Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi militia launched 14 ballistic missiles, with “concurrent drone attacks”, targeting areas along the Red Sea coast in the Taiz and Hodeidah provinces, government forces said on Thursday.
Several drones were shot down in Taiz using newly acquired air defences, the Yemeni Armed Forces said.
“The ballistic missiles caused no impact on the combat operations theatre of the forces stationed on the western coast,” the army said. Ground battles against the Houthis continue, it added.
Fighting in Yemen has escalated, with the Houthis stepping up attacks on government positions and Saudi infrastructure in recent months, raising fears of a return to all-out fighting four years after a fragile truce was struck. Although the UN-mediated truce expired only months after it was agreed on in 2022, fighting between the Houthis and Yemeni government forces had largely ended.
Yemeni political activist Riyadh Aldubai said the current wave of rebel attacks are not a “passing escalation, but a war that the Houthi militias are waging to destroy economic institutions and Yemen's infrastructure”, particularly as the targets include the government-held Mokha port in Taiz.
The Houthis have strengthened their military capability and expanded their smuggling network into the Horn of Africa by collaborating with Al Shabab militant group in Somalia, an Al Qaeda affiliate, for additional sources of revenue.
“We are facing a cross-border network that exchanges weapons, expertise, training and technology with terrorist groups, and seeks to expand the scope of its operations on both sides of the Gulf of Aden, thereby placing Bab Al Mandeb, trade routes, and global energy supplies in the face of a more complex and sustainable danger,” Yemen's Minister of Information, Moammar Eryani, wrote on X.
“The Houthi threat is no longer confined to Yemen and international shipping in the Red Sea, but rather to regional and international security,” Mr Eryani added, calling on the international community to step in to provide the government with political, military, security and intelligence support.
On Tuesday, Yemen experts told the US Congress that Washington should back the Yemeni government against the Houthis.
