Arab News | Yemeni government forces push back against Houthi offensive in Taiz, Hodeidah
AL-MUKALLA: Heavy fighting continued in Yemen’s Hodeidah and Taiz provinces on Friday as government forces battled Houthi assaults and sought to retake positions seized by the militia a day earlier.
The clashes came as the internationally recognized government dispatched military reinforcements to support troops fighting the Houthis in the two provinces.
The government-aligned National Resistance said its forces engaged in heavy clashes with the Houthis in southern Hodeidah province, western Yemen, but did not report any territorial gains.
It released footage showing flashes of light as its forces exchanged fire with the Houthis in what appeared to be overnight fighting.
In Taiz, Yemeni army troops on Friday recaptured a hilltop position in Jabal Habashi, west of the city, that had fallen to the Houthis on Thursday.
Government troops were also engaged in fierce clashes with the militia in Maqbanah and Al-Kadaha, west of Taiz, the army said in a statement.
The fighting followed what officials described as the heaviest Houthi offensives in years.
Early on Thursday, the Houthis launched simultaneous ground attacks against government forces in southern Hodeidah and three districts west of Taiz, seizing several positions in Taiz’s Jabal Habashi district.
Hours before the offensive, the Houthis heavily shelled government positions in the two provinces with dozens of artillery rounds and fired at least 12 missiles, as well as drones, in an apparent attempt to disrupt defenses and pave the way for their forces to advance.
Thursday’s offensive was the largest since April 2022, when a UN-brokered truce between the Houthis and the Yemeni government led to a significant reduction in hostilities.
Official media reports said at least 50 Houthis, including two field commanders, had been killed or wounded in clashes over the previous 24 hours.
Meanwhile, Rashad Al-Alimi, chairman of Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council, vowed on Thursday night that the government would deliver a “decisive” response to the Houthi escalation.
He said the Houthis had failed to make significant gains on the ground and that government forces were now better prepared and more experienced in confronting their attacks.
The official SABA news agency quoted Al-Alimi as making the remarks after speaking by phone with local military commanders.
Yemeni government officials and military experts said the Houthis had focused their latest attacks on areas west of Taiz city in an apparent attempt to sever its connection with the Red Sea port of Mokha.
Such an advance could bring Houthi forces closer to Mokha, which has itself come under intense drone and missile attacks, and ultimately closer to the strategic Bab Al-Mandab Strait.
Yaseen Saeed Noman, a prominent Yemeni politician and the country’s ambassador to the UK, called for the Houthi offensive in Taiz to be defeated.
He attributed the escalation to an attempt by the militia to divert attention from growing public resentment over repression, hunger, the failure to pay public-sector salaries and deteriorating basic services in areas under its control.
“There is no option but for the Houthis to be broken and defeated in western Taiz, and for Maqbanah to become a ‘graveyard’ for their malicious war project,” Noman said on Facebook, referring to Taiz’s Maqbanah district.
Noman described the Houthis as Iran’s last active proxy force in the region, arguing that Hezbollah in Lebanon had been weakened while Iran-backed militias in Iraq were coming under increasing pressure from the Iraqi state.
He said Tehran was seeking to preserve its leverage over the Bab Al-Mandab Strait through the Houthis.
“Iran has nothing left but the Houthis to employ in the bloody game that they have agreed to play against the Yemenis, without caring about the disasters that this immoral game will bring to Yemen and its future,” Noman said.