Houthis cut vital supply road to Yemen's Taiz

Yemen's Iran-backed Houthis on Sunday cut a vital supply route linking Taiz with Aden — the interim capital of the internationally recognized government — four security sources told AFP.

The Houthi advance follows days of heavy fighting in and around the city of Taiz between the group and government forces.

"We were informed that the Houthis had taken control of the al-Safiya area, where they cut the main road and took control of the police station," a police source in the area told AFP.

Three sources with the Yemeni military also confirmed Houthi control over the area and supply route, with the group effectively encircling Taiz city.

The military sources added that the Houthis had also halted traffic on the main road linking Taiz to Aden, with fighting in the area ongoing.

The city itself remains under the control of government forces but has long been besieged from the north, east and west by Houthi fighters and remains one of the main fronts in Yemen's civil war.

"They've achieved the military objective of isolating Taiz from Aden, even if they haven't fully taken control of it," Farea Al-Muslimi, research fellow at the Chatham House think-tank, told AFP.

Saudi support

In response to the Houthi advances, the leader of Yemen's Saudi-backed government announced the beginning of a major military operation against the Iran-backed Houthis on Sunday, aimed at seizing the territory under their control.

Regional and western officials had previously told Reuters that Saudi Arabia and its Yemeni allies were planning to launch an assault on the Houthis, with the Saudis leading aerial combat and Yemeni forces fighting on the ground.

"Today, I announce the start of military operations to retake the remaining territory of the republic and extend the authority of the state and its institutions across the entire national territory," Yemeni President Rashad al-Alimi said in a televised address.

Elsewhere in Yemen, the Houthi's Al-Masirah TV channel reported Saudi strikes in the northern governorates of al-Jawf and Saada, saying at least two people had been wounded.

The strikes come a day after Yemen's government said its forces hit Houthi targets around the country, including in the capital Sanaa, the northwestern governorate of Saada and the group's positions near Taiz in the southwest.

The Yemeni government's air capabilities however remain limited.

Since a Saudi-led coalition intervened in 2015 in support of the government, it has primarily been Riyadh's forces that have carried out airstrikes against the Houthis.

Experts believe the recent operations have most likely been conducted by Saudi warplanes rather than the Yemeni air force.

Following several years of relative calm, Yemen's war reignited in July against the backdrop of the widening Middle East war.

The country is one of the poorest in the world and remains gripped by a vast humanitarian crisis.

Fighting intensified in September as the Houthis launched a lightning offensive that saw them seize Yemen's entire Red Sea coast, including the Bab al-Mandab Strait, a vital shipping lane.

The Houthis have in parallel launched a blockade on Saudi energy exports, already squeezed by Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

Yemen's war erupted in 2014, when the Houthis seized the capital Sanaa from the Saudi-backed government, before going on to take control of swaths of the country's north.

Riyadh intervened in the war the following year as the head of the international coalition.

Houthis' lightening offensive

Despite the preparations for a counteroffensive, the Houthis have so far maintained the initiative on the ground, weeks after seizing the strategic Bab al-Mandeb Strait in a lightning offensive down the coast that saw government forces collapse.

Bab al-Mandeb is the southern exit passage of the Red Sea, a key shipping route between the Mediterranean and Asia that has assumed even more importance this year as an alternative to the Strait of Hormuz, which has been effectively closed by the Iran conflict.

In the last 48 hours, the Houthis have made gains against government and local forces on strategic hilltops near Yemen's Taiz, military sources told Reuters, advancing on the last road between the city and Aden, where the Saudi-backed Yemeni government is based.

Houthi control over the Taiz-Aden road would lead to an effective siege of the city, Yemen's third-largest, inhabited by hundreds of thousands of civilians and where thousands of government forces are also stationed.

It would also consolidate control of that flat coastal Bab al-Mandeb area by seizing the rugged mountains overlooking them in the western Taiz countryside, Mohammed Al-Qadhi, a veteran Yemeni journalist from Taiz now working as a political analyst told Reuters.

"This will help them protect their back in case of any operation against the coastline, and make recapturing those areas much more difficult," he said.

The city is important not just for its strategic location; Yemeni President Rashad al-Alimi is from the region, and a siege of Taiz would amplify an already-dire humanitarian situation in the country.

Three-in-four ​families in parts of Yemen are going hungry from the impact of the surge in fighting, ‌which has displaced tens of thousands of people and disrupted supplies to millions, the World Food Programme said last week.