Reuters
source: Reuters
Yemen’s Saudi-backed, internationally recognised government said on Sunday it was launching a major military campaign to recapture all areas of the country controlled by the Iran-backed Houthis, opens new tab.
The government’s armed forces would press the offensive “until the country is liberated from the grip of the terrorist militia,” Yemeni President Rashad al-Alimi said in a televised address. A military spokesman later called on the Houthis to lay down their weapons.
The Houthis, known formally as Ansar Allah, have held Yemen’s capital Sanaa and vast parts of the northwest, where most of the population live, since 2014. They have so far withstood a series of attacks over the years by Saudi Arabia, the UAE and their Western allies, and have updated their weaponry with the help of Iran.
The movement launched a surprise offensive last month which captured the strategic Bab el-Mandeb, opens new tab strait and some 150 km (90 miles) of coast on the Red Sea in a matter of weeks, giving the Houthis new leverage over the international shipping route.
That advance also opened a new front in the wider US-Israeli war launched in February against Iran, to which Tehran’s responses included choking oil shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, opens new tab, to the other side of the Arabian Peninsula.
