Yemen’s government forces have conducted multiple air and ground operations in southwestern Taiz province in the last 24 hours, as they intensified attacks against the Iran-backed Houthi group. The government’s Military Media Centre on Sunday claimed a number of operations against the rebels, including airstrikes on Houthi positions in five locations across the province. Some 130,000 people have been displaced since the fighting erupted in July after a period of relative calm since a UN-brokered ceasefire in 2022.
In recent weeks, the Houthis have made dramatic territorial gains against the government forces, seizing the strategic Red Sea coastal city of Mocha and expanding their control over the Bab al-Mandeb Strait – a global maritime chokepoint connecting Europe to Asia. Rashad al-Alimi, the head of the Presidential Leadership Council, has called on citizens to mobilise and join the fight against Houthis as it has stepped up attacks against the Iran-backed group in efforts to stop their advance and regain the lost territory. Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, which has faced Houthi attacks on its soil since fighting escalated earlier this month, has been turning to its allies, including Pakistan and Turkiye, for support. Here’s what we know about the latest fighting and the humanitarian conditions the impoverished country faces.
According to the government’s Military Media Centre, dozens of Houthi fighters, including field commanders, have been killed or wounded in the past 24 hours of fighting near Taiz. The government forces have carried out operations in several areas in Taez, including the Al-Wazi’iyah district in the west; weapons sites and ammunition depots at Mafraq Ma’wiyah and Al-Dhukrah in the east; a Houthi gathering in the Hayfan district in the south; and against military vehicles in the Gurab area in the north west. The government forces also thwarted infiltration attempts in the Al-Ahtoub front and in Hadran as they carried out artillery shelling of Houthi gatherings at the Al-Kadha and Al-Aqroud fronts.
The Media Centre added that several Houthi military vehicles were damaged in the attacks. Al Jazeera could not verify the battlefield claims. Among them is Jabal Bazel, a mountaintop that places Houthi supply lines within target range,” Al Jazeera’s Maha Ali said on Saturday, reporting from Taiz.
Houthis currently control vast swaths of the north and western Yemen, while the government forces govern in the south and east of the country. Since the current fighting erupted, the Houthis have accused the Saudis of carrying out strikes in Yemen and vowed to prevent Saudi tankers from passing through the Bab al-Mandeb, which Riyadh has been using as an alternative to the Strait of Hormuz. Tehran has effectively closed the Strait, through which a fifth of global oil passes, in response to the US-Israel war in February.
Government forces, meanwhile, are also accusing the Houthis of using Iranian air defence weapons that pose a danger to all aircraft travelling through local and international airspace. On Saturday, Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, addressing the United Nations General Assembly, called on the international community to condemn Houthi actions against the kingdom and in Yemen. At the same forum, Yemen’s Vice President Abdullah Abdulkader al-Alimi-Bawzer warned that the Houthis were using shipping security “as a tool for blackmail”.
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