Yemeni forces claim strategic district amid intensified Houthi clashes

More than ۶۰ people, including civilians, killed as clashes between Yemeni forces and Houthis intensify in Taiz province.

Military forces of Yemen’s internationally recognised government have been engaged in intense clashes with Houthi rebels across multiple fronts, most heavily in the Taiz and Hodeidah provinces and along the western Red Sea coast.

Yemen’s military said it recaptured Hais district, south of Hodeidah, an area linking the provinces of Hodeidah, Taiz and Ibb, according to Turkiye’s Anadolu news agency.

The Presidential Leadership Council chairman, Rashad al-Alimi, said that Yemen’s armed forces are capable of restoring full control over the country’s territory, warning that the Houthis “will bear the consequences”.

Taiz “will not be a corridor” for the group’s backers, he added, in reference to Iran.

He said the Houthis’ “miscalculations” would lead to their “complete collapse.”

The latest fighting continues the tit-for-tat attacks that broke out last week, with air raids and ground offensives between government troops and the Iran-backed rebels.

Fayad al-Numan, deputy undersecretary of Yemen’s Ministry of Information, said troops had also captured dozens of Houthi fighters during fighting in the nearby al-Jarahi district, where government forces later launched a counteroffensive.

Yemeni forces continued strikes on Houthi positions in areas across Taiz and Lahj on Saturday.

Yemeni media reported that the military’s drones destroyed Houthi reinforcements south of al-Jarahi in coordination with a ground assault.

Al Jazeera’s correspondent reported on Sunday that powerful explosions were heard in Taiz, noting the Yemeni Defence Ministry’s deployment of new weapons systems.

Yemen’s military spokesman, Colonel Majed al-Nozaili, said forces targeted a Houthi site in the province in response to the group’s “violations and escalation”.

The renewed clashes have taken a heavy toll on civilians.

Clashes in Taiz killed more than ۶۰ people, including civilians, on Saturday, the AFP news agency reported.

Yemen’s state news agency Saba’a, meanwhile, reported that Houthi shelling of a civilian gathering on the road linking Taiz and Aden killed four civilians and injured nine others.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that about ۱,۸۰۰ families have been displaced over the past two days as fighting escalated in Taiz.

The Yemeni government has separately warned that any Houthi movement towards the Bab al-Mandeb strait would face “harsh attrition”.