Yemen forms command center after Houthi forces breach western front lines

Yemeni government forces announced Thursday the formation of a command center south of the western city of Mocha near the Bab al-Mandab Strait, following breaches by the Houthi group on several fronts in the country’s west.

Mocha holds major military importance as it hosts a strategic port and is one of Yemen’s closest cities to Bab al-Mandab, one of the world’s key maritime passages linking the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden and carrying ships traveling to and from the Suez Canal.

The government-aligned 2 December news agency quoted Presidential Leadership Council member Tareq Saleh as saying he had ordered armed forces on Yemen’s western coast to “reorganize their ranks.”

Saleh, who commands the forces, said the National Resistance, Giants Brigades, Nation’s Shield and units of the Taiz Axis had suffered significant casualties in recent days while confronting a Houthi offensive that he said was “planned by Iran.”

Meanwhile, the media office of the government authorities in Al-Hudaydah said in a statement that military units participating in operations around Hays in southern Al-Hudaydah province and western areas of Taiz were being reorganized.

It said the measure was part of a plan to “organize the deployment and redistribute forces” in preparation for a coordinated field operation and to reorganize defensive lines.

On the other hand, activists on social media circulated images they said showed Houthi fighters after taking control of the Hays and Al-Khawkhah districts in southern Al-Hudaydah.

If the Houthis have taken control of the two districts, where National Resistance forces had been deployed, the group would have completed its control over Al-Hudaydah province, according to an Anadolu correspondent.

Government forces and Houthis continued to exchange fire Wednesday in the provinces of Marib, Al-Bayda, Al-Hudaydah, Taiz and Al-Dhalea, resulting in deaths, including among civilians, while government forces sent military reinforcements to Mocha.

The escalation comes amid the broadest wave of fighting in Yemen since 2022, when a UN-brokered truce was reached before the peace process stalled and military confrontations resumed in July.

Yemen has been engulfed in conflict since the Houthis seized the capital Sanaa and several provinces in September 2014, prompting a Saudi-led Arab coalition to intervene in March 2015 in support of the internationally recognized government.