SANAA, Sept. 7 — Yemeni government forces launched a major offensive against the Houthis in northern Yemen on Monday, opening a new battlefront aimed at drawing Houthi forces away from an escalating campaign in the country’s west, a government military official told Xinhua.
Backed by armored vehicles, government forces began advancing toward the Houthi-held Al-Labanat military base east of Al-Hazm, the provincial capital of Al-Jawf, and were surrounding the facility as fighting raged, the official said on condition of anonymity.
The ground assault followed a series of airstrikes on the base over the past 48 hours that destroyed a Houthi command-and-control center and arms caches, weakening the group’s defenses there, he said.
The official said the operation was aimed at forcing the Houthis to divert forces from the southwestern province of Taiz and neighboring Red Sea province of Hodeidah, where four days of fierce fighting had left at least 117 fighters dead on both sides.
A Houthi military source, however, said government forces had failed to make significant gains in Al-Jawf after meeting stiff resistance, adding that intense fighting was continuing.
The northern offensive came as the Houthis pressed a military campaign in western Yemen aimed at cutting key roads linking Taiz with the government-held Red Sea port of Mocha and advancing toward areas near the strategic Bab al-Mandab Strait.
The Bab al-Mandab Strait acts as a critical maritime chokepoint connecting the Gulf of Aden to the southern end of the Red Sea, forming an indispensable artery for global energy shipments and international trade moving to and from the Suez Canal.
The latest escalation marks some of the heaviest ground fighting in western Yemen in recent years, raising concerns of a broader return to large-scale hostilities after years of relative calm across many of the country’s frontlines.
Yemen has been mired in conflict since late 2014, when the Houthis seized Sanaa and much of northern Yemen, prompting a Saudi-led coalition to intervene the following year in support of the internationally recognized Yemeni government.(Namibia Daily News / Xinhua)
