Yemen’s information minister, Moammar al-Eryani, said on Monday that government forces had secured effective control of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and taken Dhubab airstrip, cutting off Houthi forces still in the area.
The claim, if sustained, would reverse the Houthis’ capture of Yemen’s Red Sea coast and the strait last month, an advance that sent shock waves through energy markets. Bab el-Mandeb connects the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea, making it a central route for international shipping.
Government forces moved rapidly along the coast with heavy Saudi air support, taking key positions around Dhubab at the strait’s narrowest point. Riyadh said it had struck hundreds of targets in Yemen on Monday to provide air cover for the operation and Yemeni ground forces.
Lt. Col. Majid Abdullah al-Nuzayli, a military spokesman for government forces, said the pro-government Southern Giants Brigades and Nation’s Shield forces had “successfully taken control of Bab el-Mandeb”.
The Houthis rejected the reports of a government advance as “completely untrue”. A separate government source said fighting was still under way at a military base near the strait, leaving the position on the ground unclear.
The internationally recognised Yemeni government announced its offensive to recapture territory on Sunday. In a televised address, Rashad al-Alimi, the head of the Yemeni Presidential Council, said he would fight “until the country is liberated from the grip of the terrorist militia”.
The offensive follows the collapse in July of a 2022 truce between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia, after the rebels allowed an Iranian plane to land in Sanaa, Yemen’s capital. The escalation has revived Yemen’s civil war after a four-year ceasefire.
The struggle is also unfolding away from the coast. The heaviest fighting has been in the southwest, around the strait and in the hills near Taiz. Houthi forces have gained sections of a mountain road near Taiz, leaving government troops there besieged, military sources said.
Houthi fighters also captured a key road between Taiz and the government-held city of Aden, effectively isolating Taiz. The rebels have besieged the city for more than a decade. Taiz is Yemen’s third-largest city, with a population of over half a million and a garrison of thousands of government fighters.
More than 70 people were reportedly killed in fighting around Taiz over the past day, AFP news agency reported. In Sanaa province, strikes on the Sanhan and Sa’wan districts killed two people and wounded seven, according to the Houthi-run health ministry.
Control of the coastal ground around Bab el-Mandeb could make it harder for the Houthis to interfere with shipping. The group could still target vessels with drones from positions farther up the coast and inland.
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