Giants Brigades send reinforcements to the Subaiha front in Lahj, military sources say
Yemen Herald News 
LAHJ, Yemen — The Giants Brigades sent a brigade of reinforcements to the Subaiha front in Lahj governorate on Sunday, Yemeni military sources said.
The reinforcements are to join tribal fighters and residents in the Mudharabah and Ras al-Ara districts, according to those sources. Both districts sit on Lahj’s border with Taiz governorate.
The deployment followed a Houthi advance into several villages in Mudharabah, the sources said. The Houthis pushed in from Waziyah district in Taiz.
Yemen Monitor reported the deployment separately. The outlet said on Sunday that it had tracked the battlefield and found Giants Brigades units and Nation’s Shield Forces positioned in northern Mudharabah and Ras al-Ara, with support from armed members of the Subaiha tribe.
Yemen Herald has not verified the size of the reinforcement. The figure of one brigade rests on the Yemeni military sources.
The Houthis have not commented on the fighting in Subaiha. The group routinely disputes government descriptions of front-line movement.
Subaiha lies on the overland route between Yemen’s southern Red Sea coast and Aden. Control of the district shapes access to the temporary capital from the west.
The chief of staff and acting commander of the Nation’s Shield Forces said his units remained in position on the front. He said the area would not become a route for the Houthis to reach Aden, according to remarks carried by Asharq Al-Awsat.
Government forces said they took Jabal al-Bazla and the Dhahoura and Saybara positions on the Aghbara front in Subaiha after several hours of fighting. Asharq Al-Awsat reported the claim, citing military sources.
Those sources said Houthi fighters lost personnel and equipment in the exchange. They gave no figure.
Yemen Herald could not confirm any toll from the Aghbara fighting.
Forces from the 23rd Giants Brigade, units of the Nation’s Shield Forces and Subaiha tribesmen repelled a Houthi attack on the Muhawalah front, the same sources said.
Military sources said aircraft struck Houthi reinforcements moving toward the Hayfan and Subaiha fronts. The sources did not identify whose aircraft carried out the strikes.
Clashes have continued on the Taiz fronts of Kahbub, Jabal Habashi and Rasin.
Military sources on both sides said 44 people were killed in a single day of fighting across Taiz and Lahj on 20 September. The two sides gave different accounts of who the dead were.
The Giants Brigades are a southern force that fought the Houthis along the Red Sea coast in 2021 and 2022. They are aligned with the Southern Transitional Council.
The Nation’s Shield Forces were formed in 2022 under the Presidential Leadership Council.
The current fighting began on 3 September, when the Houthis opened an offensive against the council. The first clashes were in Taiz governorate.
The group then moved along the Red Sea coast. It took the port city of Mokha on 10 September and Perim Island the following day, Al Jazeera reported.
That advance gave the Houthis a position astride the Bab al-Mandab strait, through which a large share of Europe-Asia shipping passes.
The offensive ended three years in which front lines had moved little. A UN-brokered truce took effect in April 2022 and lapsed that October, though large-scale ground fighting did not resume until this month.
Displacement has followed the fighting. A government unit said nearly 147,000 people were displaced in 18 days.
UN agencies put the figure at 112,000 over two weeks. The UN refugee agency said it allocated 2 million dollars for the latest wave.
A local authority in Taiz counted 65,845 people displaced since August. Camps in the governorate are over capacity, according to that authority.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said 18,000 displaced families have received aid on the west coast.
Fighting has also drawn attention to Marib. The Yemeni army said last week it was ready to defend the province as Houthi forces massed around it.
The Houthis have extended the campaign beyond Yemen. The group said it struck Riyadh and an Aramco site at Yanbu.
The UN Security Council condemned those attacks on 20 September and called for a halt to the escalation.
The United States warned on Saturday of rapid escalation across the region. President Donald Trump cut short a weekend stay at Camp David and returned to Washington, The National reported.
Trump said this month that the Houthis had told the US they would not target American shipping. He declined a Saudi request for strikes on the group, according to his own account.
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said the bloc’s naval mission Aspides had raised its alert level in the Red Sea.
The Houthis declared a blockade on Saudi-linked shipping after taking the coast. Commercial traffic through the strait had already fallen sharply during the group’s earlier campaign against merchant vessels.
Rashad al-Alimi, who chairs the Presidential Leadership Council, said this month that government forces could regain the initiative on the western coast.
Figures inside the anti-Houthi camp have traded accusations over the speed of the collapse there. Tareq Saleh, who commands forces on the coast and sits on the council, has drawn much of the criticism.
The UK Maritime Trade Operations centre said a tanker reported a skiff trying to intercept it east of Aden this month.
Masam, a Saudi-funded mine clearance project, said it removed 3,887 mines and explosive remnants in Yemen over 18 days this month.
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