Yemen Government Forces Claim Strategic Gains Near Bab al-Mandeb as Regional Powers Convene in Riyadh

Yemen's internationally recognised government announced on Monday that its military units had captured the Dhubab district and a series of strategic positions overlooking the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, marking the most significant territorial gain since the government declared a wide-ranging offensive against Houthi-held territory just one day earlier.

According to a statement issued through Yemen's state-run Saba news agency, the operation was carried out by fighters from the Homeland Shield Forces and the Giants Brigades, who advanced with aerial support against positions held by the Houthi movement, formally known as Ansar Allah. The military described the assault as a "large-scale" effort that struck Houthi fighters and equipment across multiple sectors of the district.

An unnamed military source quoted by Saba said government units had overrun what it characterised as important positions during the push, severing supply routes and roads that lead toward the Bab al-Mandeb, the narrow maritime chokepoint separating the Arabian Peninsula from the Horn of Africa. The source also claimed that a number of Houthi combatants were killed or wounded, and that military hardware was either destroyed or damaged during the engagement.

Government forces were reportedly continuing to clear and secure the areas they had entered while working to cut remaining supply lines to Houthi units, according to the Saba report. The claims could not be independently verified by Al Jazeera, and no immediate response from Houthi officials was included in the account.

The reported battlefield gains followed a broader announcement by Brigadier General Majid Abdullah Al-Nuzaili, a spokesman for Yemen's military, who said on social media platform X that government forces had launched 1,122 attacks against Houthi targets. He listed artillery emplacements, rocket launch sites and command-and-control centres among the objectives struck.

Al-Nuzaili said the strikes were delivered by warplanes, drones, missiles, rockets, artillery and snipers across the provinces of Saada, al-Jawf and Taiz, as well as along the coast. He further claimed that 1,747 Houthi fighters had been killed in the operations, a figure that, like the territorial claims, could not be independently confirmed.

The offensive was formally set in motion on Sunday when Rashad al-Alimi, chairman of Yemen's Presidential Leadership Council, the executive authority of the internationally recognised government, declared the start of military operations aimed at retaking the remaining territory under Houthi control. The announcement represented a significant escalation in a conflict that has already lasted more than a decade.

Yemen has been mired in war since 2014, when Houthi forces overran the capital, Sanaa, compelling the internationally backed government to relocate its seat of power to the southern port city of Aden. A period of relative calm followed a fragile truce agreed in 2022, but that arrangement unravelled in July, opening the way for renewed large-scale fighting.

The tempo of the conflict rose sharply in mid-September, when Houthi fighters swept through parts of western Yemen, capturing the port city of Mocha and several strategic islands in the Bab al-Mandeb strait. Those gains threatened international shipping lanes and dramatically shifted the front lines in the government's rear areas, before anti-Houthi forces managed to largely stabilise the situation in the weeks that followed.

The latest developments coincide with high-level diplomatic activity in the region. Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar arrived in Saudi Arabia ahead of a meeting with Saudi and Turkish officials, talks conducted under the framework of the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement. Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement on X that Defence Minister Khawaja Asif and military chief Asim Munir would accompany Dar at Monday's discussions in Riyadh with their counterparts from Saudi Arabia and Turkiye.

The three nations signed the defence pact on August 7, pledging to strengthen collective deterrence and broaden defence cooperation across the region. Under the agreement's terms, an armed attack on any one of the three signatories is to be treated as an attack on all of them, a provision that gives the arrangement considerable weight amid the ongoing instability in Yemen.

Pakistani officials said last week that the urgent talks would consider a proposal for political engagement with the Iran-aligned Houthis as an alternative to a purely military approach, following an approach made by Iran. The inclusion of that option on the agenda suggests that some regional capitals are exploring diplomatic avenues even as the government's forces press their offensive on the ground.

Al Jazeera's Michael Appel said the Yemen war was expected to figure prominently in the Saudi-hosted discussions, given the direct involvement of Saudi Arabia in backing the Yemeni government's military effort. He noted that civilians remain trapped along the fragmented front lines of the conflict, warning that the announcement of an expanded military operation leaves tens of thousands of people facing the prospect of further displacement and hunger as the humanitarian crisis deepens.

The combination of renewed combat operations and parallel diplomatic manoeuvring underscores the complexity of a war that has drawn in multiple regional powers and spawned one of the world's most severe humanitarian emergencies. While the government's claims of territorial gains near Bab al-Mandeb, if verified, would represent a meaningful shift in the balance of the conflict, the broader trajectory of the war remains uncertain, particularly as political alternatives to continued fighting are set to be discussed in Riyadh.