Yemen's pro-government military, supported by Saudi Arabia, announced on Monday that it has "secured" the Bab al-Mandab Strait at the southern entrance to the Red Sea, marking the opening phase of a large-scale offensive aimed at rolling back Iran-backed Houthi control across the country.
In an official statement, the Yemeni military said that National Shield, Giants Brigades and Tihama Resistance forces had captured the Red Sea port city of Mokha on Monday afternoon, with Saudi air strikes providing close support. The Strait of Bab al-Mandab is one of the world's most critical maritime chokepoints, through which a substantial share of global commercial and energy shipping passes, making control of the waterway a matter of international significance.
However, the picture on the ground remained contested. Unnamed Yemeni government and military sources told the news agencies Reuters and AFP that the forces had only reached the outskirts of Mokha, not the city centre. Four government sources told Reuters that Yemeni troops had approached the city's perimeter late on Monday and that Houthi fighters were pulling back. Government military sources who spoke to AFP declined to confirm the city's capture, but said "our forces took control of the Dhubab military airfield and cut the road linking the Dhubab district to the Bab al-Mandab area."
Earlier on Monday, the Yemeni military said its forces had seized Dhubab airport, located roughly 45km (27 miles) south of Mokha, and were laying siege to Houthi fighters inside the adjacent town. Houthi-run media rejected the government's claims of advances in Dhubab, underscoring the difficulty of verifying battlefield accounts in a conflict where both sides maintain competing information operations.
The Houthis, for their part, said they had struck Riyadh's international airport and other targets inside Saudi Arabia, but made no public comment regarding Mokha. Saudi Arabia condemned the attacks and renewed its calls for the permanent members of the UN Security Council to throw their support behind Yemen's internationally recognised government.
The offensive, announced on Sunday by Rashad al-Alimi, head of Yemen's internationally recognised Presidential Leadership Council, has been named Operation Yemen Dawn. Al-Alimi said that every avenue for de-escalation had been exhausted and urged all forces to carry out their assigned missions "until the country is liberated from the grip of the Houthi terrorist militia." The government says operations have also opened on multiple other fronts, including around the capital, Sanaa, which fell to the Houthis at the outset of the civil war twelve years ago — a symbolic and strategic objective that would represent a decisive turn in the conflict were it to be seriously threatened.
A Saudi-led military coalition said its fighter jets were providing "round-the-clock" air support to the pro-government forces and had destroyed 324 "high-value" targets since the offensive began. The scale of that air campaign suggests Riyadh is prepared to commit significant resources to reversing Houthi gains along the Red Sea coast, where the Houthis had earlier seized areas overlooking Bab al-Mandab, including Mokha, Dhubab and Perim (Mayyun) Island.
The escalation has drawn in regional powers beyond Saudi Arabia. Turkey and Pakistan, both allies of Riyadh, held an emergency meeting in the Saudi capital on Monday and agreed to deploy military forces rapidly into the kingdom under the terms of their Mecca defence pact, according to a joint statement released by Pakistan's foreign ministry. Their involvement could widen the conflict's footprint and raise the stakes for any future diplomatic settlement.
Civilian casualties were reported inside Houthi-held territory. Saudi air strikes killed a schoolgirl and a woman in the Sanhan and Saawan districts of Sanaa on Monday, according to Houthi-run Al Masirah TV. Houthi spokesman Mohammed Abdul Salam accused Saudi Arabia of committing "dozens of massacres" and warned that the kingdom must "bear all the consequences." The reported deaths highlight the humanitarian toll of a conflict that has already left Yemen with one of the world's gravest humanitarian crises.
The Houthi-run Humanitarian Operations Co-ordination Centre issued a warning to civilian airlines that Saudi airspace — with the exception of the skies above the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina — was no longer safe, describing it as having become "a theatre of operations." The advisory signals that the Houthis intend to sustain and possibly expand their long-range missile and drone campaign against Saudi infrastructure, which has already targeted airports and energy facilities.
Those attacks have included ballistic missiles and drones aimed at oil facilities belonging to Saudi Aramco in Riyadh and the Khurais area, which the Houthis described as retaliation for dozens of Saudi strikes on their territory. Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said in a statement on Telegram that the group had also attacked an Aramco oil refinery, Abha airport and other sites, in addition to Riyadh's international airport. BBC Verify reported that satellite imagery from Saturday showed thick, dark smoke rising from the site of a strike at the Aramco Riyadh Refinery in the city's south-east, with a similar plume visible at the Khurais Central Processing Facility and a potential strike point in imagery from Sunday.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres condemned "the continued Houthi cross-border attacks" on Saudi Arabia and said he was "deeply concerned by the sharp escalation in fighting," according to a statement provided to AFP. His remarks reflect mounting international anxiety that the renewed hostilities could unravel what had been a fragile, four-year informal ceasefire and further destabilise a region already strained by multiple conflicts.
That informal truce began to collapse in July, when the Houthis declared a "maritime embargo" against Saudi Arabia and launched missile and drone attacks on Saudi airports, oil facilities and tankers in the Red Sea. The Houthis said they were responding to a Saudi blockade of ports and airports in their territory, as well as an air strike on Sanaa airport that they blamed on the kingdom. Last month, the Houthis launched a surprise offensive along Yemen's south-western Red Sea coast and quickly dislodged pro-government forces from positions overlooking Bab al-Mandab, including Mokha, Dhubab and Perim Island — gains that Monday's government operation is now attempting to reverse.
Yemen's civil war began in 2014, when the Houthis ousted the government from Sanaa. The conflict escalated sharply in 2015 after a Saudi-led coalition of Arab states intervened in an attempt to restore the government's rule, and it has since evolved into a protracted proxy struggle with devastating consequences for Yemeni civilians. With both sides now trading claims of territorial control and cross-border strikes, and with new regional military deployments in play, the coming days are likely to determine whether Operation Yemen Dawn becomes a turning point or another chapter in a war that has defied repeated efforts at resolution.
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