Yemen's Rival Armed Powers Leave Civilians Isolated

Eight soldiers loyal to Yemen’s internationally recognised government died in clashes on the al-Maqatirah front in Lahij governorate. Fighting intensified across the country, and humanitarian agencies warned that civilian conditions were worsening. The government-affiliated Tur al-Bahah military axis announced the deaths on Saturday. Across several fronts, armed forces and political authorities measure control in territory, strikes and military losses. Civilians bear the consequences: displacement, isolation and hospitals running short of supplies.

Front lines and command chains

In Taiz governorate, government troops said they killed 12 Houthi fighters in al-Aqroud after days of fighting on the outskirts of Taiz city. Saudi Arabia-backed government forces said they repelled Houthi advances and inflicted heavy losses. They also said they broke a Houthi attack on the al-Shaqab front. Those are claims by forces involved, not an independent accounting of the fighting.

Government-aligned Homeland Shield Forces reported destroying a Houthi supply vehicle with a drone in al-Wazziyah. The Southern Giants Brigades said they carried out precision strikes on Houthi positions in al-Madaribah, near the Lahij border. In al-Jawf and Marib, government troops and allied Popular Resistance fighters continued an offensive. Military officials reported artillery barrages and drone strikes on Houthi military positions, barracks and troop assemblies in al-Jawf; coalition aircraft bombed Houthi command hubs and supply depots. Government artillery and missile units targeted Houthi lines in Marib.

Last month, the Houthis, an armed group also known as Ansar Allah, seized strategic territory from forces loyal to the internationally recognised government along the Red Sea coast. Saudi-backed government forces responded with a counteroffensive and launched the “Dawn of Yemen” operation, aimed at recapturing Houthi-held territory, including Sanaa, the capital the Iran-aligned group seized in 2014. The competing forces describe their operations in terms of advances and security. Civilians caught among them, though, appear in agencies’ displacement and medical figures.

Claims, strikes and spillover

Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree said the group’s air-defence forces brought down a Saudi reconnaissance drone over Hajjah governorate. He identified it as a Turkish-manufactured Lentatek Karayel and said it was the fourth of its kind downed since the latest escalation began. The Houthis also claimed they shot down a Saudi Apache helicopter in Najran. Saudi-led coalition spokesman Colonel Turki al-Maliki said an AH-6i reconnaissance helicopter crashed there because of a technical malfunction, killing two crew members. Houthi media reported 10 Saudi air strikes on sites in Saada governorate.

Off al-Mukalla, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations agency said at least seven armed men aboard a skiff attacked a liquefied natural gas tanker. The attackers fired two shots; the tanker’s onboard security detail returned two warning shots, and the skiff changed course and disengaged. UKMTO separately reported that a tug boat was struck by two projectiles off the UAE coast. A live update also reported drones intercepted over Riyadh and the Eastern Province. The account gave no further details about those incidents.

Civilian costs, diplomatic words

The International Organization for Migration said more than 233,000 people had been displaced since fighting escalated in Yemen, including about 121,000 in Taiz governorate. The World Health Organization said Taiz city had become functionally isolated. Its 12 hospitals had fuel for only four days, no surgical supplies and critical shortages of oxygen and medicine, while a cholera outbreak grew. In Djibouti’s Markazi camp, UNHCR reported 31 cholera cases and one death. More than 4,000 refugees had reached East Africa, including 3,800 in Djibouti and roughly 200 in Somalia.

Gulf Cooperation Council Secretary-General Jasem Mohamed AlBudaiwi condemned Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia and called for a firm international stance. He said 7,000 ballistic missiles had targeted Gulf facilities since last February and that Houthi attacks had targeted civilian and energy facilities in Saudi Arabia. Bahrain’s Foreign Minister Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani condemned attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure, expressed solidarity with Saudi Arabia and backed any measures Riyadh takes to defend itself. “Any attack on a GCC member state is an attack on all GCC states,” he said at the GCC Ministerial Council’s 168th ministerial meeting in Bahrain. The same statement voiced support for Oman and Qatar’s mediation between the United States and Iran. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Iran backed a “political process” to resolve the Saudi-Houthi conflict. These declarations frame the crisis through state security and diplomacy. Yet the hospitals’ fuel, oxygen and medicine figures show what those formulas leave unresolved.