Yemeni government forces backed by Saudi Arabia say they have “secured” the Bab al-Mandab Strait at the southern end of the Red Sea, as they launch a major offensive against the Iran-backed Houthi movement.
The Yemeni military said National Shield, Giants Brigades and Tihama Resistance forces had captured the Red Sea city of Mokha on Monday afternoon with support from Saudi air strikes.
However, conflicting reports from unnamed Yemeni government and military sources said the forces had only reached the outskirts of the city.
Four government sources told Reuters that Yemeni forces reached Mokha’s outskirts late on Monday and that Houthi fighters were retreating.
Government military sources who spoke to AFP did not confirm the capture of Mokha. They said: “our forces took control of the Dhubab military airfield and cut the road linking the Dhubab district to the Bab al-Mandab area”.
Earlier, the Yemeni military said its forces had seized Dhubab airport, about 45km south of Mokha, and were besieging Houthi fighters inside the nearby town.
Houthi-run media denied reports that government forces had made advances in Dhubab.
The government said operations had also begun on other fronts on Monday, including the capital, Sanaa, which the Houthis captured at the start of the civil war 12 years ago.
Meanwhile, a Saudi-led military coalition said its fighter jets were providing “round-the-clock” air support to pro-government forces and had destroyed 324 “high-value” targets since the offensive began.
Turkey and Pakistan, allies of Saudi Arabia, held an emergency meeting in Riyadh on Monday and agreed to rapidly deploy military forces in Saudi Arabia under their Mecca defence pact, according to a joint statement shared by Pakistan’s foreign ministry.
Saudi air strikes killed a schoolgirl and a woman in the Sanhan and Saawan districts of Sanaa on Monday, according to Houthi-run Al Masirah TV.
Houthi spokesman Mohammed Abdul Salam said Saudi Arabia was committing “dozens of massacres” and that it must “bear all the consequences”.
The Houthi-run Humanitarian Operations Co-ordination Centre warned civilian airlines that Saudi airspace, except for the skies above the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina, was no longer safe because it had become “a theatre of operations”.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres condemned “the continued Houthi cross-border attacks” on Saudi Arabia and said he was “deeply concerned by the sharp escalation in fighting”, according to a statement to AFP.
On Sunday, the head of Yemen’s internationally recognised Presidential Leadership Council, Rashad al-Alimi, announced the beginning of an offensive dubbed Operation Yemen Dawn.
He said the operation aimed to retake all territory held by the Houthis and insisted that all opportunities for de-escalation had been exhausted.
He called on all forces to carry out their assigned missions “until the country is liberated from the grip of the Houthi terrorist militia”.
The announcement came after the Houthis reportedly cut a mountain road near the south-western city of Taiz, effectively leaving government forces and residents there surrounded.
The Houthis also said they had launched ballistic missiles and drones at oil facilities belonging to Saudi Aramco in Riyadh and the Khurais area of Saudi Arabia, in retaliation for Saudi strikes on their territory.
Yemen’s Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said the attacks targeted Riyadh’s international airport, an Aramco oil refinery, Abha airport and other sites.
According to BBC Verify, satellite imagery from Saturday showed thick, dark smoke coming from the site of a strike at the Aramco Riyadh Refinery in the south-east of the city.
A similar plume of smoke was visible from the Khurais Central Processing Facility, as well as from a potential strike point, in satellite imagery from Sunday.
Yemen has been devastated by a civil war that began in 2014, when the Houthis ousted the government from Sanaa.
The conflict escalated in 2015 after a Saudi-led coalition of Arab states intervened in an attempt to restore the government’s rule.
A four-year informal ceasefire began to unravel in July, when the Houthis announced a “maritime embargo” against Saudi Arabia and began missile and drone attacks on Saudi airports, oil facilities and tankers in the Red Sea.
The Houthis said they were retaliating against a Saudi blockade of ports and airports in their territory, as well as an air strike on Sanaa airport that they blamed on the kingdom.
Last month, the Houthis launched a surprise offensive along Yemen’s south-western Red Sea coast and quickly ousted pro-government forces from areas overlooking the Bab al-Mandab Strait, including Mokha, Dhubab and Perim, also known as Mayyun Island.
The Houthis said they posed no threat to international shipping passing through the waterway but would continue to target vessels from Saudi Arabia.
The seizure of the strait contributed to a rise in global oil prices because Saudi Arabia had been relying on the Red Sea for oil exports after the US and Israel’s war with Iran effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf.
At least 959 people have been killed and 5,000 injured in fighting in Yemen since 6 August, according to the government’s health ministry.
The UN says another 197,000 people have been displaced.
Faridah Abdulkadiri
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