A Saudi-led coalition fighting Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels said Monday that a major air campaign was underway along the country’s Red Sea coast, as fighting intensified following a series of Houthi territorial gains.
The announcement came shortly after the Houthis said they had captured additional territory in southwestern Yemen, including a strategically important town, dealing another blow to forces aligned with Yemen’s internationally recognized government and bringing the rebels closer to the provincial capital of Taiz.
Saudi jets pound Houthi targets as Yemen’s four-year ceasefire unravels
(Photo: Royal Saudi Air Force)
Saudi-led coalition spokesman Maj. Gen. Turki al-Malki said 100 fighter jets were providing support to Yemeni government forces battling the Houthis.
He said the coalition had secured “air protection” over the strategic Bab el-Mandeb Strait and destroyed hundreds of Houthi targets during the ongoing campaign.
The claims and the scale of the campaign could not immediately be independently verified.
Houthis seize key town as fighting escalates
The Houthis captured the town of Turbah on Sunday, shortly before Yemen’s internationally recognized government announced a major military operation against the rebels.
The renewed fighting has revived Yemen’s civil war after a four-year ceasefire.
Turbah lies on a major road linking Taiz with the southern port city of Aden, which serves as the interim seat of Yemen’s government. For years, the town served as an important position for government forces defending Taiz against the Houthis.
The rebels had already seized several villages and areas on the outskirts of Taiz, advances that could help them encircle Yemen’s third-largest city.
The latest Houthi gains follow a rapid offensive along Yemen’s western Red Sea coast that began in early September.
The rebels captured the strategic city of Mokha and several Red Sea islands, gains that allowed them to control the Yemeni side of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, one of the world’s most important maritime chokepoints, through which roughly 12% of global trade passes.
In an announcement Sunday, the Saudi-backed Yemeni government said it was mobilizing troops throughout territory under its control.
Rashad al-Alimi, head of Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council, said in a televised speech that the operation was aimed at “recovering the remaining territories” held by the Houthis and called on the international community to support his government.
Hours later, al-Malki pledged “full operational support” for Yemeni government forces until the Houthis were “eliminated.”
He also said Saudi Arabia reserved the right to take all necessary measures against Houthi missile and drone attacks on the kingdom during the nearly three-month escalation.
Saudi-backed forces launch counteroffensive
On Monday, factions aligned with the Saudi-backed coalition said they had begun offensives against Houthi positions east of coastal areas seized by the rebels.
The forces attacked Houthi positions in Dhubab, on the coast of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, according to Col. Majed al-Nazili, a spokesman for the Saudi-backed forces.
The Giants Brigades, another government-aligned force, said it had launched a “decisive military operation against the Houthi militias” in the Bab el-Mandeb area.
Al-Alimi said in a post on X that the operation, dubbed “Yemen Dawn,” was intended to restore state institutions, “liberate” the Houthi-controlled capital Sanaa and end what he called the Houthi “coup.”
The latest escalation began in mid-July, when the Houthis accused Saudi Arabia of bombing Sanaa airport to prevent an unauthorized Iranian flight from landing.
The rebels responded with missile and drone attacks against Saudi Arabia and Yemeni government forces and announced a blockade of Saudi shipping in the Red Sea, later attacking several Saudi-linked vessels.
In September, the Houthis intensified their campaign, advancing rapidly down the Red Sea coast in their largest territorial push in years.
The capture of Turbah “will likely severely constrain Yemeni government-aligned forces’ ability to reinforce and resupply front-line positions” across Taiz province and in the city itself, the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said.
“Disrupting resupply has military value, of course, but controlling all the roads in and out of areas to the north of Turbah also prevents government forces from retreating out of the city,” the think tank wrote in an analysis Sunday.
Civil war flares again after four-year ceasefire
Yemen’s civil war began in 2014, when the Houthis swept south from their northern stronghold, captured Sanaa and forced the internationally recognized government into exile in Saudi Arabia.
The conflict has created one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises and killed more than 150,000 people.
The latest round of violence has killed more than 800 people and wounded more than 3,600, according to the United Nations.
More than 145,000 people have been displaced within Yemen, according to the U.N. migration agency, while more than 3,000 others have fled across the Red Sea to Djibouti.
Last week, the health ministry run by Yemen’s internationally recognized government warned that the renewed fighting was severely affecting medical services across Taiz province.
The ministry said health facilities in coastal, western and southern parts of the province had either closed or were operating only partially.