Yemen’s anti-Houthi camp examines west coast collapse as Tareq Saleh faces accusations

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ADEN, Yemen — Yemen’s anti-Houthi camp is examining how its west coast front collapsed this month, as commanders trade accusations over a retreat that handed the Houthis the Red Sea coast.

More than 15 brigades were defeated in the space of days, and the entire Red Sea shore changed hands.

The Houthis opened the offensive against forces aligned with the Presidential Leadership Council on Sept. 3. Government lines gave way within hours of what had been presented as an advance.

Houthi units took the Red Sea port of Mocha on Sept. 10, according to FDD’s Long War Journal. They then seized the remainder of Yemen’s Red Sea shore and Perim Island, in the Bab al-Mandab strait.

They also took the Greater and Lesser Hanish islands as government forces withdrew.

Mocha lies in Taiz governorate and had been the government’s main foothold on the Red Sea coast. Perim Island is known in Arabic as Mayyun and sits in the strait itself.

Every district on the west coast except Midi is now under Houthi control, according to compiled accounts of the offensive. Midi is in Hajjah governorate, on the northern stretch of the coast.

Yemen Herald could not independently establish the final line of control.

The government units that held the coast were reorganised at the start of 2026. About 30 brigades, among them the National Resistance led by Tareq Saleh, the Southern Giants Brigades and the Tihama Resistance Brigades, were restructured into five divisions under Saudi supervision, according to Yemeni and regional press accounts.

As many as 30,000 fighters withdrew, those accounts said, raising questions about coordination, readiness and morale.

The speed of the reversal has produced open recrimination inside the anti-Houthi coalition.

Some Yemeni politicians say money was offered to persuade the units defending the coast to give up their positions.

The governor of Hadramaut, one of Yemen’s largest governorates, said billions of dollars had been offered. He did not identify who paid, and no evidence has been published.

Others have pointed to past links between the United Arab Emirates and the National Resistance Forces. That is an inference drawn by critics, not an established finding, and the UAE has not responded publicly to it.

Military sources told the Yemeni outlet Al-Mahriah Net of discrepancies in Tareq Saleh’s units on the Tihama coast, including allocations for individuals still carried on central payrolls. Yemen Herald could not verify that account.

Saleh, a nephew of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, faces accusations from the Islah party and from southern figures over the defeat.

His National Resistance Forces say the withdrawal was a necessary tactical retreat.

The Southern Transitional Council, which holds seats on the Presidential Leadership Council, maintains its own forces in the south.

Tawakkol Karman, the Yemeni journalist who shared the 2011 Nobel peace prize, has called for an investigation.

No body has been named to conduct one, and the government has not announced formal terms of reference.

Commanders are now regrouping to try to take the Kahbob heights, a position from which government forces could press Houthi units operating near Bab al-Mandab.

Government forces said on Sept. 13 that they had recovered ground near the strait, according to the Yemeni Armed Forces media centre.

President Rashad al-Alimi, chairman of the Presidential Leadership Council, said this week that Yemen’s forces could regain the initiative on the western coast.

The National Resistance Front described the fighting as among the fiercest of the war. It said it had killed more than 1,000 Houthi fighters. The Houthis said they had killed more than 500 government fighters and wounded about 1,500 since Aug. 9.

Neither tally has been independently verified and the two accounts do not agree.

Bab al-Mandab links the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and is one of the world’s principal shipping chokepoints. Houthi attacks on merchant vessels there began in November 2023.

The UN Security Council met in emergency session on Houthi control of the strait at France’s request. Yemen told a conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency that the escalation threatens shipping through the strait.

The coastal fighting has run alongside cross-border exchanges with Saudi Arabia. The Houthis said this month that they had fired missiles and drones at King Khalid Air Base and at a Saudi base at Sharurah.

Yemen’s cabinet condemned drone attacks on Saudi Arabia’s East-West oil pipeline. Pakistan said Houthi attacks on the kingdom could activate a defence pact covering Mecca.

The Houthis have held Sanaa since September 2014. A Saudi-led coalition intervened in March 2015 in support of the internationally recognised government, which is seated in Aden.

The International Organization for Migration said at least 76,000 people have fled fighting in Yemen since July.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in its March 2026 response plan that more than 22 million people in Yemen need assistance and 18.3 million are acutely food insecure.

The plan put the number of internally displaced people at 5.2 million and the number of children under five who are acutely malnourished at more than 2.2 million, including 516,157 with severe acute malnutrition.

It seeks $2.16 billion to reach 12 million people across the country.