Taiz Under Fire: Yemeni Forces Push Back as Houthi Red Sea Gains Deepen Crisis

Yemen's government-aligned military has escalated its campaign against the Iran-backed Houthi movement, conducting a sweep of air and ground operations across Taiz province in Yemen's southwest over a 24-hour period. The Military Media Centre, the force's official communications outlet, said its campaign included airstrikes on Houthi positions at five separate locations, alongside artillery fire and efforts to break up armed gatherings.

The operations named by the Military Media Centre stretched across the width of the province. In the western Al-Wazi'iyah district, forces struck what they described as weapons sites and ammunition depots at Mafraq Ma'wiyah and Al-Dhukrah in the east. Further south, a Houthi gathering in the Hayfan district was targeted, while military vehicles were hit in the Gurab area in the northwest. Government troops said they also repelled Houthi infiltration attempts along the Al-Ahtoub front and at Hadran, responding with artillery shelling of assembled Houthi fighters at the Al-Kadha and Al-Aqroud fronts.

Casualty claims were substantial. According to the Military Media Centre, dozens of Houthi fighters — including field commanders — were killed or wounded in the fighting near Taiz over the same 24-hour window, and several Houthi military vehicles were left damaged. Al Jazeera said it could not independently verify these battlefield claims, a caveat that applies to most front-line reporting from Yemen, where access for journalists and satellite verification are severely constrained.

Reporting from Taiz on Saturday, Al Jazeera's Maha Ali said government forces appeared to have made advances in the southern governorate, seizing several areas and elevated ground. Among the positions reportedly taken was Jabal Bazel, a mountaintop that would place Houthi supply routes within reach of government targeting. Ali characterised the developments as pointing to significant and potentially decisive ground operations in a matter of hours.

The Taiz offensive comes as the government fights to reverse a string of Houthi territorial advances. In recent weeks, the group has seized the strategic Red Sea port city of Mocha and expanded its control over the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, a critical maritime chakepoint on the route between Europe and Asia. The loss of Mocha and wider Bab al-Mandeb control has particular strategic weight, giving the Houthis leverage over the shipping lane that Saudi Arabia has been using as an alternative to the Strait of Hormuz.

The current phase of the war erupted in July, ending a stretch of relative calm that had held since a UN-brokered ceasefire in 2022. The renewed fighting has already driven a mass exodus. Some 130,000 people have been displaced since the violence began, adding to the strain on one of the world's poorest countries and a humanitarian emergency the UN has repeatedly warned is close to breaking point.

On the government side of the battlefield, Rashad al-Alimi, the head of the Presidential Leadership Council, has urged citizens to mobilise and take up arms against the Houthis, while offering amnesty to those who defect. He has expressed confidence that government forces can eventually restore control over the entire country — a goal complicated by the current map of control, with the Houthis holding vast stretches of northern and western Yemen and government-aligned forces governing the south and east.

Regional stakes have risen sharply. The Houthis have accused Saudi Arabia of carrying out strikes inside Yemen, and have vowed to block Saudi tankers from transiting the Bab al-Mandeb. Riyadh has been seeking support from allies including Pakistan and Turkiye as it comes under repeated attack on its own territory. Early on Saturday, the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen said its air defences had intercepted and destroyed two ballistic missiles and two drones launched towards the capital, Riyadh, and the southern city of Khamis Mushait.

Tehran has effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly a fifth of global oil passes, in response to the US-Israel war that began in February. That closure is what makes the Houthi capture of the Bab al-Mandeb alternative route so consequential for energy markets and global trade.

Yemeni officials have also framed the fight as a defence of civilian aviation. Brigadier General Majed al-Nazili, the official spokesperson for the government forces, said on social media that the Houthis are using Iranian air defence weapons that operate with a heat-tracking system and pose a danger to all aircraft in local and international airspace. He warned that the weapons cannot distinguish between military and civilian targets, endangering civil aviation and the lives of passengers, and that they threaten international flight paths over the Red Sea.

Diplomatic pressure has been building in parallel. On Saturday, Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud told the United Nations General Assembly that the international community should condemn Houthi actions against the kingdom and inside Yemen. At the same forum, Yemen's Vice President Abdullah Abdulkader al-Alimi-Bawzer accused the Houthis of using shipping security "as a tool for blackmail", warning that they are "taking hostage the entire global economy".

The Gulf Cooperation Council has added its voice. Secretary-General Jassim Mohammed al-Budaiwi said on Saturday that the recent attacks against Saudi Arabia constitute a flagrant violation of the kingdom's sovereignty and a direct threat to the safety of civilians and the stability of the region.

Iran continues to deny any role in the conflict. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian told Al Jazeera that Tehran no longer trusts talks with Washington, a position that leaves the Houthis' external support unconfirmed publicly even as Yemeni government sources describe the group's weapons as Iranian-supplied. The combination of battlefield momentum around Taiz, Houthi control of Red Sea chokepoints, and widening regional involvement suggests the confrontation is entering a phase in which both sides' stakes — military, commercial and diplomatic — are rising together.