Yemeni military says it struck Houthi positions east of Taiz
Yemen Herald News 
TAIZ, Yemen — Yemen’s military said Friday it carried out airstrikes on Houthi positions east of Taiz, near the city’s main eastern gateway.
The Media Center of the Taiz Military Axis said warplanes of the Yemeni Armed Forces struck Houthi sites around Al-Qasr Roundabout, on the eastern approach to Taiz city. The statement was published on Facebook.
It did not say how many strikes were flown. It did not describe the targets.
The statement gave no casualty figures, and did not say whether the strikes caused material damage.
The account of Friday’s strikes rests on the Taiz Military Axis media office. No independent confirmation of them has been published, and the Houthis have not commented.
Al-Qasr Roundabout carries the main road into Taiz from the east.
The strikes followed an announcement hours earlier that government forces had repelled a Houthi attack on the Al-Kadaha front, west of Taiz province. Military officials said the attackers were forced to retreat after clashes. The Houthis routinely dispute government accounts of fighting on that front.
Fighting in the province has intensified for weeks.
Government forces struck Houthi positions elsewhere in Taiz on Thursday, according to Fayyad Alnoman, assistant undersecretary at Yemen’s Information Ministry for television affairs. Writing on X, Alnoman said local sources reported a strike on Houthi reinforcements at the Al-Dharifah junction in Al-Wazi’iyah district, west of Taiz.
A separate air force strike hit a Houthi communications centre in the Al-Hawban area, east of Taiz city, according to field reports carried by Anadolu Agency.
Alnoman also cited field sources describing continued fighting across the Kahbub mountain range, which runs between Lahj and Taiz provinces. He said government units had taken several highlands there and pushed toward positions still held by the Houthis.
The range overlooks routes leading to Yemen’s western coast, to the Bab al-Mandab strait and to the town of Dhubab.
In an earlier post, Alnoman said field sources had reported clashes between government forces and Houthi fighters on the Al-Anin and Bilad al-Wafi fronts, in Jabal Habashi district west of Taiz.
The Houthi group did not comment on those reports either, Anadolu said.
On Wednesday, government forces said they had targeted Houthi positions, barracks and personnel on the Al-Kadha front, and that airstrikes had hit Houthi gatherings elsewhere west of Taiz.
Al Jazeera Arabic, reporting from Taiz on Monday, said government forces advanced in western Taiz on Sunday after repelling a Houthi offensive. Correspondent Yasser Hassan said the advance came with support from airstrikes, and that the air force was bombing Houthi positions on the west coast at Mocha and Dhubab. He cited a source in the government forces.
An AFP photographer recorded government fighters manning a checkpoint on the Kadha front line west of Taiz on Sept. 13.
The government began flying its own air missions against the Houthis this month, Al Jazeera reported, in a war where air power had largely been supplied by its Saudi-led backers.
Fighting across Yemen reignited in July, ending a period of relative calm that had held since a UN-brokered truce took effect in April 2022. The Houthis declared a maritime blockade on Saudi Arabia and began attacking its shipping in the Red Sea.
The conflict has since spread beyond Yemen’s borders. The Houthis have carried out air attacks on southern Saudi Arabia, including on oil facilities.
Dozens of people were wounded in those attacks, Al Jazeera reported.
The Houthis said on Monday they had fired dozens of ballistic missiles and drones at King Khalid airbase in Khamis Mushait, naming aircraft hangars, radar installations, runways and ammunition depots among the targets. The group described the attacks as a response to a Saudi offensive it said involved more than 300 airstrikes across Yemen over five days. Saudi Arabia did not immediately comment on the claims.
Last week the group captured parts of Yemen’s Red Sea coast and tightened its hold on Bab al-Mandab. The strait normally carries about 12 percent of global trade, including 11 percent of seaborne oil and 8 percent of liquefied natural gas, according to Al Jazeera.
The waterway has served as a route for Saudi oil exports since the Strait of Hormuz was effectively closed by Iranian forces, after the United States and Israel began their war on Iran in February.
Repairs to a Saudi oil pipeline struck in an attack this month could take three to five weeks, regional officials told The Associated Press.
Houthi officials said their forces had deployed on the islands of Greater Hanish and Lesser Hanish, about 86 nautical miles north of the strait, The Associated Press reported.
The United Nations said this week that fighting had displaced 112,000 people inside Yemen, with thousands more crossing to Djibouti.
The International Organization for Migration had put that figure at nearly 86,000 on Sept. 13.
Yemen’s war began when the Houthis seized the capital, Sanaa, and several provinces in September 2014. A Saudi-led coalition intervened in March 2015 in support of the internationally recognised government.
Taiz, Yemen’s third-largest city, has been partly encircled by Houthi forces for much of that war.
The Taiz Military Axis is the government command responsible for the fronts in and around the province.
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