal offence in Saudi Arabia, and some foreign nationals have already been detained for it.

Talk to your people early. Silence from leadership does more damage to morale than bad news.

Building resilience

The businesses that come through periods like this well tend to have done the groundwork early. They can serve key customers from more than one place, have back-up suppliers and routes, know exactly who makes which decisions, and check the facts before they act. That groundwork pays off long after this conflict ends.

The same goes for information. Fake evacuation notices, doctored footage and statements wrongly attributed to companies can spread through staff WhatsApp groups within minutes. Resilient organisations warn their people in advance what to expect, agree one trusted channel for updates, and decide before a crisis who checks a claim and who responds. People who have been warned about a tactic are far less likely to fall for it.

This will run for months, not weeks. The businesses that cope best will be the ones that plan calmly and read the news carefully.

IN2 produces daily reports on the situation across the Middle East, including the Saudi/Yemen conflict. To subscribe, email [email protected] 

Author: Brian Lewis - Director of Global Communications at IN2