Yemen's Houthis are set for a costly and difficult battle as they attempt to capture the city of Taiz, a stronghold of anti-rebel resistance that has withstood attacks for more than a decade, officials told The National.
Taiz, in south-western Yemen, is under the control of Yemeni government forces but has been long besieged by the Houthis and remains the main front in the country’s civil war.
The city occupies a strategic position in Yemen's war and is regarded as a symbol of resistance to the Iran-aligned group. During the Houthis' military advance in 2015, local fighters armed largely with personal weapons helped to prevent the rebels from taking full control of the city.
“In Taiz the people will fight the Houthis. There is a popular resistance from civilians,” a Yemeni official told The National. Many senior Yemeni government officials are from Taiz so its population “will not stop until they push the Houthis out”, he added.
Fighting around Taiz has intensified this week, raising concerns that the Houthis could attempt to tighten their grip on the city. The rebel group is concentrating on the main motorway linking Taiz to Aden, Yemen's temporary capital and the seat of the internationally recognised government.
“It is not going to be easy for the Houthis to take Taiz,” Ahmed Nagi, Yemen expert at the Crisis Group, told The National. He noted the city's “strong tradition of local resistance” and its role as a symbol of opposition to Houthi rule.
“If the Houthis continue to intensify their attacks and try to capture Taiz, it is likely to cost them heavily in both fighters and time,” he said. “The fighting is already extremely intense, and everything we are seeing suggests that taking the city would be a very difficult operation for them at this stage.”
However, the rebels are not attempting to “enter the city directly, they appear to be trying to encircle it, cut its main supply route and put pressure on it from outside”, Mr Nagi added.
Taiz would represent a major military and political victory for the Houthis, who already dominate much of northern Yemen. “They would have a much clearer path to push further south,” he said.
The fighting around Taiz this week is being closely watched as an indicator of whether the conflict's front lines are shifting after years of relative military stalemate. If government forces can make gains in Taiz that could put pressure on the Houthi forces elsewhere and potentially trigger withdrawals from other fronts.
Saudi Arabia is also planning an offensive against the Houthis, considering a coastal push to secure the Red Sea shipping route or an assault on multiple fronts, regional and western officials told Reuters.
Last month, Pakistan sent four cargo planes with equipment including air defence systems, light artillery, drones and anti-drone systems to Aden, a Pakistani government official told the news agency.
Pakistani military advisers are also on the ground with Saudi counterparts to support Yemeni forces, according to a second Pakistani official, a Gulf official and a western diplomat. Turkish drones bought by Saudi Arabia before the current war have also been deployed over Yemen, they added.
Civilians suffer
Taiz, Yemen's third-largest city, was once an industrial hub. It has endured years of conflict, siege and intermittent violence since the civil war erupted in 2014, and has never fully recovered even during periods of reduced fighting, said Dina El Mamoun, Yemen director for Civic, a civil protection group.
“The intensity of the fighting [now] is very similar to what Taiz faced in 2015, and of course that brings the worry in relation to civilian harm, killings and injuries,” she told The National.
Taiz is divided into areas controlled by the Houthis and those controlled by the government which has forced civilians to flee their homes, often multiple times.
“We have spoken to many people, and many are saying, 'That's it, we're not going to be fleeing any more. We will remain and we will fight to the bitter end,'” she said.
Aid advocates fear that any major population movement would overwhelm humanitarian response efforts.
“Even if people decide to flee, there is an even bigger problem in terms of how to respond to it,” Ms El Mamoun explained. “Taiz is the governorate with the highest levels of population in Yemen. Where are they going to go, and who has the capacity to absorb the eventual humanitarian loss that will happen?”
Hunger is also worsening rapidly in the governorate. As well as displacing thousands of families, the renewed fighting has also driven up food prices and cut off access for aid, the World Food Programme said on Friday.
Recent WFP monitoring found that 74 per cent of households in accessible areas could not meet their basic food needs, the highest level recorded this year, as the conflict intensifies and economic conditions deteriorate.
