ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan’s defense minister told Parliament on Monday that Saudi Arabia had asked Pakistan for aircraft, warships and soldiers to join its offensive against the Houthis in Yemen, possibly signaling Saudi plans to expand its war there.
The Saudi government, backed by other Persian Gulf countries and the United States, started its campaign against the Houthis in late March, relying primarily on air power. Yet nearly two weeks of airstrikes have failed to stop the Houthi advance, including into Aden, Yemen’s second-largest city.
The Saudis and their allies have repeatedly raised the possibility of a ground invasion, which analysts say would most likely rely heavily on foreign troops, including those from close Saudi allies like Pakistan or Egypt.
In Parliament on Monday, Khawaja Muhammad Asif, the Pakistani defense minister, did not say when or where the Saudis wanted troops deployed. Aitzaz Ahsan, an opposition politician with the Pakistan Peoples Party, asked the government to clarify its position on the Saudi appeal.
“You have told us that the Saudi king requested troops and air force for the strikes,” Mr. Ahsan said. “But you didn’t inform us what was the response by the government on this request.”
Saudi officials have framed their military intervention as an effort to weaken the Houthi movement in order to restore Yemen’s exiled president, Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, to power.
Critics have called the Saudi offensive a strategic mistake. They say the intervention is driven by an erroneous Saudi view of the Houthis — a movement led by Zaydi Shiites from northern Yemen — as an Iranian proxy force, and has exacerbated Yemen’s civil conflict while exacting a crushing humanitarian toll on the region’s poorest country.
Hundreds of people have been killed by Saudi airstrikes or in clashes between rival militias. Yemen’s powerful affiliate of Al Qaeda has capitalized on the chaos by taking control of Al Mukalla, a southern Yemeni city, which the militants have held since Thursday. Fuel, food and medical supplies to civilians trapped by the combat were dwindling as aid agencies struggled to gain access to the country.
At the United Nations Security Council, negotiations continued Monday between diplomats from the gulf countries and Russia over how to get humanitarian relief into Yemen.
Russia wants a Council resolution to require what it calls “humanitarian pauses” in the airstrikes to allow aid to get in and foreigners to leave. The gulf nations, however, are in no mood to suspend the military campaign and have proposed a competing draft resolution that calls on the United Nations secretary general to “facilitate” access to aid but without a cessation of airstrikes.
Pakistan has a history of military cooperation with Saudi Arabia that stretches back decades. It has provided extensive military training to the Saudis and stationed tens of thousands of troops in the kingdom, including in the 1990-91 Persian Gulf war.
Adel Al-Jubeir, the Saudi ambassador to Washington, suggested that a ground offensive was not imminent. “Right now, we are in the air phase,” Mr. Jubeir told reporters. “No options are taken off the table. But I don’t believe we are there yet.”
“The contributions that countries make are really up to them,” he added, “and it doesn’t mean that if you contribute something it will actually be used.”
In the latest sign of how the Saudi intervention has inflamed the civil conflict, members of Yemen’s most prominent Islamist party, Islah, said Monday that the Houthis had abducted hundreds of people affiliated with the group.
Haroon al-Wesabi, director of the Sana Rights Center, which is seen as close to Islah, said the crackdown followed a declaration by Islah that it was supporting the Saudi-led campaign. In the past two days, he said, Houthi gunmen stormed Islah’s party headquarters, as well as homes of its leaders and members, abducting 318 people in at least six Yemeni provinces.
The abductions added to complaints about the way the Houthis have treated their perceived adversaries as they have gained power. Critics have accused them of harassing journalists and political opponents and, more recently, using indiscriminate force and endangering civilians in their drive to capture Aden.
In an interview, a member of the Houthis’ senior political leadership, Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, said the abductions were carried out for “security reasons.”
“Islah did not only support the aggression,” he said, referring to the Saudi offensive, “but also maximized its readiness to move militarily against the country by acting like a fifth column.”
He added, “The crackdown has come to eliminate any military move targeting the country.”
