Leaders of a Saudi-led coalition in Yemen claimed a broad air campaign involving 100 jet aircraft was under way on Monday against the Iran-backed Houthi rebels along the Red Sea coastline and farther north in the capital, Sana’a.
The Saudi coalition spokesperson, Maj Gen Turki al-Maliki, said the 100 fighter jets participating in Operation Dawn of Yemen were providing support to forces of Yemen’s internationally recognised government.
He said the coalition had secured “air protection” of the strategic Bab al-Mandab strait and destroyed hundreds of Houthi targets. He claimed hundreds of Houthis fighters had been beseiged in the Dhubab district, including the airport, close to the Bab al-Mandab strait, with some Houthi fighters fleeing across the Red Sea in boats.
Southern Yemen forces known as the Giants Brigades, who are allied with the government, earlier on Monday launched a ground offensive against the rebels on the eastern flank of the coastal areas that the Houthis seized in their latest advances. The government forces also claim to have cut the road between Mocha and Dhubab, and that Houthi forces were deserting the recently captured city of Mocha as residents stayed behind closed doors.
Previous Saudi-led statements about territorial gains in recent weeks have often proved partial, but footage appeared to back up the Saudi claims of Houthis retreating by the seashore.
The president of the Saudi-backed government, Rashad al-Alimi, had promised a new offensive on Sunday, saying patience with the Houthis had run out. “Today we are embarking on a decisive phase in the history of our nation,” he said.
Airstrikes were also reported on Monday in Sana’a and the Houthi stronghold of Saada in the north of Yemen. Command and control centres, camps and weapons depots were targeted.
The Houthis, who captured Sana’a in 2014, have in recent weeks made lightning advances down the west coast of Yemen, reaching the Bab al-Mandab and seizing strategic islands on the strait.
On Monday Houthi sources denied reports of a retreat, and pointed to the explosions at a Saudi Aramco plant in Riyadh as a sign of the damage the group could still inflict on exposed Saudi oil installations, and by extension the world economy.
It appears a political agreement reached between the two main external Arab actors in Yemen – Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – permitted the UAE-backed Southern Giants to coordinate with the Saudi air force in the attack towards the coast.
It is being stressed by the Giants Brigades that no other ground forces supporting the Saudi-backed government are involved in the offensive. The Brigades, who are linked with the Southern Transitional Council, a political group outlawed in Yemen for trying to set up a secessionist state, are certain to have sought political commitments about the future status of Yemen in order to have thrown their military weight behind it.
It is not clear how the Saudis propose to address the age-old southern question. Concessions to the STC about the future governance of the south are certain to have been demanded, even if the UAE itself does not return to Yemen.
But the cooperation between the Saudi air force and the Giants Brigades is a remarkable turnaround, since only in January the Saudi air force was bombing UAE shipments of arms arriving in Southern Yemen for STC-backed forces.
The Saudi bombing triggered the UAE pullout from Yemen in January, the sudden dissolution of the STC, and the exile of its leader, Aidarous al-Zubaidi. At the weekend his supporters vowed to hold demonstrations later this month in support of the return to a separate southern state.
Houthi government officials claimed British fighter jets were supporting the Saudi air force with refuelling, something the UK Ministry of Defence has already announced.
The fighting was under way as senior ministers from Pakistan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia met in Riyadh to discuss the support Saudi Arabia might need to protect itself from the Houthis. They have formed a joint defence pact but it is not known how it will operate.