National Resistance says it destroyed an explosive-laden boat heading for Mokha port
Yemen Herald News 
MOKHA, Yemen — Yemeni government forces destroyed an explosive-laden boat that tried to reach the port of Mokha on the Red Sea coast, the National Resistance said.
The National Resistance is a unit affiliated with the Yemeni Armed Forces. It said its troops destroyed the craft before it reached the pier.
The announcement was made on Thursday, 3 September.
The account rests on the National Resistance’s own statement. No independent confirmation of the interception has been published, and Yemen Herald could not verify it.
The Houthi movement has not commented on the claim.
Al Arabiya English reported the announcement on 3 September. Yemen Monitor carried it separately. Both attributed the account to the government side.
The National Resistance said its units were fighting the Houthis on the western coast fronts at the same time.
It did not say where the boat was launched from, or whether anyone was aboard.
No casualties were reported in the incident.
Government forces said the Houthis had struck districts along Yemen’s western coast with 14 ballistic missiles, in what the government called a new escalation. The Houthis have not published a figure of their own.
A Yemeni military source told Al Arabiya English on Thursday that no position on the Taiz military axis had fallen to the Houthis.
The source said clashes were continuing on several fronts west of Taiz, and that government troops were repelling attacks. The Houthis dispute the government’s account of the fighting.
The Yemeni army said it had launched a counteroffensive on the southern al-Jarahi front in Hodeidah, Al Arabiya English reported on Friday. Houthi-run authorities have not confirmed losing ground there.
Mokha lies on Yemen’s Red Sea coast, in the west of Taiz province.
The port sits north of the Bab al-Mandab strait, which narrows to about 30 kilometres between Yemen and Djibouti.
Mokha port has been out of operation since mid-August after repeated Houthi missile and drone strikes, its director, Abdulmalik al-Sharabi, has said.
More than 1,500 port workers lost their jobs when operations stopped, according to al-Sharabi.
Coast guard forces thwarted an earlier attempt to blow up the Mokha pier using explosive-laden boats in August, Yemen Monitor reported at the time.
Government forces later announced the destruction of two further booby-trapped craft that they said had tried to target al-Khawkha and Mokha. That account also rests on the government side.
The Media Line reported that Yemeni forces have increased their interceptions of Houthi boats in the Red Sea.
Yemen Herald has not seen imagery of any of the intercepted craft.
Taiz has been divided since 2015. Government-aligned forces hold the city, and Houthi units hold ground to its west and north.
The Houthis began attacking merchant vessels in the Red Sea in November 2023, saying the attacks were tied to the war in Gaza.
A United Nations-brokered truce ran for six months and lapsed in October 2022. No successor agreement has been signed.
A United States House subcommittee heard testimony this month on countering Houthi attacks and Red Sea security.
A senior United States commander has warned that ties between the Houthis and the Somali group al-Shabaab carry global implications, Al Arabiya English reported on 1 September.
Researchers have said the Houthis supplied al-Shabaab with drones, weapons and training. The Houthis deny arming the group.
Fighting on the western coast has displaced civilians in recent weeks.
The International Organization for Migration recorded 274 families displaced across five Yemeni governorates in a single week.
The organization also said 227 families had fled three displacement sites in western Taiz.
The Executive Unit for the Management of Displaced Persons Camps said 57 families fled Houthi shelling in southern Hodeidah.
Those figures come from the agencies that published them and have not been independently checked by Yemen Herald.
The Masam demining project said it cleared 819 mines and explosive devices in Yemen in one week.
Human Rights Watch has said the Houthis are holding 73 United Nations staff.
The United Nations humanitarian plan for 2026 puts the number of Yemenis in need of assistance at more than 22 million.
It says 18.3 million people are acutely food insecure.
More than 2.2 million children under five are acutely malnourished, of whom 516,157 are severely malnourished, according to the plan.
The plan puts the number of internally displaced people at 5.2 million.
It seeks 2.16 billion dollars to reach 12 million people. The appeal was 18 per cent funded as of last week.
Yemen’s internationally recognised government is seated in Aden. The Houthis administer Sanaa and much of the north.
President Rashad al-Alimi has said the armed forces have taken the initiative in Taiz and Hodeidah, and are able to reclaim territory. The Houthis reject that assessment.
A bloc of parties aligned with the government has called for a simultaneous offensive on all fronts, and urged pressure for the implementation of Security Council Resolution 2216.
The government has asked Arab states for a joint strategy to protect trade routes.
The National Resistance is led by Tareq Saleh, a member of the Presidential Leadership Council.
The Presidential Leadership Council has ordered a crackdown on smuggling along Yemen’s coasts and borders.
Saudi Arabia has provided new support to Yemen’s central bank, the government said.
The statement did not give a time for the interception.
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