Arya News - A major Houthi offensive towards Bab al-Mandeb has triggered some of Yemen’s worst fighting in years.
Yemen’s internationally recognised government has launched a series of air attacks against Houthi positions in the country, marking a significant escalation in the conflict, with some of the country’s heaviest fighting since a fragile truce in 2022.
Government warplanes carried out at least 15 strikes on Friday against Houthi positions, gatherings and vehicles in the western provinces of Taiz and Hodeidah, according to the Yemeni military.
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These are not the first air attacks by government aircraft since Yemen’s fragile truce began to unravel in July. On July 25, government aircraft struck Houthi missile and drone launch sites and weapons depots in Marib and al-Jawf, according to Yemeni military officials cited by the Reuters news agency.
And less than two weeks earlier, on July 13, Yemen’s internationally recognised government said its forces had struck the runway at the Houthi-held Sanaa International Airport to prevent an Iranian aircraft from landing.
However, the latest attacks mark a significant step up in the government’s use of its own air power against the Houthis, after Saudi-led coalition aircraft provided much of the aerial firepower supporting anti-Houthi forces during the most intense years of Yemen’s war.
Friday’s air campaign comes as the Iran-backed Houthis, who have been vying for control of Yemen for years, attempt to advance through western Taiz and southern Hodeidah towards al-Makha (Mocha), and territory overlooking the critical Bab al-Mandeb Strait at the opening to the Red Sea.
Control of the area could strengthen the Houthis’ position along the Red Sea, where the group has previously attacked commercial and military vessels, while threatening a key government supply route.
The fighting unfolds against a backdrop of the wider regional conflict, with the Houthis recently declaring a Red Sea maritime blockade against Saudi Arabia, while disruption to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz during the US-Israel war with Iran has raised the strategic importance of alternative routes through the Red Sea. This means any expansion of Houthi influence around Bab al-Mandeb could have consequences for shipping far beyond Yemen.
Here’s what we know.
What has happened?
Fighting erupted on Thursday as Houthi forces launched a major offensive along front lines in western Taiz and southern Hodeidah, using ballistic missiles, drones and artillery as ground forces attempted to advance towards government-held territory along the Red Sea coast.
The fighting has centred on areas west of Taiz and around al-Makha, a government-held port near the Bab al-Mandeb Strait.
A Yemeni official in Aden told the AFP news agency that the Houthis were seeking to capture hills overlooking Bab al-Mandeb and al-Makha before pushing towards the coast.
Al Jazeera’s Yousef Mawry, reporting from Sanaa, said Houthi forces had made gains in western Taiz.
“According to military officials from the internationally recognised government, the Houthis have been able to take some of those territories,” Mawry said. “In western Taiz, they’ve managed to take over a strategic military base, which is settled on top of a strategic mountain and gives the Houthis an overview of the entire area.”
Mawry said there had been particularly heavy fighting around al-Barah and Maqbanah, where a main road is used to resupply government forces stationed in Taiz and al-Makha.
More than 120 fighters have been killed since the Houthi offensive began, according to an AFP tally, making the clashes among Yemen’s deadliest in years.
Several civilians were also reported killed and others injured after a ballistic missile hit a restaurant in the al-Makha area, according to government-run Saba TV.
On Saturday, at least four civilians were killed and nine others injured in a Houthi missile strike on a crowded road in southwestern Yemen, according to Saba news agency.
The attack by the Iran-backed group on Saturday targeted a gathering of civilians along the strategic Heijah al-Abd Road, south of Taiz city, Saba said, citing local and medical sources.
What is behind the latest tensions?
The Houthis seized Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, in September 2014 and subsequently took control of much of northern and western Yemen, prompting a Saudi-led coalition of Arab countries to intervene in support of the internationally recognised government in March 2015.
A United Nations-brokered truce in April 2022 sharply reduced fighting. Although the agreement formally expired six months later, large-scale hostilities between the Houthis and Saudi-backed government forces remained relatively limited and Saudi Arabia pursued negotiations with the group.
No comprehensive peace agreement followed, however, leaving front lines largely frozen rather than ending the conflict.
That fragile status quo came under increasing pressure after the United States and Israel launched their war against Iran on February 28, but tensions escalated further in July with the government air force strike on the Houthi-held Sanaa International Airport, preventing an Iranian aircraft from landing.
(Al Jazeera) What do we know about Yemen’s air force?
The modern Yemeni Air Force was created after North and South Yemen unified in 1990, bringing together two militaries equipped with both Soviet and Western aircraft.
Its fleet subsequently included MiG-21 and MiG-29 fighters, Su-22 fighter-bombers, US-made F-5 fighters and a range of helicopters and transport aircraft.
But Yemen’s armed forces fractured when the Houthis seized Sanaa and the political crisis descended into war in 2014 and 2015.
When Saudi Arabia intervened soon after, its coalition targeted airbases, air-defence systems and combat aircraft in a bid to prevent the Houthis from making use of Yemen’s air force.
That left the Saudi-led coalition – rather than the Yemeni government’s own depleted air force – providing much of the air power supporting government forces during the subsequent war.
Saudi-led coalition aircraft conducted tens of thousands of air raids between March 2015 and the 2022 truce, striking Houthi military positions and providing air support during major government ground offensives. The campaign also caused extensive civilian casualties and became one of the most controversial aspects of the war.
Between 2014 and 2022, Human Rights Watch documented dozens of apparently unlawful coalition air attacks on homes, markets, hospitals, schools, detention centres and other civilian sites.
In 2024, the US and the United Kingdom launched a new round of air attacks against Houthi positions in Yemen following strikes on Israel-linked shipping in the Red Sea. Earlier this year, the US Pentagon disclosed that US military attacks against Yemen’s Houthis killed 153 civilians in 2025 and wounded another 243. The US had previously denied its attacks had caused civilian deaths.
The conflict in Yemen has caused a huge humanitarian crisis. In 2021, the UN estimated that 377,000 people had died in Yemen since 2014, with 60 percent the result of food shortages and lack of accessible health services.
Why is the Yemeni government using its own air power now?
Previously relying on Saudi-led coalition air force power, the government’s decision to deploy its own warplanes now comes as it tries to blunt a Houthi offensive that initially made gains across several fronts in western Taiz and threatened the main road linking Taiz with the Red Sea port of al-Makha.
Mohammed al-Basha, a Yemeni American analyst and former spokesperson for Yemen’s embassy in Washington, told Al Jazeera that the Houthis had achieved “some initial gains during a surprise, multi-axis offensive across western Taiz” this week, temporarily capturing positions and threatening areas overlooking the Taiz-al-Makha corridor.
But those advances did not produce the wider breakthrough the group appears to have sought, he said.
“The front did not collapse, the Taiz-al-Makha corridor was not severed, and attempts to expand the offensive towards other strategically important positions were stopped,” al-Basha added.
Government and allied forces recovered much of the territory lost during the first day of fighting, according to al-Basha, while Houthi advances on several other axes were contained or repelled.
The government has since sent reinforcements, and the use of aircraft gives those forces another means of attacking Houthi positions and concentrations as they try to retake high ground and prevent the group from cutting the Taiz-al-Makha road.
Why have the Houthis launched this offensive now – and what happens next?
Al-Basha said Jabal Numan, overlooking the Taiz-al-Makha road, is one of the most important remaining contested areas, while a Houthi attempt to capture Jabal Dhu Ba’s, north of Hays, was repelled by National Resistance forces.
Taking such high ground could allow the Houthis to observe and threaten government supply routes, while losing it could make further advances towards al-Makha substantially more difficult.
“The first day therefore ended with a mixed battlefield picture,” he said. “The Houthis gained ground through the initial surprise and speed of their multi-axis assault, but much of that ground was subsequently recovered.”
The arrival of new government-aligned forces, coupled with air support, could make it harder for the Houthis to repeat their initial breakthrough.
“The next phase is likely to be more difficult,” al-Basha said. “Both sides are reinforcing, several positions remain contested, and control of Jabal Numan remains a key immediate objective.
“The coming hours will likely centre on attempts by anti-Houthi forces to recover the mountain, consolidate their lines and prevent another Houthi push towards the Taiz-al-Macha corridor.”