Yemen government forces widen attacks against Houthis: What we know 

Yemen’s government forces have conducted multiple air and ground operations in southwestern Taiz province in the last 24 hours, as they intensified attacks against the Iran-backed Houthi group.

The government’s Military Media Centre on Sunday claimed a number of operations against the rebels, including airstrikes on Houthi positions in five locations across the province.

Some 130,000 people have been displaced since the fighting erupted in July after a period of relative calm since a UN-brokered ceasefire in 2022.

In recent weeks, the Houthis have made dramatic territorial gains against the government forces, seizing the strategic Red Sea coastal city of Mocha and expanding their control over the Bab al-Mandeb Strait – a global maritime chokepoint connecting Europe to Asia.

⁠Rashad ⁠al-Alimi, the head of the Presidential Leadership Council, has called on citizens to mobilise and join the fight against Houthis as it has stepped up attacks against the Iran-backed group in efforts to stop their advance and regain the lost territory.

Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, which has faced Houthi attacks on its soil since fighting escalated earlier this month, has been turning to its allies, including Pakistan and Turkiye, for support.

Here’s what we know about the latest fighting and the humanitarian conditions the impoverished country faces.

According to the government’s Military Media Centre, dozens of Houthi fighters, including field commanders, have been killed or wounded in the past 24 hours of fighting near Taiz.

The government forces have carried out operations in several areas in Taez, including the Al-Wazi’iyah district in the west; weapons sites and ammunition depots at Mafraq Ma’wiyah and Al-Dhukrah in the east; a Houthi gathering in the Hayfan district in the south; and against military vehicles in the Gurab area in the north west.

The government forces also thwarted infiltration attempts in the Al-Ahtoub front and in Hadran as they carried out artillery shelling of Houthi gatherings at the Al-Kadha and Al-Aqroud fronts.

The Media Centre added that several Houthi military vehicles were damaged in the attacks.

Al Jazeera could not verify the battlefield claims.

“Government forces say they have made advances in the southern Taiz governorate, taking control of several areas and higher ground. Among them is Jabal Bazel, a mountaintop that places Houthi supply lines within target range,” Al Jazeera’s Maha Ali said on Saturday, reporting from Taiz.

“These developments point to significant and potentially decisive ground operations in recent hours.”

Ali said that al-Alimi, the PLC chairman, had voiced confidence that Yemeni forces were capable of restoring control over the whole country. Houthis currently control vast swaths of the north and western Yemen, while the government forces govern in the south and east of the country.

Since the current fighting erupted, the Houthis have accused the Saudis of carrying out strikes in Yemen and vowed to prevent Saudi tankers from passing through the Bab al-Mandeb, which Riyadh has been using as an alternative to the Strait of Hormuz. Tehran has effectively closed the Strait, through which a fifth of global oil passes, in response to the US-Israel war in February.

Government forces, meanwhile, are also accusing the Houthis of using Iranian air defence weapons that pose a danger to all aircraft travelling through local and international airspace.

“These Houthi weapons pose a serious threat to international flight paths over the Red Sea and operate using a heat-tracking system,” Brigadier General Majed al-Nazili, the official spokesperson for the Yemeni government forces, said on social media.

“The weapons employed are capable of attacking military or civilian targets without the ability to distinguish between them, thereby endangering the safety of civil aviation and the lives of passengers.”

Early on Saturday, the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen said its air defence systems intercepted and destroyed two ballistic missiles and two drones launched by the Houthis towards the capital Riyadh and Khamis Mushait.

What has been the regional response to the conflict?

On Saturday, Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, addressing the United Nations General Assembly, called on the international community to condemn Houthi actions against the kingdom and in Yemen.

At the same forum, Yemen’s Vice President Abdullah Abdulkader al-Alimi-Bawzer warned that the Houthis were using shipping security “as a tool for blackmail”.

“It is taking hostage the entire global economy,” he said.

The Secretary-General of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Jassim Mohammed al-Budaiwi on Saturday strongly condemned the recent Houthi attacks against Saudi Arabia.

“This dangerous escalation constitutes a flagrant violation of the Kingdom’s sovereignty and poses a direct threat to the security and safety of civilians and the stability of the region,” al-Budaiwi said in a statement.

Iran has denied it has any role in the Yemen conflict. Masoud Pezeshkian, the Iranian President, told Al Jazeera that the actions of the Houthis were not connected to Iran, and that Tehran stands in solidarity with “everyone subjected to injustice”.

He urged the Houthis and Saudi Arabia to resolve their differences through dialogue, saying “a brother should not fight his brother,” and offered Iran’s help in ending the dispute. “We will not be warmongers,” he said.

Iran’s ceasefire offer, which US President Donald Trump has rejected, included Yemen and Lebanon. Tehran has offered to open the Strait of Hormuz if the US fulfills its conditions, which include Washington’s naval blockade of Iranian ports, sanctions waiver, and the release of frozen assets.

Could Saudi allies join the conflict?

Saudi Arabia’s allies have rallied support amid intense fighting between the Saudi-backed government forces and Houthis.

Saudi Defence Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman said early on Saturday that there would be continued joint efforts with Pakistan to confront attacks against the kingdom in accordance with the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement signed last month.

He held talks with Pakistan’s Field Marshal Asim Munir on Thursday. A day earlier, the military chiefs of Saudi Arabia and defence allies Pakistan and Turkiye jointly reviewed threats facing Saudi Arabia at a meeting in the Saudi capital.

Multiple Saudi cities, including the capital Riyadh, have been hit by drones and missiles attributed to Houthis.

Meanwhile, France confirmed on Friday that it was sending troops to guard the major oil terminal at Yanbu in Saudi Arabia, but added that it was not joining the conflict. Yanbu hosts major oil storage and refining facilities and is connected by the East-West Pipeline, which can carry up to seven million barrels a day. The pipeline was damaged in a drone attack carried out from a group based in Iraq.

The US has so far not pledged military involvement, but the Saudi foreign minister has said the kingdom was “continuing to work with our partners in the US”. On September 14, CENTCOM chief Brad Cooper met the de facto Saudi ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, in Jeddah in the wake of the Houthis’ seizing of Mocha.

At least 130,000 people have been displaced in the Arab region’s most impoverished country over the past three weeks, most of whom were uprooted from or within the southwestern governorate of Taiz, according to Yemen’s UNICEF country representative, Akhil Iyer.

More than 3,000 people fled across the Red Sea to Djibouti over several days earlier this month, Djibouti state media has reported, with the UN warning that number could rise.

The number of casualties is still not confirmed as the rival sides have made conflicting claims. As per media reports the death toll runs into hundreds.

UNICEF has verified that at least 15 children were killed and 14 injured in the conflict since early September, while three were still reported missing.

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), more than 22 million people in Yemen require humanitarian assistance and protection services; 18.3 million people face acute food insecurity; and more than 2.2 million children under five are acutely malnourished.