Australia

Canberra, October 5, 2026. Australian media are covering the announcement by the Chairman of Yemen's Presidential Council, Rashad al-Alimi, as a turning point in the regional war rather than a purely Yemeni episode. According to The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald, which picked up a dispatch from Beirut, the Riyadh-backed government intends to retake all the territory lost over the past twelve years, "plunging the Middle East even deeper into war". The text adds that Alimi's announcement "seemed to rule out any hope of a truce".

The ABC recalls that the Houthis have held Sanaa and the northwest, where most of the population lives, since 2014, and that they have resisted attacks by Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and their Western allies. Their surprise offensive last month gave them control of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and some 150 kilometres of coastline on the Red Sea. The ABC sees this as the opening of a new front in the US-Israeli war against Iran, which began in February. A military spokesman called on the Houthis to lay down their arms.

SBS highlights the paradox of an ambitious goal when the terrain is turning in favour of the Houthis. According to four security sources, they cut off the road between Taiz and Aden, the provisional seat of the government, on Sunday. The media quotes Alimi: the country must be freed from the "grip of the Houthi terrorist militia". The same dispatch indicates that the Houthis have again targeted Saudi oil infrastructure.

PerthNow, which picked up a dispatch, puts the resumption of hostilities into the calendar of the war with Iran. The 2022 truce had largely held, but fighting resumed after the Houthis declared a naval blockade against Saudi Arabia in July. Regional officials had told Reuters that Riyadh and its Yemeni allies were preparing an assault, with the Saudis providing air support and the Yemeni forces conducting the ground offensive. The Houthis have maintained the initiative on the ground.

The ABC reports the Houthi claims of missile and drone attacks on Aramco sites in Riyadh and the Khurais region, in retaliation for 50 Saudi strikes in 12 hours. The Age quotes spokesman Yahya Saree, who promises not to stop his "painful operations against the Saudi enemy". He also specifies that the Houthis describe government fighters as Saudi mercenaries. The pressure on maritime routes and energy markets, already shaken by the war with Iran, is mentioned in several texts.