Yemeni forces fighting for the internationally recognised government said on Sunday they were withdrawing from an area overlooking the Bab Al Mandeb strait, leaving the Iran-aligned Houthis in control of territory overlooking the strategic waterway.
Last month, Yemeni government forces said they had recaptured, the Dhubab area overlooking the sea lane, and the strategic port city of Mokha.
The government's withdrawal from the Bab Al Mandab area gives the Houthis greater leverage over the strategic maritime chokepoint, potentially increasing pressure on global shipping as Iran continues to disrupt traffic through the Strait of Hormuz on the other side of the Arabian Peninsula.
"The Southern Armed Forces announce the implementation of a redeployment operation for its forces from Dhubab airport and the Bab Al Mandeb area, west of Taiz governorate," the southern forces said in a statement.
"This step is taken based on the priority of securing the capital, Aden, and the neighbouring governorates, as well as strengthening the front lines and addressing existing threats."
Taiz siege
They said that the redeployment would also support efforts to break the Houthi siege on Taiz city, alleviate the suffering of its residents and end what they described as blockade and starvation policies.
The operations would be carried out with the support of the Saudi-led coalition backing Yemen's government, the statement said.
Government forces launched a military campaign in October to recapture the strategic coastal areas from the Iran-backed militia, which had pushed south in September in an attempt to seize control of more of Yemen's Red Sea coastline. The September offensive brought the Houthis within reach of Bab Al Mandeb.
The escalation in fighting, which followed the collapse of a UN-brokered truce in 2022, became another volatile front in the wider US-Israeli war against Iran, as the Houthis continue to launch attacks on Saudi Arabia, a key US ally and the world's biggest crude exporter.
Houthi attacks on the kingdom, which had enjoyed relative calm during the early months of the nine-month-old Iran war, have disrupted flights and oil supplies as the Houthis struck Saudi ports, airports and facilities of state oil company Saudi Aramco – including the kingdom's Red Sea oil export hub of Yanbu.
In response, Saudi Arabia struck Houthi targets in Yemen, a country mired in civil war since 2014, when the Houthis pushed the government south. Impoverished Yemen has been grappling with one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.
Fighting is intensifying around the western region of Taiz, with humanitarian conditions worsening. The city, which hosts about half of the 300,000 people displaced across Yemen by the latest fighting, remains besieged. Aid supplies are unable to enter, and civilians are unable to leave.
