The Yemeni military said it carried out more than 1,000 strikes and began an offensive against Sanaa, while the Saudi-led coalition supporting the internationally recognised government said 100 warplanes flew sorties at dawn.
Turki Al-Malki, spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition, said on X that its naval forces had hit “military targets” belonging to the Houthis in Hodeida on the Red Sea coast.
They “destroyed weapons depots, facilities storing booby-trapped boats and naval mines” and had “thwarted a planned attack” targeting waterways in the southern Red Sea, he said.
Later, the military said it had driven the Houthis from the area surrounding the Bab el-Mandeb Strait – a vital route for maritime traffic – including the port city of Mocha, Dhubab airport and Al-Omari military camp.
They also said they expelled the Houthis from several areas in Taiz in the southwest, where deadly fighting has surged in recent days.
Military sources stopped short of confirming an official announcement of Mocha’s recapture, saying that pro-government forces had cut off the only supply route to the port.
UN “DEEPLY CONCERNED”
Loud explosions rattled the Saudi capital on Monday evening, with a Houthi spokesman saying the group had hit King Khalid International Airport, a refinery belonging to state oil giant Aramco and other targets in the kingdom’s south.
It came a day after Yemen’s government announced the lofty goal of retaking all Houthi territory – home to most of the country’s population, and much of it held for more than a decade.
