Yemeni army says it is ready to defend Marib as Houthis mass forces around the province
Yemen Herald News 
MARIB, Yemen — Yemen’s army says it is ready to defend Marib against a Houthi offensive, as the group masses fighters around the province after seizing the Red Sea coast.
Brig. Yahya al-Hatemi, director of the Yemeni army’s military media, told Arab News that government forces had gained battlefield experience over more than a decade of war.
They were better armed and operating under a unified command, he said.
Al-Hatemi spoke on Sept. 13. He said the army could repel any advance on the province.
Yemeni media reported that the Houthis had moved large numbers of fighters and military equipment into areas of Marib they already hold. Arab News carried those reports.
The Houthis have not confirmed a buildup around Marib.
Al Jazeera separately reported the group’s advance toward Marib and Taiz on Sept. 14.
The army’s account of its own readiness rests on al-Hatemi’s statement to Arab News. Yemen Herald found no independent confirmation of the scale of the reported Houthi troop transfer.
Marib sits in central Yemen. It holds oil and gas fields, a power station that feeds several provinces, and army bases.
It also shelters a large displaced population. Arab News put the figure at more than 2 million people.
The province has been the government’s stronghold in the north since 2015.
Houthi forces besieged it in 2021 and 2022 in an offensive that ran for months. They did not take the city.
The current fighting began on Sept. 3, when the Houthis opened an offensive against the internationally recognised government. The group called the operation “God is Stronger in Might and More Severe in Punishment.”
Houthi units took the port of Mocha on Sept. 10.
The following day they extended control to Mayyun island, also known as Perim, and to Dhubab, the Hanish islands and six districts in Taiz and Hodeidah provinces. The gains covered about 5,400 square kilometres.
That left the whole of Yemen’s Red Sea shore in Houthi hands apart from Midi district, in the far north.
Bab al-Mandab lies at the southern end of that coastline. The strait is one of the world’s shipping chokepoints, linking the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden.
Its importance to Saudi Arabia has risen this year. Saudi seaborne crude exports through the strait ran eight times higher between March and mid-July than in the same period of 2025, after Iranian restrictions on the Strait of Hormuz pushed cargoes onto the Red Sea route.
Government commanders are examining how the western front gave way. More than 15 brigades were defeated within days.
Saudi aircraft have struck Houthi-held areas since the offensive began. Al Jazeera reported 40 Saudi airstrikes on Taiz, Marib and Hodeidah over one 24-hour period.
Government forces have carried out drone attacks on Houthi positions in northern Marib, according to the same report.
The Houthis said on Sept. 18 that Saudi Arabia had carried out 26 attacks on areas under their control over the previous 24 hours. The coalition did not publish a figure of its own.
The Houthis said on Sept. 17 that they had shot down a Saudi F-15 over the province. Yemen Herald could not verify the claim, and the Saudi-led coalition has not addressed it.
The United States has ruled out a direct role in the fighting.
Maysaa Shuja al-Deen, a senior researcher at the Sanaa Center for Strategic Studies, told ABC News that government forces had roughly two weeks to mount a counterattack before the opportunity closed.
“To organize a counter attack is not impossible,” she said.
The International Organization for Migration said on Sept. 18 that more than 112,000 people had been displaced inside Yemen in two weeks, and that nearly 3,000 had crossed by sea to Djibouti.
Most of that movement was along the western coast and in Taiz and Lahj provinces, the agency said.
Al Jazeera reported at least 194 people killed and 880 wounded over the same two weeks in Taiz, the western coast, al-Jawf, Marib and Dhalea. Those tallies come from the warring parties and have not been independently audited.
Marib had come under fire before the September offensive. Al Jazeera reported renewed shelling of the province in early August, and government forces attacked Houthi positions in response.
The Houthis fired ballistic missiles at Mocha and Marib on Aug. 11, according to the same outlet.
The escalation follows a truce brokered by the United Nations in April 2022. Both sides reported violations of it over the years that followed.
Humanitarian conditions were already severe before the September fighting. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in its March 2026 plan that more than 22 million people in Yemen needed assistance.
OCHA put the number of acutely food insecure at 18.3 million and the number of internally displaced at 5.2 million.
More than 2.2 million children under five are acutely malnourished, the plan said. It recorded 516,157 of those cases as severe.
The agency sought $2.16 billion to reach 12 million people this year.
The World Health Organization said on Sept. 18 that nearly 20 million people in Yemen need health assistance.
Marib’s power station supplies electricity beyond the province. Fuel from its fields has moved by road to government-held areas for years.
Al-Hatemi did not give troop numbers for the government side.
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