More Than 120 Killed as Houthi Assault Reignites Yemen's War
Cairo (Al-Qahira) Castle in Taiz, Yemen (file photo; illustrative of the region, not the fighting itself). Photo: Wikissance, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Fighting between Houthi forces and the Yemeni government has killed more than 120 combatants since Thursday, in the war's bloodiest flare-up in years, as rebels push to cut off the port city of Mokha.
More than 120 combatants have been killed in Yemen since Thursday in the deadliest round of fighting the country has seen in years, after Houthi forces launched a ground assault backed by rockets and drones along the Red Sea coast and inland around Taiz.
Military sources said 24 government soldiers were killed on the Red Sea coast and 15 more in Taiz, while medical sources put Houthi losses at at least 42 fighters. Fighting has centered on the port city of Mokha and the approaches to the Bab al-Mandab strait, one of the world's most strategically important shipping chokepoints. Military officials said the Houthis are trying to sever Mokha from other government-held areas and push toward the strait itself.
The renewed violence follows the Houthis' termination in July of a 2022 truce with the internationally recognized government, ending more than a decade of on-and-off civil war and drawing Yemen further into the wider regional conflict that has also drawn in Israel, Iran and the United States in recent months.
There was no immediate sign of a ceasefire or mediation effort taking hold, and both sides have continued to claim territorial gains as the fighting enters its fourth day.