The Houthis Released Video of a Saudi F-15 They Say They Shot Down Over Marib, Tailfin Number 5539 and All. The Same Weekend, U.S. Diplomats Sat Down With Them at the Embassy in Muscat, and Trump Now Says the War Is 'Hopefully' Near Its End.

Yemen's Houthi rebels released video on Wednesday of what they said was a Saudi F-15 fighter jet they shot down over the country's west-central Marib governorate, and the footage is specific enough to be checked. It shows an electronic image of a missile striking what appears to be a fighter, then Houthi fighters picking through wreckage in a desert landscape and hoisting a tailfin that carries a Saudi flag insignia and the identification number 5539. CNN geolocated the crash site to Marib after the location was first identified by the BBC. Saudi Arabia has not commented, and CNN said it had asked both Saudi and U.S. authorities for a response.

The Houthi statement said the jet "was downed using a locally manufactured surface-to-air missile" while it "conducted hostile operations" over Marib. Cedric Leighton, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel and CNN military analyst, said the tail markings in the video were "consistent" with Saudi F-15 aircraft. The Saudi F-15SA is one of the newest versions of a jet that entered U.S. service in 1976; it is based on the F-15E Strike Eagle, and Riyadh took delivery of its last order of the Boeing-built aircraft in December 2020. If the loss is confirmed, it would be only the second F-15 downed by hostile fire in the seven-month war, after a U.S. Air Force Strike Eagle shot down by Iranian forces earlier in the conflict. That shootdown triggered a rescue operation that recovered the crew but forced the destruction of several U.S. aircraft stuck at a desert landing site. Three other American F-15s were lost to Kuwaiti friendly fire in the war's opening days.

The shootdown claim lands in the middle of a fast-moving escalation in Yemen. The Houthis captured a Red Sea port city and the island of Mayyun in the Bab al-Mandeb strait last week, completing their hold on a waterway that has served for months as a backup export route for Saudi oil while the Strait of Hormuz remains contested. Saudi Arabia linked its own recent strikes to what it described as a Houthi drone attack aimed at Mecca, which it says its air defenses destroyed before the drone entered restricted airspace. The Houthi-controlled armed forces said Saudi F-15s flying from King Khalid Air Base in Khamis Mushait carried out 37 airstrikes across Taiz and Hajjah provinces in 24 hours and caused civilian casualties, a claim CNN could not verify. Houthi spokesman Yahya Saree separately put the figure at 40 strikes across Taiz, Marib and Hodeidah, and said the group had answered by targeting the Khamis Mushait base and an oil facility at the Red Sea port of Yanbu. The United Nations says at least nine children have been killed and more than 57,000 displaced in two weeks of fighting.

Riyadh is feeling the strain. Two officials told The Associated Press that Saudi Arabia is running low on missile interceptors and has asked France, Britain, Pakistan and Egypt to send air-defense support, in part because the United States, its main arms supplier, has burned through much of its own interceptor stock fighting Iran. U.S. Central Command spokesman Tim Hawkins told Al Jazeera the U.S. is "closely monitoring" the situation and pointed to a long-standing "military relationship with our Saudi partners." The top U.S. diplomat for Yemen, Neil Hop, told Yemeni Foreign Minister Afrah al-Zouba that Washington maintains its "strong support" for the internationally recognized government.

At the same time, and with far less publicity, U.S. officials held direct talks with Houthi representatives at the American embassy in Muscat last weekend, according to three sources who described the meeting to Reuters. The Omani government helped arrange it, and the U.S. ambassador did not attend. The Houthis told the Americans they had no intention of attacking U.S. vessels and remained committed to the ceasefire the two sides reached in May 2025. Washington has so far declined to join the Saudi air campaign directly.

That is the backdrop for President Trump's comments to reporters Wednesday evening. "Well, hopefully we are towards the end of the war," he said. "They want to make a deal. We'll see how that works out." He added that he had heard from Iran "directly," without saying how or from whom. Tehran offered no confirmation. Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, accused Trump of sending "mixed signals" a day earlier and said there would be no talks until Iran's conditions are met. Axios reported that Trump is expected to meet leaders or foreign ministers of the six Gulf Cooperation Council states on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly next Tuesday to discuss a postwar strategy; Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants a meeting too, but none is scheduled.

The war began February 28 when the United States and Israel attacked Iran, and Tehran answered with strikes on Israel and on Gulf states hosting U.S. bases. Brent crude traded near $103 a barrel Wednesday, just off four-month highs, after Saudi Arabia offered extra shipments through Oman to compensate for drone damage to its East-West pipeline. Brown University researchers estimate the conflict has cost American consumers an additional $107 billion at the pump, a number Trump's party will have to answer for on November 3.