Yemen’s Saudi-backed government announces major offensive against Iran-backed Houthis
By Tim Lister and Ibrahim Dahman, CNN
(CNN) — Yemen’s Saudi-backed government has announced the beginning of a major military operation to turn back recent advances by the Houthi militant group.
Last month, the Iran-backed Houthis carried out a lightning offensive down the Red Sea coast, successfully seizing control of a key port and further putting pressure on the safety of international shipping.
The head of Yemen’s presidential council, Rashad al-Alimi, said in a televised speech on Sunday that the military operations aimed to reclaim the remaining territory held by Houthis and restore state authority across the country.
An offensive had been widely expected amid dozens of Saudi airstrikes against Houthi positions and further Houthi gains in southern Yemen.
Al-Alimi said the decision to launch operations followed “the Houthi militias’ continued mobilization, escalation and attacks, as well as their threats against civilians, facilities, neighboring countries, and international shipping lanes.”
The Houthis reported Saudi airstrikes against the capital Sanaa Saturday and again early Sunday. The Saudi coalition did not confirm the strikes.
In retaliation for more than 50 airstrikes against Sanaa and other locations, the Houthis claimed Sunday that they had struck vital Saudi energy facilities.
“The first targeted Aramco company in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, and the second targeted Aramco company in the Khurais area,” a Houthi military statement said, causing large fires at the targeted sites.
There has been no word from the Saudis on the claimed strikes.
The renewed fighting has already forced tens of thousands of people from their homes, and what happens next could shift the balance of power in Yemen, further disrupt shipping through the Red Sea and further exacerbate an already bleak humanitarian crisis.
Three out of every four families in parts of Yemen are going hungry because of the surge in fighting, the World Food Program said last week.
Early in September, the Houthis took a swath of Yemen’s Red Sea coast as far south as the critical Bab al Mandeb waterway, a chokepoint for commercial shipping crossing into the Indian Ocean.
They announced that Saudi shipping trying to use the strait would be targeted, threatening additional pressure on global trade and energy routes.
The Houthis have fired ballistic missiles and drones at multiple targets in Saudi Arabia since late July, including industrial and energy infrastructure.
Much of the recent fighting has been in the southern region of Taiz, as the Houthis have sought to cut off government forces in the regional capital. The Houthis claimed on Sunday to have taken a critical highway linking Taiz with the seat of the Yemeni government in Aden.
Taiz is the third largest city in Yemen, with a population of several hundred thousands. It is also home to thousands of government troops.
Further east, in the al-Jawf region, the Houthis claimed Sunday to have inflicted heavy casualties on government forces with a barrage of missiles and drones as they redeployed for the new offensive.
Yemeni government forces – backed by Saudi airstrikes and a blockade of Houthi areas – started fighting the Houthis more than a decade ago.
The war in Yemen, which began in March 2015, had killed 377,000 people by the end of 2021, including those killed by direct and indirect causes, according to the United Nations. Over 150,000 of these deaths were the direct result of the armed conflict, it said, while more have died as a result of hunger and disease due to the humanitarian crisis caused by the war.
A 2022 UN-brokered truce brought a period of relatively low levels of hostilities between the two sides until violence surged again in August.
This story has been updated.
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