Egypt is considering deploying troops and military equipment to support Saudi Arabia against Yemen’s Houthi-led Ansarallah movement, marking a possible expansion of Cairo’s regional military role as the United States seeks to limit its direct involvement in the Middle East. The proposal, advanced by President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, has triggered parliamentary debate over the risks of entering another regional war and the implications for Egypt’s security and economic interests.
According to an analysis published by the Soufan Center, Egypt’s potential intervention comes as Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states seek alternative security partners following Washington’s refusal to meet a request for direct military action against Houthi forces. The movement has resumed attacks against Saudi Arabia and its allies in southern Yemen, ending a four-year ceasefire amid the wider US-led war against Iran and its regional partners in 2026.
Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s de facto leader, asked US President Donald Trump in September to intervene directly, including through air strikes against Houthi positions. Trump declined, opting instead to provide more limited assistance, including intelligence on Houthi forces and missile locations. Riyadh subsequently turned to Türkiye and Pakistan, partners under what the Soufan Center describes as the “Mecca Pact”, but both countries must balance their security calculations against the risk of provoking Iran, with which they share borders.
Egypt offers a different option. It is an Arab military power with a large army, close ties to Washington and no land border with Iran. Cairo also has previous experience participating in the Saudi- and United Arab Emirates-led coalition against the Houthis from 2015 to 2022, when it provided air and naval support, including warships protecting commercial shipping through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a strategic passage connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden.
Sisi’s latest initiative followed a visit by Mohammed bin Salman to Egypt for discussions on Yemen and wider regional issues. The Egyptian president subsequently sought parliamentary authorisation to deploy troops and military equipment abroad. Last week, the National Defense Council, chaired by Sisi, announced that Egypt would provide “all possible forms of support” to help Saudi Arabia defend its security against the Houthi threat, according to a presidential statement.
The precise scope of any deployment remains uncertain. Statements from other sources and observers close to the Egyptian government have described the proposed missions as “defensive”, potentially involving the protection of Saudi border territory, air defence and related operations rather than an offensive ground campaign in Yemen. Ayman El-Sayed Abdel-Wahab, a director at the Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, a state-affiliated research institution in Cairo, said the decision followed explicit “requests from Saudi Arabia as the situation there progressively worsened”.
Parliament began three days of debate on the proposal last week, with approval requiring 398 votes in the 596-seat chamber. The vote was postponed until 26 October, indicating disagreement over the president’s initiative. Several political parties and public figures have called for a diplomatic settlement and warned against committing Egyptian forces without clearly defined objectives or a credible assessment of the potential costs.
Those concerns are partly economic. Houthi attacks could threaten Egyptian interests, including ships approaching the Suez Canal, the Sumed oil pipeline, energy terminals and fuel storage facilities. Some of these installations have already been targeted by Houthi ballistic missiles during the US-Iran war. For three years, attacks on Red Sea shipping have also reduced Egypt’s foreign currency earnings, with the resulting losses exceeding the combined economic repercussions of the wars in Libya, Sudan and Gaza, according to the Soufan Center.
Supporters of intervention argue that weakening the Houthis would advance Cairo’s shared strategic objectives with moderate Arab governments by reducing Iran’s regional influence and strengthening Gulf security. An Egyptian military presence could also help Saudi forces and South Yemeni units counter recent Houthi advances along the Red Sea coast towards Bab el-Mandeb. Such a move would signal that Egypt was prepared to support Gulf states against Iranian pressure, while allowing Cairo to avoid a complete rupture with Tehran.
The Houthis have already objected to the proposal. In a letter published by Saba, a Houthi-run news agency in Yemen, Yahya al-Rai, speaker of the Houthi-aligned House of Representatives, urged Egyptian lawmakers to reject the deployment. “Egypt being drawn down this path would pose a grave danger to its national security and internal stability,” he warned.
Iran has also sought to discourage Egyptian involvement. As parliamentary deliberations began, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi spoke by telephone with his Egyptian counterpart, Badr Abdelatty, about “the latest regional developments”. The call reportedly sought to dissuade Cairo from intervening, reflecting Tehran’s concern that Egyptian forces could help Saudi Arabia and South Yemeni units inflict a strategic defeat on the Houthis, one of Iran’s most effective remaining regional partners.
Cairo’s calculations extend beyond Yemen. Sisi played an influential role in shaping Trump’s Gaza peace plan, which envisages the eventual disarmament of Hamas and the establishment of an interim technocratic governing committee. Egypt has been hosting the committee until conditions permit its relocation to Gaza. Yet some Egyptian leaders fear that a military commitment in Yemen would divert security resources from the continuing Israeli campaign against Hamas. Sisi and his allies regard Hamas as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, whose leader was elected Egyptian president in 2012 before being overthrown in a military coup led by Sisi in 2013.
Egypt’s regional ambitions are also evident in Sudan and the Horn of Africa. Cairo has supported the Sudan Armed Forces in their civil war against the Rapid Support Forces, helping the army and Sudanese state gain an advantage. The Soufan Center notes that Iran is said to be seeking a foothold in Port Sudan to extend its influence across the western Red Sea, while Egypt has sought to mobilise regional opposition to Ethiopia’s $5 billion Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, inaugurated one year ago, which threatens Egypt’s historic dominance over Nile water resources.
These interests have placed Cairo at odds with the United Arab Emirates, which is said to support the Rapid Support Forces and backs the Ethiopian government. On 4 October, Sisi convened a quadripartite summit in New Alamein City with Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki, Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and Sudan Armed Forces chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. Their joint statement declared that Red Sea governance remained the exclusive responsibility of littoral states and stressed the need to protect freedom and safety of international navigation in the Gulf of Aden and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.
