Fighting in Yemen escalates, raising concern of a return to civil war

The Houthis launched a series of attacks on Yemeni government forces on August 6. It is the most substantial campaign in Yemen from the Iran-backed terror group since a 2022 UN-brokered truce paused fighting after eight years of civil war. Beginning in late July, the Houthis also launched attacks on and declared a maritime blockade against Saudi Arabia, the primary backer of the internationally recognized government of Yemen and the leader of the coalition to counter the Houthis. “Our armed forces have carried out a broad and qualitative military operation targeting Saudi enemy mobilizations in the Al-Ruwaik, Al-Abr, and Al-Thaniyah areas, as well as other camps affiliated with the so-called First and Third Emergency Brigades, using a large number of ballistic missiles and drones,” Yahya Saree, the Houthi military spokesman, announced on August 6. He claimed that the attack killed or injured “hundreds of the Saudi enemy’s mercenaries” and destroyed weapons and facilities. The locations targeted are in the government-controlled governorates of Marib, a central, front-line governorate, and Hadramawt, Yemen’s largest governorate that spans central and eastern Yemen. The Yemeni Emergency Brigades are government forces, with the First Brigade headquartered in eastern Marib and the Third located in the Hadramawt Valley, a central area of the governorate. The Yemeni Ministry of Defense (MoD) condemned the attacks, which it said “targeted the heroes of the armed forces,” disputing Houthi allegations that the personnel are Saudi mercenaries. The MoD also promised that “the Yemeni armed forces will respond to this aggression at the appropriate time and place.” The government did not offer casualty statistics after the attack. However, a military source told Agence France-Presse that the attack killed 58 government fighters and injured dozens more. On August 7, the Houthis claimed another missile and drone attack on the Sahn al Jinn, a military base in Marib. “The terrorist Houthi militia has continued its attacks on Marib city and its surroundings since Friday morning, targeting residential neighborhoods and displaced persons camps with a number of ballistic missiles and drones, in a terrorist escalation aimed at civilians and civilian facilities,” the Media Center of the Yemeni Armed Forces said after the attack, which killed at least two people and injured 14. The Houthis continued drone and missile attacks on Marib in the following days. On August 9, the Houthis began a multi-day campaign against Mocha, the major government-controlled port on the Red Sea. Saree claimed “a broad and qualitative military operation targeting the Saudi enemy’s mobilizations and weapons depots in the Al-Mocha area.” He said that the attack used “a large number of ballistic missiles and drones.” Colonel Majid Abdullah Al-Nuzaili, the spokesperson for the Yemeni Armed Forces, said that the Houthis attacked “civilian infrastructure, employee residences and their families, power generation stations, and civilian sites within the city, in addition to military sites.” He also said the attack killed four soldiers, three civilians, and injured 30 others. The attack also caused extensive damage to the port, which serves as an important import hub for Yemen’s internationally recognized government. The port’s proximity to the Bab al Mandeb Strait, the southern Red Sea’s chokepoint, is also of significant strategic value. Mocha is also the headquarters of the government-aligned National Resistance Forces (NRF), a key force on Yemen’s Red Sea coast that has been central to intercepting weapons smuggled by sea to the Houthis. The West Coast, a media organization associated with the NRF, reported ongoing Houthi drone and missile attacks on Mocha in the days after the initial August 9 attack. In a statement on August 10, Rashad al Alimi, the chairman of the Presidential Leadership Council, Yemen’s executive body, addressed the ambassadors of the countries that sponsor Yemen’s peace process. “The Yemeni state did not initiate this escalation, nor did it seek it,” he said. “Our friends have asked us over the past years to give peace a chance, and we have done so with full responsibility, perhaps even more than expected. Today, we ask our friends to give the state a chance as well.” On August 10, Yemen’s military media shared multiple videos of the Yemeni Armed Forces targeting Houthi fighters and infrastructure in Marib and the governorate of Al Jawf, immediately to its north. The Houthis remain a regional threat On August 11, the Houthis claimed an attack on the vessel Tihamah, which they alleged is a “Saudi military equipment transport ship.” The attack killed four crew members, and a subsequent Houthi attack on a rescue mission sent to the ship killed two members of the NRF and injured 10. The Yemeni Ministry of Transport said the ship was attacked “with three consecutive ballistic missile strikes while it was sailing in the Bab al-Mandab Strait.” The ministry also said that the ship was carrying food supplies. While launching attacks in Yemen, the Houthis also targeted Najran and the Jazan refineries in southern Saudi Arabia on August 6 and 9, respectively. Turki al Maliki, spokesperson for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, said that the attack, which included “indiscriminate shelling against civilian objects,” injured 11 civilians. Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Energy said that it extinguished a fire at the facility, which refines 400,000 barrels of oil per day, early on August 9, but did not identify the cause of the fire. The Houthis previously struck Jazan on July 25.