Yemen’s leader announces military operation to retake Houthi-held territory

⁠The ⁠Saudi Arabia-backed head of ⁠Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council, ⁠Rashad al-Alimi, has announced the start of military operations to retake the ⁠remaining territory held by ⁠the Iran-backed Houthi armed group ⁠and restore ⁠state ⁠authority across the country.

In a televised address, al-Alimi said on Sunday the internationally recognised government’s forces would extend “the authority of the state and its institutions over the entire national territory”.

“We have instructed the armed forces, security forces and all military formations to begin carrying out their assigned tasks under an approved plan until the country is liberated from the Houthis,” he said.

Al-Alimi added that all state institutions will be placed on full alert “until the mission is completed and victory is achieved”.

The development comes after Yemeni forces “executed 257 precision targeting operations” against Houthi sites, movements, and military capabilities on Saturday, according to the spokesman for Yemen’s internationally recognised government forces, Colonel Majed Abdullah al-Nazili.

He added that initial estimates indicate that the operations killed at least 700 Houthi rebels.

The spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition supporting the government, Turki al-Malik, said on Saturday that the Houthis’ “ties to external agendas” have brought “chaos and devastation to Yemen”.

Early on Sunday, the Saudi-led coalition said its armed forces carried out 97 “precise targeting operations” against Houthi reinforcements on the Tor al-Baha front and the Taiz axis, using warplanes, drones, artillery, missiles and snipers.

Later in the day, Houthi spokesman Yahya Saree later claimed the group’s forces had fired ballistic missiles and drones at two Saudi Aramco sites in Saudi Arabia – one in Riyadh and the other in the area of Khurais, some 150km (93 miles) north-east of the capital.

There was no immediate comment by Saudi Arabia.

The fighting between the Houthis and Yemeni government forces has intensified since a fragile 2022 truce collapsed in July, displacing hundreds of thousands of people since.

In mid-September, the Houthis seized the port city of Mocha and strategic islands in the Bab al-Mandeb strait, a vital route for global oil shipments, before anti-Houthi forces stabilised front lines.

Yemen has been at war since the Houthis seized the capital, Sanaa, in 2014, forcing the Yemeni government to retreat to Aden.

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