Yemen’s Government Launches All-Out Offensive to Retake Houthi-Held Territory
Yemen's internationally recognized government said Sunday it is launching a major campaign to recapture all territory held by the Iran-backed Houthis, after the group seized the Bab el-Mandeb strait and pressed toward Taiz in a sharp escalation of the war.
ADEN — Yemen’s Saudi-backed, internationally recognized government announced on Sunday that it is launching a major military campaign to recapture every part of the country held by the Iran-backed Houthis, opening a new and potentially decisive phase in a war that has divided Yemen for more than a decade.
“Today, I announce the start of military operations to retake the remaining territory of the republic and extend the authority of the state and its institutions across the entire national territory,” President Rashad al-Alimi, who heads the Presidential Leadership Council, said in a televised address, according to Reuters. He said the decision came after chances to de-escalate the fighting had been exhausted.
Al-Alimi said government forces would keep pressing the offensive until the country was, in his words, liberated from the militia, and a military spokesman later urged Houthi fighters to lay down their weapons, according to Reuters. The president thanked Saudi Arabia for its backing and appealed to regional allies and international partners to support the government’s forces and institutions.
The Houthis, formally known as Ansar Allah, have held the capital, Sanaa, and much of Yemen’s northwest — where most of the population lives — since 2014, according to Reuters. They have withstood years of attacks by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and their Western allies, and have expanded their arsenal with help from Iran.
A strait seized, and a new front in a wider war
The announcement follows a surprise Houthi offensive last month that captured the Bab el-Mandeb strait and about 150 kilometers (90 miles) of Red Sea coastline in a matter of weeks as government forces collapsed, according to Reuters. The advance gave the Houthis new leverage over one of the world’s most important shipping routes.
Bab el-Mandeb is the southern entrance to the Red Sea, linking the Mediterranean with Asia. It has grown even more important this year as an alternative to the Strait of Hormuz, on the other side of the Arabian Peninsula, where Tehran has choked oil shipping in response to the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran that began in February, according to Reuters. The Houthi advance, Reuters reported, opened a new front in that wider conflict.
As the government made its announcement, the Houthis said they had fired ballistic missiles and drones at Saudi Aramco facilities in Riyadh and the Khurais area of Saudi Arabia, according to Reuters. The group claimed the attacks set major fires and said they answered what it described as 50 Saudi-led air and missile strikes inside Yemen over the previous 12 hours. Saudi Arabia offered no immediate confirmation of the Houthi claims, Reuters reported.
U.S. intelligence support and a city at risk
Regional and Western officials told Reuters earlier this week that Saudi Arabia and its Yemeni allies had been planning an assault on the Houthis, with Saudi forces leading the air campaign and Yemeni troops fighting on the ground. The United States is already providing intelligence to support Riyadh’s operations in Yemen, while some regional and European nations are supplying mainly defensive military aid to the kingdom, six people familiar with the Saudi preparations told Reuters.
Even as the government vows to advance, the Houthis still hold the initiative in key areas. Military sources told Reuters that in the previous 48 hours Houthi fighters had taken strategic hilltops near Taiz and were advancing on the last road linking the city to Aden, the government’s base on the southern coast. Control of that road would effectively besiege Taiz, Yemen’s third-largest city, home to hundreds of thousands of civilians and thousands of government troops.
The human cost is already mounting. The World Food Programme said last week that three in four families in parts of Yemen are going hungry as the surge in fighting displaces tens of thousands of people and disrupts supplies to millions, according to Reuters. A truce that had largely held since 2022 unraveled this year as the Houthis struck Saudi shipping and oil infrastructure in spillover from the Iran war — and Sunday’s declaration suggests both sides are now preparing for a far larger fight over the Red Sea coast, Taiz and, ultimately, the territory the Houthis have ruled since 2014.
Reporting based on coverage by Reuters.
