Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces advanced rapidly along the Red Sea coast on Monday, reaching the outskirts of Mocha after driving Houthi fighters from most of the territory they seized around the strategic Bab el-Mandeb Strait last month.
The Iran-aligned Houthis responded by claiming attacks on several targets inside Saudi Arabia, including King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, an Aramco refinery in Rabigh, Abha International Airport and the Khamis Mushait military base.
The claims could not immediately be independently verified. Saudi authorities and Aramco did not immediately comment.
Four Yemeni government sources said troops, supported by heavy Saudi air strikes, reached the outskirts of Mocha late on Monday as Houthi fighters withdrew towards mountainous areas. Yemen’s Defence Ministry later said the city had been captured.
If confirmed, the advance would weaken the Houthis’ hold over one of the world’s most important maritime routes at a time when energy markets are already under pressure from Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
The Houthis would, however, retain the ability to threaten Red Sea shipping using drones and missiles launched from other areas under their control.
Fighting has intensified across Yemen since the country’s long-running civil war reignited amid the wider US-Iran conflict. Houthi forces have sought to expand their control around Bab el-Mandeb while launching missile and drone attacks against Saudi cities and infrastructure.
The Saudi-led coalition said naval forces also carried out an operation in Yemen’s Red Sea province of Hodeidah on Monday.
Government forces had earlier captured positions in Dhubab district, including an airstrip near the entrance to Bab el-Mandeb. The Houthis’ seizure of the area last month had alarmed energy markets because of the strait’s importance to global oil and commercial shipping.
The full scale of the government advance could not be independently verified. The Houthis, who control Sanaa and much of Yemen’s populated north, rejected the government’s claims as baseless.
Despite losing ground along the coast, Houthi forces have made gains around Taiz, Yemen’s third-largest city.
Five government military sources said Houthi fighters captured sections of a mountain road and tightened their encirclement of government positions around the city, though another government source denied the main route had been completely cut.
The Houthis also threatened attacks on aircraft travelling through Saudi airspace.
The escalation prompted Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan to agree at an emergency meeting in Riyadh on Monday to rapidly deploy military forces and capabilities inside Saudi Arabia under the three countries’ Mecca Joint Defence Agreement.
The pact, signed in August, provides that an armed attack against one member would be treated as an attack against all three.
In a joint statement, the governments accused the Houthis of attempting to target Mecca and Medina and condemned attacks on Saudi cities, civilian infrastructure and economic facilities.
Saudi Arabia said its forces had struck hundreds of targets to support Yemeni troops operating around Bab el-Mandeb, while the Yemeni government said operations had also been launched on several other fronts, including in Sanaa province.
The Houthi-run health ministry said two people were killed and seven others wounded in strikes on the Sanhan and Sa’wan districts.
Some of the heaviest fighting has been concentrated around Taiz and Yemen’s southwestern coastline.
Government military sources said Houthi fighters damaged a culvert on the Taiz-Aden road, making it impassable, and advanced into parts of al-Turbah over the weekend.
A Houthi-run news agency also cited a military source as saying the group had forced government troops from al-Mawasit district in Taiz province and reached the home area of Rashad al-Alimi, head of Yemen’s internationally recognised Presidential Leadership Council.
Government sources said the advances had left Taiz, a city of more than half a million people with thousands of government troops stationed inside, increasingly surrounded.
The renewed fighting has deepened Yemen’s humanitarian crisis. The UN migration agency said about 184,000 people had been displaced since the latest phase of the war began.
Al-Alimi said on Sunday that government forces would continue fighting until Yemen was “liberated” from Houthi control.
