Houthi military escalation in Taiz: ballistic bombardment targeting the soil and extensive field movements

The Houthi group’s bombing of the city of Al-Turbah, the center of the Al-Shamaytain District, south of Taiz Governorate (southwest), last Tuesday evening was not just a new round of ballistic bombing that has escalated on various fronts in Yemen for about 3 months. The attack coincided with Houthi movements west of Taiz, with a massive field escalation taking place on the Al-Wazi’iyah, Al-Kadha, Haifan and other areas of the governorate.

Field sources monitored Houthi reinforcements across the Mokha line towards Al-Kadha, then Al-Rahba and Al-Quoz, in conjunction with the bombing that targeted the neighborhoods of Al-Turbah city with 4 ballistic missiles, according to government and local sources.

It is not the first time that the Houthi group has used ballistic missiles in parallel with its field movements. Since the beginning of August, the strikes have expanded from camps far from the contact lines in Marib and Hadhramaut, to the city of Marib and the camps for the displaced, then to Mokha and Al-Khawkhah on the western coast, before arriving last September, to the city of Taiz, and finally to Al-Turbah. On September 6, 3 ballistic missiles targeted the city of Taiz, landing near the Social Welfare Building and the vicinity of the College of Medicine and the Central Prison, west of the city.

This sequence reveals a change in the missile’s function within the Houthi escalation. On August 6, the group launched ballistic attacks and drones on government camps in the Al-Ruwaik region, east of Ma’rib, including Al-Thaniyah camp, which includes emergency forces and military brigades, before the strikes expanded in the following days to the city of Ma’rib.

On the West Coast, the pattern was repeated more intensely, and Mokha was subjected to successive missile attacks during August, then an attack on September 9, which, according to the Yemeni army, resulted in the killing of 7 people and the injury of 30 others, while the group announced that it had targeted military gatherings and weapons depots.

Days later, the director of Mocha Port announced the suspension of operations, after it was hit by more than 25 missiles over several days, while the authorities spoke of extensive human and material losses.

“Soil” is a different goal

The declared objectives and field results vary from one incident to another, but the common denominator is the widening distance between the missile targets and the direct line of engagement. The group also used missiles in direct confrontations, and was perhaps the first to do so in the history of using this type of weapon. However, it does not limit itself to striking advanced military sites, but rather sends them to camps, roads, ports, and cities in the depths, where the strike can affect the movement of forces and supplies, and force the Yemeni army to distribute its defensive resources over a wider area.

The recent bombing of the city of Al-Turbah comes as a tool for managing the battle in depth, and not merely as a reaction to a field loss or inability to advance. If Houthi reinforcements are moving at the same time towards Al-Kadha, Al-Rahba and Al-Quz, then striking a city located on one of the important axes south of Taiz could perform a function that goes beyond causing direct losses. Such as disrupting movement, raising the level of anxiety in the rear areas, and distracting attention between protecting the lines of contact and securing the cities and roads behind them.

Soil gains its specificity from its location. It does not represent a strategic port like Mocha, nor a military camp like Al-Ruwaik, but rather an inland city located on an important axis linking Taiz to the southern governorates, and it constitutes a center for population movement and activities, while its surroundings are a scene for the movement of government forces and supplies in the south of the governorate.

The city is located in the heart of the vast geographic region known as “Al-Hujariyah,” which includes several districts from the south of Taiz Governorate and the north of Lahj Governorate. It includes a population center that is among the densest in the country, opposing Houthi influence, and forming a source of support for the army with fighters.

This Houthi operational development cannot be isolated from the declaration of a state of general mobilization launched a few days ago by Rashad Al-Alimi, Chairman of the Presidential Command Council. Al-Turbah is the center of this large, densely populated area, and includes the headquarters of government institutions and facilities and security centers.

Threatening the soil with missiles does not mean that the direct goal is necessarily to control it, as happened in Mokha. The military value of the strike may be represented by threatening the environment through which the forces move, terrorizing residents who oppose the group’s influence, and conveying a message that the geographical depth that residents and forces used to consider safer is no longer immune from long-range fire.

This point also explains the group’s move from targeting the city of Taiz on September 6, to targeting Al-Turbah on September 29. While in the first case the missiles struck the heart of the governorate and its urban center, in the second case they reached a city located farther south, at a time when the western and southern fronts were witnessing simultaneous military movements.

Preparing the scene of battle

It cannot be confirmed from the strike alone that the Houthi group is preparing for a ground attack on the soil or its surroundings, nor can the bombing be reduced to an attempt to confuse government forces, but the coincidence of long-range strikes with repeated ground movements allows it to be expected that the missile is part of the process of paving the way for progress, and not a substitute for it.

Ballistic strikes, even without hitting a specific military target, can impose additional calculations on the opposing party. Such as protecting rear positions, monitoring supply routes, and rearranging forces away from battle lines. The wider the threat circle, the greater the cost required to maintain the front line.

All of this comes in light of the group’s insistence on enforcing the siege on the region, and thus maintaining it, by advancing from the eastern side, where the Haifan, Al-Ahkoum, and Al-Akbush fronts are located, and westward in the strategic mountains of Rasin and Jardad, which it has been seeking, for more than two weeks, to control.

More than once during September, the group targeted the Haijat al-Abd road in the Al-Maqatara district near the city of Al-Turbah, which is the road that connects Taiz Governorate to the temporary capital, and is the only road from which it can breathe, especially after the recent fall of the city of Mokha.

All of this makes ground bombing different from just a missile response. The group that is moving its forces in the axes of western Taiz needs, in any attempt to change the balance of the land, to keep the opposing forces under multi-directional pressure, and in this tactic, missiles precede any field movement that may confuse the depth, and test the army’s ability to protect its theater of operations, before the outcome of the ground movement becomes clear.

Anwar Abdullah had no choice but to leave his home in Hodeidah Governorate (western Yemen), accompanied by his wife and six children, after the Houthi attacks approached their surroundings on the night of September 10. At first he didn't know what was happening, but he soon realized that staying was no longer an option.

“We didn’t know what was happening,” says Anwar, 29. “Then we realized there was fighting.” I took my children and my wife and we came to Aden. "We left everything behind."

The family began their journey towards Mokha, before continuing on to Aden, leaving their home, possessions and previous life behind.

Today, the family lives in a temporary shelter north of Aden, with only a few basic needs. Even preparing a simple meal has become a daily task; She is forced to use firewood to cook near the shelter due to her lack of basic cooking tools. But reaching a safer place did not put an end to the family's suffering. For Anwar, his family and thousands of other displaced people, after fleeing has begun a new battle over how to access medical care when a family member falls ill.

Anwar's family is one of thousands of families who arrived in Aden during the recent wave of displacement, following renewed fighting along the western coast of Yemen.

By the end of last September, the Yemeni government recorded the displacement of nearly 200,000 people, and in light of the influx of displaced people, four sites in Aden and Lahj host about 6,500 people who were displaced to them before the arrival of the last wave, while the population in some of these sites has doubled since then.

Their needs are not limited to shelter and food. Many of them need treatment, at a time when health facilities are located at distances that make access to them extremely difficult for families exhausted by displacement and poverty.

The displaced sites visited by MSF teams are located between four and ten kilometers from health facilities. While this distance may seem limited in normal circumstances, it turns into a real obstacle for families struggling to secure their basic needs.

With the shortage of fuel and its high prices, the cost of transportation to health facilities, in addition to the prices of medicines, has become beyond the means of many families.

“We see sick children, pregnant women who cannot access health care, people suffering from wounds, and elderly people who need medical services but are having difficulty accessing them,” says Sarah Ghanem, director of mobile health activities at Doctors Without Borders in Aden.

Patients without care

In the sites visited by medical teams, the effects of the health crisis among the displaced are clearly visible. The teams dealt with cases of wounds and injuries, malnutrition, fever, diarrhea, as well as untreated infectious and non-communicable diseases. It also monitored pregnant women who did not receive health care during pregnancy, children suffering from severe malnutrition, and others who had not completed their vaccinations.

In the face of these difficulties, MSF teams are trying to transfer part of the health care to the places where the displaced are located, instead of waiting for them to be able to reach medical centers.

During the first week of the mobile health response, teams examined 427 patients in four locations in Dar Saad and Sheikh Othman districts in Aden, and Tuban district in Lahj.

Most of the patients were women and children, while about 40 percent of them had been recently displaced due to the recent escalation in Taiz and along the western coast.

The teams provide medical consultations and rapid examinations, including measuring hemoglobin and blood sugar levels, detecting malaria and dengue fever, and urine tests, in addition to routine vaccinations, malnutrition detection, pregnancy tests and family planning.

When patients need additional care, teams refer them to health facilities capable of providing the necessary treatment.

System under pressure

This response comes at a time when the Yemeni health system is facing accumulated pressures, according to Doctors Without Borders. “We see tremendous pressure on a health system that is already collapsing and has been facing many challenges for years,” Ghanem says.

As displaced people continue to arrive, the organization continues to evaluate the sites hosting them, and says it is ready to expand its response if health needs increase.

MSF's efforts are not limited to mobile teams; Since April, the organization has been supporting primary health care services in Al-Farsha in the Lahj countryside and Al-Basateen in Aden.

The areas served by the two facilities include places where displaced people reside, whether within displacement sites or among local host communities.

For families like Anwar's, reaching a safe place does not necessarily mean the end of their displacement journey. After leaving homes and possessions, obtaining treatment, food, and basic necessities of life becomes another part of a long suffering, the family does not know when it will end.

During the past hours, the fronts of the Yemeni Taiz Governorate witnessed a fierce wave of fighting, the most violent in years, with the Houthi group allied with Iran launching simultaneous attacks on several axes, and opening a new front on the part of the Sami District, at a time when government forces intensified their ground and air strikes and targeted Houthi reinforcements, vehicles, and sites in Taiz, Lahj, Shabwa, and other governorates.

The expansion of the confrontations coincided with the announcement by government forces of carrying out 468 targeting operations against Houthi members and equipment on the eastern and Al-Bayda fronts and the Mansoura area in Al-Waziyah, west of Taiz, which they said resulted in the killing and wounding of hundreds and the destruction of military equipment and machinery.

Field developments indicate that the fighting in Taiz has moved to a more widespread pattern, after the Houthis tried to put pressure on the positions of government forces in more than one direction, from the northern front of the city and its east, to the axes of Jabal Habashi, Maqbanah, Al-Aqroud and Sami, coinciding with the continuation of confrontations on the western and southwestern fronts.

The media center of the Taiz Military Axis said that the government forces fought violent battles in Bani Bakari in the Jabal Habashi District, Himyar in the Maqbanah District, and Al-Aqroud in the southeast of the governorate, confirming that the Houthis suffered losses in lives and equipment.

On the northern front, field sources reported that government forces responded to a massive Houthi attack in the Arba’in area, in conjunction with thwarting infiltration attempts in Al-Karifat, Aqaba Munif, and Al-Tashrifat, east of the city of Taiz.

The confrontations extended to the Al Shaqab front in the Sabr Al Mawadim District, while intense mutual artillery shelling continued on the city's eastern front.

In a remarkable development, the Sami Front entered the line of intense confrontations, amid local reports of the retreat of Houthi elements after being subjected to ground strikes, and the killing and wounding of dozens of its members, in addition to government forces seizing some military equipment.

Populated areas were also subjected to Houthi bombardment, as local sources said that the group fired 23 mortar shells at villages in the Al-Dhabab area, west of Taiz, amid a state of fear among the population.

On the other hand, the media center of the Taiz axis said that the drones targeted Houthi positions on the Al-Kadha front, destroying a 120 mm cannon and burning an ammunition store, while the forces bombed the group’s sites and gatherings in Jabal Ghurab, Tabet Yassin, Al-Ashrouh, Asifra, and Al-Salou.

Massive air strikes

The battles coincided with the intensification of air strikes on Houthi positions in Taiz and other areas. The sources reported that warplanes carried out raids on Houthi sites and vehicles on the Al-Akbush, Al-Ahkoum, and Haifan fronts, southeast of Taiz, in conjunction with strikes that targeted the group's sites in Al-Waziyah, west of the governorate.

The spokesman for the Yemeni Armed Forces, Colonel Majid Al-Nuzaili, said that the government forces carried out precise targeting operations that targeted Houthi reinforcements, weapons and equipment, including three artillery batteries on the Al-Waziyah front, and a mobile air defense system that he said was developed by Iranian experts in Al-Mokha, in addition to targeting Houthi leaders and members in Al-Mansoura and the Bab Al-Mandab region.

Al-Nuzaili also announced earlier the implementation of 468 targeting operations on three fronts, including Al-Wazi’iyah, and said that the operations resulted in the killing and wounding of hundreds of Houthi members and the destruction of their equipment and vehicles.

These strikes come as part of a broader military escalation that extended to the governorates of Saada, Amran, Marib, Hodeidah, and Taiz, with reports of targeting fixed and mobile sites, weapons stores, batteries, communications networks, and Houthi reinforcements.

Extended fronts

The confrontations were not limited to Taiz, as the western border of Lahj Governorate with Taiz witnessed clashes in the Al-Aghubrah area located on the outskirts of the Al-Mudaraba and Al-Ara District, coinciding with the military forces and tribes announcing the recovery of parts of the Mansoura region.

In Shabwa, the “Shabwa Defense Forces” announced the thwarting of Houthi attack attempts and infiltration operations on four fronts: Harib, Ain, Bayhan and Markha Al-Ula, and said that the Houthis suffered losses and were forced to retreat, in conjunction with strikes carried out by drones against the group’s positions and movements.

The simultaneity of these operations reflects the expansion of the scope of the confrontation outside the immediate Taiz axes, at a time when government forces continue to attempt to stabilize their defensive lines and prevent the Houthis from achieving new breakthroughs on the fronts connected to the western coast and the entrances to Taiz and Lahj.

In parallel with the military developments, the Yemeni government began translating the directives of the Chairman of the Presidential Command Council, Rashad Al-Alimi, regarding general mobilization and public mobilization into practical arrangements.

In Aden, the Minister of Defense, Lieutenant General Taher Al-Uqaili, held a military meeting to discuss the required procedures and raise the level of readiness and coordination between the concerned parties, stressing that confronting the Houthis, according to the government’s position, requires the integration of the military institution with the various institutions of the state and society.

Deputy Chief of the General Staff, Major General Ahmed Al-Basr, also held a meeting with the committees formed by the Minister of Defense, to discuss mechanisms for implementing general mobilization directives and defining tasks and responsibilities, including mobilizing human and material resources and enhancing coordination between various parties.