Yemeni leader announces military operation to retake territory held by Houthis | News from the Houthis

Rashad al-Alimi says the campaign aims to restore state authority throughout Yemen.

⁠⁠The chairman of Yemen’s Saudi-backed Presidential Council, Rashad al-Alimi, announced the start of military operations to retake remaining territory held by the Houthis, an armed group also known as Ansar Allah (Arabic for followers of God), and restore ⁠⁠state authorities across the country.

In a televised speech, al-Alimi said on Sunday that the forces of the internationally recognized government would extend “the authority of the state and its institutions throughout the national territory.”

“We asked the armed forces, security forces and all military formations to start carrying out the tasks assigned to them according to 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.”

Hundreds of deaths

The development comes after the Yemeni government army and its forces loyal to it “performed 257 precision targeting operations on Saturday” against Houthi sites, movements and military capabilities, according to the spokesperson for Yemen’s internationally recognized government forces, Colonel Majed Abdullah al-Nazili.

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

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

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

Later in the day, Houthi spokesman Yahya Saree said 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 Khurais region, 150 km northeast of the capital.

Saudi Arabia had no immediate comment.

“New calculation”

London-based defense analyst Ibrahim Jalal told Al Jazeera that the internationally recognized government’s new “large-scale” operation against the Houthis has taken the conflict into a “new phase”.

“Peace and de-escalation processes have failed because there is a clear imbalance of power that has been at play for at least six years now. To break the impasse, there must be a decisive battle,” said Jalal, who specializes in regional security and armed groups.

Fighting between the Houthis and Yemeni government forces has intensified since the breakdown in July of a fragile 2022 truce, displacing hundreds of thousands of people since then.

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 stabilized the front lines.

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