Yemeni Forces Claim Control of Bab al-Mandab Strait as Major Offensive Against Houthis Escalates

Yemen's internationally recognised military announced on Monday that it had "secured" the Bab al-Mandab Strait, the strategically vital waterway at the southern entrance to the Red Sea, marking the opening phase of a large-scale offensive aimed at rolling back Iran-backed Houthi control across the country.

In a statement, the Yemeni military said pro-government formations — including National Shield, the Giants Brigades and the Tihama Resistance — had seized the Red Sea port city of Mokha on Monday afternoon, supported by air strikes from Saudi Arabia. The advance, if confirmed, would represent the most significant territorial gain by government-aligned forces since the Houthis launched a surprise push along Yemen's south-western coast last month.

The reported capture of Mokha remains contested, however. Unnamed Yemeni government and military sources told the news agencies Reuters and AFP that the forces had only reached the city's outskirts, contradicting the military's claim of full control. The Houthis themselves did not comment on the situation in Mokha, though their media outlets denied government reports of advances in the nearby Dhubab district.

Government military sources speaking to AFP declined to confirm Mokha's fall but said pro-government units had "taken control of the Dhubab military airfield and cut the road linking the Dhubab district to the Bab al-Mandab area". Earlier in the day, the Yemeni military said its forces had seized Dhubab airport, located roughly 45 kilometres (27 miles) south of Mokha, and were besieging Houthi fighters inside the adjacent town.

The operation, dubbed Operation Yemen Dawn, was announced on Sunday by Rashad al-Alimi, head of Yemen's internationally recognised Presidential Leadership Council. Al-Alimi declared that all avenues for de-escalation had been exhausted and urged all forces to carry out their assigned missions "until the country is liberated from the grip of the Houthi terrorist militia". The government said operations had also begun on other fronts on Monday, including around the capital, Sanaa, which fell to the Houthis at the start of the civil war twelve years ago.

The offensive follows a Houthi manoeuvre in which the group reportedly cut a mountain road near the south-western city of Taiz, effectively encircling government forces and residents there. Last month, the Houthis launched a surprise offensive along Yemen's south-western Red Sea coast and quickly ousted pro-government forces from areas overlooking the Bab al-Mandab Strait, including Mokha, Dhubab and Perim (Mayyun) Island — a loss the current operation is evidently designed to reverse.

A Saudi-led military coalition said its fighter jets were providing "round-the-clock" air support to pro-government forces and had destroyed 324 "high-value" targets since the offensive began. The scale of the air campaign underscores Riyadh's deepening involvement in a conflict it has been entangled in since 2015, when a coalition of Arab states intervened to restore the government's rule after the Houthis seized Sanaa in 2014.

The Houthis responded with cross-border attacks. The group said it had launched ballistic missiles and drones at Saudi Aramco oil facilities in Riyadh and the Khurais area, in retaliation for dozens of Saudi strikes on their territory. Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said in a statement on Telegram that the group had also targeted Riyadh's international airport, an Aramco oil refinery and Abha airport, among other sites. According to BBC Verify, satellite imagery from Saturday showed thick, dark smoke rising from the site of a strike at the Aramco Riyadh Refinery in the city's south-east. A similar plume was visible over the Khurais Central Processing Facility and a potential strike point in imagery from Sunday.

Saudi Arabia condemned the attacks and renewed its calls for the permanent members of the UN Security Council to support Yemen's government. Houthi spokesman Mohammed Abdul Salam accused Riyadh of committing "dozens of massacres" and said the kingdom must "bear all the consequences". Houthi-run Al Masirah TV reported that Saudi air strikes killed a schoolgirl and a woman in the Sanhan and Saawan districts of Sanaa on Monday.

In a further sign of the conflict's widening reach, Turkey and Pakistan — both allies of Saudi Arabia — held an emergency meeting in Riyadh on Monday and agreed to rapidly deploy military forces to the kingdom under their Mecca defence pact, according to a joint statement shared by Pakistan's foreign ministry. The Houthi-run Humanitarian Operations Co-ordination Centre also warned civilian airlines that Saudi airspace, with the exception of the skies above the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina, was no longer safe because it had become "a theatre of operations".

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres condemned "the continued Houthi cross-border attacks" on Saudi Arabia and said he was "deeply concerned by the sharp escalation in fighting", according to a statement provided to AFP. The remarks reflect mounting international alarm at a conflict that had appeared largely frozen before last July, when a four-year informal ceasefire began to unravel after the Houthis announced a "maritime embargo" against Saudi Arabia and began missile and drone attacks on Saudi airports, oil facilities and tankers in the Red Sea.

The Houthis framed those attacks as retaliation for a Saudi blockade of ports and airports in their territory, as well as an air strike on Sanaa airport that they blamed on the kingdom. With the collapse of the informal truce, both sides now appear to be committing to a sustained military confrontation, raising the prospect of renewed large-scale displacement, further damage to Yemen's already devastated infrastructure and fresh disruption to one of the world's most important shipping corridors.

Yemen has been mired in civil war since 2014, when the Houthis ousted the government from the capital. The conflict escalated dramatically the following year with the Saudi-led intervention, and more than a decade of fighting has left the country's economy in ruins and its population facing one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. Control of the Bab al-Mandab Strait — through which a substantial share of global maritime trade passes — gives whoever holds it significant leverage over international shipping, making the current battle for Mokha and Dhubab far more than a local contest.