EXCLUSIVE: US expands intel, targeting support for Saudi campaign against Iranian ally

By Zachary Cohen, Katie Bo Lillis, Kylie Atwood, CNN

(CNN) — More than 100 US military advisers are on the ground in Saudi Arabia providing intelligence and targeting support to the Kingdom in its military campaign against the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen, multiple sources familiar with the effort say. The assistance comes as fighting on the peninsula intensifies and risks spilling into open war with the Houthis, threatening a second major shipping corridor out of the Middle East.

The US military personnel are working as part of a newly-established joint forces command, which was formed in recent weeks amid signs Iran was ramping up its own efforts to aid Houthi attacks against Saudi Arabia, one of the sources, a US official, said. That official put the total at roughly 200 troops.

The presence of US troops assisting Saudi Arabia was described to CNN by five sources familiar with the operations.

The US has helped Saudi Arabia use a targeting tool that allows military officers to see in real-time what is happening on the battlefield, one US official told CNN, comparing it to the Maven system used by the Pentagon. Another source familiar with ongoing cooperation between the two countries also said that the US is providing “geospatial” targeting support to Saudi Arabia for strikes against the Houthis.

However, there are currently tight limits to the US support, the sources say.

The US is sharing intelligence with Saudi Arabia — as it routinely does already — but it is not participating directly in strikes. The US is also not helping refuel Saudi warplanes or providing other operational support, as it has in past fighting with the Houthis.

The effort is instead focused on ensuring Saudi Arabia’s operations run smoothly and professionally, one of the sources said.

All of the sources characterized the effort as an extension of preexisting cooperation and training the US was already providing to Saudi Arabia, a strong regional ally.

A Department of Defense official told CNN that “as a matter of practice we do not comment on intelligence-related matters.” CNN reached out to the Saudi Arabian embassy in Washington.

The US support comes amid recent Houthi advances on the peninsula, with fighting in recent days perhaps at its sharpest pitch since 2022. A fragile truce between the Houthis and the Saudi Arabia-backed Yemeni government took hold that year, but the country has remained effectively split in two since then.

The militia group on Thursday seized a strategic Red Sea port that could allow it to threaten a key shipping waterway, the Bab-el-Mandeb strait, and killed dozens of civilians in a missile and drone attack on Saudi Arabia earlier this week.

But hanging over the US effort are the memories of years of controversial targeting support American forces provided to Riyadh during the Obama and first Trump administrations that critics said contributed to a high number of civilian casualties.

Later, in Trump’s second administration, the US launched a months-long campaign against the Houthis in Yemen that ended in an abrupt ceasefire agreement. CNN previously reported that Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Dan Caine, pushed for ending that operation soon after he was confirmed as Trump’s top military adviser over concerns the US lacked a clear exit strategy.

US officials have been closely monitoring the Houthis as the US war in Iran has ground on and threatened to spill over into proxy conflicts elsewhere in the region.

Although Saudi Arabia was initially reluctant to become too deeply involved in the US war with Iran — even refusing to support initial US efforts to escort commercial ships impacted by the that war earlier this summer — the increasingly aggressive attacks by the Houthis have raised US and Saudi Arabian concerns about a second front.

US officials believe there are currently hundreds of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps officers in Yemen, working alongside the Houthis with goal of ultimately shutting down the Bab-el-Mandeb strait, which connects the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean, one of the US officials told CNN.

CNN previously reported that Iran had been plotting an economic “nuclear option” if negotiations with the US fall apart: getting the Houthis to close that key waterway.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio alluded to intelligence about the IRGC presence in Yemen earlier this week when he told reporters that Iran had a hand in recent Houthi attacks targeting Saudi energy infrastructure, according to one of the US officials.

Still, US forces are already stretched thin after more than six months of fighting in Iran, during which American troops in the region have absorbed repeated missile and drone attacks, long deployments and concerns about munitions. The US military is also focusing most of its attention on operations around the Strait of Hormuz, carrying out strikes against Iranian targets, escorting commercial ships through the waterway and maintaining a naval blockade of Iranian ports.

And there is a deep wariness inside the military of being too closely associated with a Saudi strike campaign against the Houthis — especially if a strike goes wrong and there are civilian casualties, as happened in the past, another US official said.

“This is not the old days,” another of the sources said.

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