Marib

Overview

Marib is both a city in Yemen and the governorate of which it is the principal city. Ancient Marib was the capital of Saba, a powerful South Arabian kingdom whose irrigation works included the Marib Dam. Modern Marib is an energy-producing region and a strategic front in the Yemeni civil war. Its city became the last main northern stronghold of the government of President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi during the 2021 battle. Control of Marib therefore affected the government’s survival in northern Yemen, access to major oil and gas resources, and the Houthis’ leverage in negotiations.

Geography

Marib Governorate lies in central Yemen, east of Sanaa. Its western districts connect mountainous approaches from the Houthi-held north with the more open central and eastern governorate. Marib also lies on a direct road toward Shabwa and Al-Mahra, making it a route between northern Yemen and the country’s east. The city’s road connections helped it develop as a trade center linking Houthi-held areas, government-held provinces, Saudi Arabia and Oman during the war. The same routes made the city and its approaches valuable military objectives.

Marib’s government-held territory contains major oil and gas resources, refining facilities and pipelines. Before the civil war, the governorate supplied almost all domestically produced fuel in Yemen and almost 90 percent of its liquefied petroleum gas. Its facilities thus mattered to households and commerce far beyond the governorate. A 2021 estimate placed potential Houthi revenue from taking Marib’s resources at $1.3 million to $5.5 million per day. Control of production, refining and transport infrastructure could also give the Houthis influence over fuel supply across Yemen.

Ancient and biblical history

Marib was the capital of Saba, one of the principal political entities of pre-Islamic Yemen alongside Ma’in, Himyar, Qataban and Hadramawt. Saba’s prosperity rested partly on trade along routes carrying incense across the Arabian Peninsula. The walled ancient city served as an administrative and commercial center. Nearby Sirwah was another important Sabaean settlement. Temples, inscriptions and surviving irrigation works record the kingdom’s political organization and technical skill.

The Marib Dam supported an extensive irrigation system that made cultivation possible in an otherwise dry landscape. Canals carried water to fields on both sides of the ancient city, sustaining a large artificial oasis. The dam became one of the best-known engineering works of ancient South Arabia. Ancient Marib, Sirwah, temples and parts of the dam form a group of archaeological landmarks inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List in 2023; the landmarks were also placed on its List of World Heritage in Danger.

Saba is associated with the biblical kingdom of Sheba. The Hebrew Bible recounts a visit by the queen of Sheba to King Solomon in Jerusalem, describing an exchange of questions and gifts. That literary and religious association gives Saba a place in Jewish tradition. It does not identify a particular surviving building in Marib as the queen’s residence.

Modern history

Marib’s natural resources did not bring comparable public development before the civil war. Government services and infrastructure remained limited despite the value of the governorate’s energy production. After war began in 2014, Marib’s relative stability and local leadership helped the city grow as people and commerce moved away from other battlefronts. It also became an important base for the internationally recognized government and the main headquarters of Yemen’s Ministry of Defense during the struggle for the city.

Marib became a central front of the Saudi-led intervention in the Yemeni civil war. Government forces, local resistance groups and the Islah Party fought the Houthis there. Fighting in the governorate’s Sirwah district killed tens of fighters on both sides during an earlier phase of the campaign. In April 2020, the Saudi-led coalition announced a two-week unilateral ceasefire amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The Houthis rejected the Saudi ceasefire on April 9 and continued their advance toward Marib; fighting in the governorate continued.

On February 6, 2021, the Houthis began a sustained assault involving a direct attack on Marib city. They faced forces loyal to Hadi and local resistance groups. At that point, energy-rich Marib was both the Saudi-led coalition’s last foothold in northern Yemen and the Hadi government’s last main stronghold there. The Houthis sought the city to consolidate control in the north and improve their position in future negotiations. Saudi air power and forces aligned with the United Arab Emirates pressed Houthi positions in Marib and neighboring Shabwa. UAE-backed forces inflicted heavy losses, and the Houthi assault failed to take the city.

Intense fighting continued before a UN-brokered ceasefire began in April 2022. The truce reduced the scale of combat, though incidents around Marib continued. The unsuccessful Houthi campaign left the city under government control and prevented the group from taking the governorate’s principal energy facilities.

Security

Houthi ballistic missiles and drones struck Marib during the 2021 battle, killing and wounding tens of civilians, including children. Houthi forces also targeted the oil refinery, displacing thousands of families. The attacks placed a growing civilian population at risk while threatening infrastructure used beyond the city. UN envoy Martin Griffiths visited Marib during an earlier March escalation, becoming the first UN envoy to visit the city since the war began in 2014.

Other armed activity and abuses also affected the governorate. An American missile strike on a house in Marib Governorate on February 27, 2023, killed two Al-Qaeda operatives. In June 2023, prosecutors in government-held Marib issued arrest warrants for five journalists investigating alleged corruption in its judiciary. Government authorities arrested writer Manea Suleiman over his social media opinions on June 18 and held him through the end of the year without family contact. Government and Southern Transitional Council courts sentenced five public figures to death in Marib without publicly specifying their charges. Inspections of prisons in Marib and other governorates found inadequate food and healthcare.

Present day

At the beginning of 2025, Houthi military activity shifted back toward front lines around Marib after little fighting there during the final months of 2024. Recorded Houthi combat engagements and remote attacks in January and February nearly doubled the level in any month since October 2023. The renewed campaign included shelling, drone attacks, infiltration attempts and mobilization. Houthi forces also targeted an American jet and drone with surface-to-air missiles in Marib.

By March 2025, the Houthis controlled the western edge of Marib Governorate, while Yemen’s internationally recognized government held its central and eastern areas, including Marib city and the principal oil and gas facilities. That division left the city close to an active front and kept control of Marib’s energy resources central to the conflict.

Houthi missile and drone attacks intensified again in August 2026. On August 7, the Houthis claimed an attack on Sahn al Jinn military base in Marib. Attacks on Marib city and surrounding areas killed at least two people and injured 14, with further launches reported in the following days. The Yemeni Emergency Brigades’ First Brigade was headquartered in eastern Marib. On August 10, Yemen’s armed forces struck Houthi fighters and infrastructure in Marib and neighboring Al Jawf. The renewed violence showed that the failed assault and the 2022 ceasefire had not ended fighting over the governorate.