The latest:
Houthi fighters severed the main supply road linking Taiz to Aden on Sunday, four security sources told AFP, after days of clashes effectively ringing Yemen’s third-largest city. Hours later, Rashad al-Alimi, head of the Saudi-backed Presidential Leadership Council, used a televised address to announce the start of operations to recover what remains of Houthi-held land and restore state authority nationwide.
Details:
- The seizure: A Taiz police source told AFP the rebels took the Safiya area and its police station, cutting one of the city’s most important supply roads. Three Yemeni military sources confirmed the group had taken both the area and the route, and had effectively besieged Taiz.
- On the ground: Military sources and witnesses said traffic halted on the Taiz-Lahj-Aden axis after fighters reached the Samsara and Safiya areas, with heavy clashes along the corridor. The city itself remains under government control, but Houthi forces have long surrounded it from the north, east and west.
- Alimi’s words: In a broadcast speech, the council president said: “I announce today the start of military operations to recover what remains of the republic’s territory and extend the authority of the state and its institutions across the entire national soil.” He did not set a timeline or name the units involved.
- Why Taiz matters: The city sits on routes linking southern Yemen to the north and the western coast. Severing the Aden road isolates it from a principal supply line without, by itself, amounting to a military collapse of the city, according to AFP.
- The Jawf front: Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said the group struck Saudi forces attempting to advance from eastern Jawf province. He claimed ballistic missiles and drones killed and wounded dozens and destroyed several vehicles, and said retreating units were pursued across the Jawf desert.
- Strikes and counterstrikes: The Houthi-run Al-Masirah channel reported Saudi strikes in Jawf and Saada, with at least two people wounded. The government said a day earlier its forces bombed targets in Sanaa, Saada and near Taiz; experts told AFP Saudi warplanes most likely carried them out, given the government’s limited air capability.
- The Aramco fire: An AFP journalist saw flames and black smoke rising from a Saudi Aramco facility south of Riyadh on Saturday. The Houthis later said they attacked the site. Saudi authorities have not confirmed the fire was caused by an attack. Last month the group claimed a strike at Yanbu.
- Riyadh’s framing: Saudi-led coalition spokesman Turki al-Malki told Saudi media on Saturday that the rebels are chasing illusory victories, as the group consolidates control of Yemen’s entire Red Sea coastline, including the area around the Bab al-Mandab strait.
- The naval dimension: The Houthis have declared a maritime blockade on Saudi shipping in the Red Sea and resumed targeting the kingdom’s tankers and oil installations. The corridor has grown more important to Saudi crude exports under Iranian restrictions on navigation through the Strait of Hormuz.
Background:
Yemen’s war began in 2014 when the Houthis seized Sanaa; a Saudi-led coalition intervened the following year. After years of relative calm, fighting resumed in July when the Houthis accused Riyadh of bombing Sanaa airport to block an Iranian aircraft, then escalated sharply in September.
Between the lines:
Alimi’s announcement of an offensive to recover all national territory lands the same day his forces lost the Safiya junction and saw Taiz cut off from Aden. The government’s reliance on what experts described as Saudi airpower for its own declared strikes points to how thin its independent capability has become, even as the Houthis hold the western coast and the Bab al-Mandab approaches.
What’s next
Whether the Aden road reopens, whether Saudi authorities attribute the Riyadh Aramco fire to an attack, and whether Alimi’s declared operations produce any territorial recovery in Jawf or around Taiz.
