As Operation “Yemen Dawn” enters its tenth day, the intensity of field confrontations between government forces and the Houthi group is escalating on a number of fronts, while Taiz Governorate (southwestern Yemen) represents the strategic and operational center of gravity for the confrontations, which witnessed the capture of Houthi security leaders, coinciding with the expansion of battles to the neighboring governorates of Lahj, Ma’rib, and Al-Jawf (northeast of the country).
Ground battles are taking place on five main fronts surrounding the city, while government forces continue to monitor and target Houthi positions and members on the Lahj, Marib and Al-Jawf fronts, at a time when the complexities of the humanitarian situation in Taiz are multiplying, accompanied by accusations against the Houthis of carrying out attacks on civilians and practices that killed a number of them and injured others.
The media center of the Taiz Military Axis stated that violent confrontations broke out between the Axis forces, supported by the popular resistance, and the Houthi group on the fronts west and northwest of Taiz. The Al-Dhabab front, west of the city, and the Al-Aqroud and Al-Shaqab fronts, to the south, witnessed continuous battles since Wednesday morning, the intensity of which escalated in the afternoon of the same day.
According to a statement by the center, the warplanes targeted a convoy of Houthi tanks, vehicles, and vehicles in the Ras al-Najd area of Al-Misrakh District. They also launched two air strikes on sites belonging to the group on Sofitel Hill, east of the city of Taiz, and two other raids on Wednesday evening targeted a tank and a vehicle on the Al-Dhabab Front, west of the city.
The center reported that more than 200 Houthi members were killed and injured, in addition to the destruction of a vehicle, the damage of two tanks, and the downing of a drone, in addition to the destruction of an armed convoy.
On the fifth of this month, the head of the Yemeni Presidential Command Council, Rashad Al-Alimi, announced the launch of a large military operation called “Yemen’s Dawn.” With the aim of restoring state institutions, liberating the capital, Sanaa, ending the Houthi coup, and returning weapons and the decisions of war and peace to the constitutional state authority.
A security strike confuses the Houthis
The military media of the Taiz axis described the ground battles on the Fog Front as the bloodiest, pointing out that the Houthi group was seeking to penetrate the western outlet of the city, specifically in the vicinity of the strategic Jabal Han, Wadi Hathran, and the outskirts of Al-Sayhi, in conjunction with its launch of a violent attack with heavy weapons on the Jawlat Al-Qasr front, east of the city.
An operational report broadcast by the media center of the Yemeni Armed Forces confirmed the thwarting of a bypass attack by the group at the Hangar point, in the western entrance to the city, and the destruction by artillery of three armored vehicles and two ammunition supply vehicles.
In the same context, an official statement issued by the Fifth Brigade, Presidential Guard, confirmed the success of army units in carrying out a lightning bypass operation west of Taiz, which resulted in the capture of five Houthi security leaders.
Video clips broadcast by the military media showed the capture of intelligence leader Muhammad Saeed Al-Junaid, director of the group’s so-called “Preventive Security” branch in the Al-Hawban area, east of the city, along with Akram Amer, who holds the position of Director General of Narcotics Control in the Ministry of Interior of the Houthi government, which is not recognized internationally.
In response to the government forces' announcement of the capture of five people it said were Houthi leaders, and the Fifth Brigade Presidential Guard published a video recording of the detainees, Abdul Qadir Al-Murtada, head of the group's Prisoners' Committee, acknowledged that those captured were employees of the Ministry of Interior, claiming that they had gone to Taiz to arrange and secure the central prison after taking control of it, before they lost their way due to overlapping fronts.
Violent clashes are taking place in the vicinity of the strategic Han Mountain, west of Taiz, where government forces reported thwarting successive Houthi attacks within 24 hours, despite the mountain being bombed by hundreds of shells. The importance of the mountain stems from its supervision over the areas of Hathran and Al-Rubaie, and the road linking the city to the temporary capital, Aden, in addition to the Hodeidah road. Which makes it central to supply lines.
Residential neighborhoods in the city of Taiz are subjected to intense and violent Houthi bombardment, doubling the risks to the lives of tens of thousands of civilians. Humanitarian concerns are increasing in light of the continued unjust siege imposed on the city and the acute shortage of basic and medical supplies.
The Human Rights Information and Rehabilitation Center documented the killing and injury of five civilians, including two children, as three Houthi mortar shells fell on the homes of the village of Aad in the Sabr Al-Mawadim District. This also resulted in severe material damage to 11 houses that were partially destroyed.
In the same context, a citizen was killed and another was injured after being run over by a Houthi military vehicle in the Al-Wazi’iyah District, while a woman was killed and three of her relatives were injured as a result of a Houthi landmine explosion in Wadi Usus in the Al-Shamaytain District, south of the governorate.
Burning fronts outside Taiz
In Marib, the media center of the Third Military Region reported that army artillery, supported by unmanned aerial vehicles, targeted fortifications of the Houthi group in the northwestern axis, achieving field progress in the highlands overlooking the strategic “Mas” camp in the Madghal District.
The operational report explained the destruction of a Houthi military convoy including combat vehicles on the Al-Kasara, Al-Zour and South Harib fronts, while video clips broadcast by the Yemeni army documented the targeting of the group’s barracks and fortifications by warplanes within the seventh military zone in Marib.
In Al-Jawf Governorate, the Yemeni Ministry of Defense platforms reported that a military barracks and a site for gathering Houthi vehicles east of Al-Hazm District, the center of the governorate, were targeted with air strikes that they said paved the way for the advance of government forces on the outskirts of the city.
As for Lahj Governorate, the military media of the “Homeland Shield” forces, in conjunction with the Southern Giants Brigades, issued a report confirming the monitoring of intense Houthi military movements and reinforcements in the Al-Aghubrah, Al-Mansoura, and Al-Mudaraba Front regions.
According to the report, the forces dealt with these reinforcements with direct preemptive artillery strikes. With the aim of preventing any attempt to cause a security breach that threatens the strategic coastal line leading to the Bab al-Mandab Strait.
In a related context, the Giants Brigades denied the authenticity of a video clip broadcast by the Houthi group, in which it claimed to engage in clashes with its forces in Bab al-Mandab, control military sites, destroy its vehicles, and seize others, in addition to capturing members of its forces.
The brigades described the clips broadcast by the group as fabricated, stressing that their forces are fixed in their positions and are in complete control of the situation in the Bab al-Mandab area.
The General Intelligence Service arrested Ali Kayali, known as “Miraj Ural,” the main accused of committing the Baniyas massacre in 2013, while he was trying to escape across the border, according to what was reported by the Syrian News Agency (SANA).
The agency did not specify the location of his arrest or the destination he was trying to reach.
Syrian sources say that he was spotted crossing the border with Lebanon several times. However, the person kidnapped from inside his home in Mansouriya - Matn, after they handcuffed his wife and son, according to MTV channel information, is the same Syrian-Turkish citizen, Ali Kayali, known as “Miraj Ural,” and nicknamed “The Butcher of Baniyas” in Syria. Asharq Al-Awsat has not yet been able to confirm the accuracy of the news.
Who is Meraj Oral?
Meraj Oral was born in 1956 in Hatay, Turkey, which was known as the Iskendun district. He belonged to an extremist leftist party that put him in prison in Turkey several times... until he fled to Syria in the early eighties, where he obtained special privileges, including Syrian citizenship, which Hafez al-Assad granted him at the time.
Oral, who later adopted a Syrian name, Ali Kayali, led an armed group called the “Syrian Resistance,” which fought alongside the forces of Bashar al-Assad’s regime during the years of war, and whose name was linked to the Al-Bayda and Baniyas massacres. It also participated alongside the Assad regime forces in suppressing the Syrian people, and its name was linked to the 2012 Houla massacre and the Reyhanli bombings in Türkiye.
According to what was documented by the Syrian Network for Human Rights, the Al-Bayda massacre resulted in the martyrdom of 264 civilians, including 36 children and 28 women, while the Ras Al-Nabaa massacre led to the martyrdom of 195 civilians, including 56 children and 43 women.
Testimonies and reports related to the two massacres included accounts of the spread of corpses in the streets, shops, and even basements, and the implementation of field executions with bullets and sharp weapons, in addition to the burning of homes and corpses.
The militias affiliated with Kayali also committed massacres against Syrians in the countryside of Latakia, Aleppo, and Idlib, resulting in hundreds of deaths and injuries.
Human Rights Watch, for its part, documented, in a report issued in September 2013, the execution of at least 248 people, including 167 in Al-Bayda and 81 in Baniyas, indicating that the actual toll may be higher.
The report was based on survivor testimonies and photographic evidence, and concluded that the majority of the victims were killed after the clashes ended and opposition fighters withdrew from the two areas.
After the news of Kayali’s arrest was announced, takbirs were chanted from mosques in the town of Al-Bayda, affiliated with the city of Baniyas in Tartous Governorate, western Syria, on Thursday. Video clips circulating showed mosques in the region chanting takbirs. Their publishers said they were launched to celebrate the news of Ural’s arrest, about 13 years after the massacre.
On this occasion, Fadl Abdul Ghani, director of the Syrian Network, wrote on his account in “X”, today: “On May 10, 2013, we issued our report in which we documented the killing of 459 civilians, including 92 children and 71 women. We mentioned Ali Kayali by name, based on the testimonies of residents who indicated that he was one of the leaders of the massacre. It was a massacre with a sectarian flavour. We were documenting the names of children, women, and men, families that lost some or all of their members, and survivors who brought us testimonies that were difficult to forget. After more than 13 years, I feel it is important that this case finally reach a stage where one of its most prominent defendants can be investigated. Today I think especially of the families of the victims who have waited all these years.”
Advisor to the Presidency for Media Affairs, Ahmed Muwafaq Zaidan, wrote on his account: “We congratulate our people on the arrest by the Syrian intelligence service, in cooperation with the Ministry of Interior, of the criminal (Miraj Ural), called (Ali Kayali), who carried out massacres against our people during the period of the Syrian revolution, including the Al-Bayda massacre in Baniyas. Every murderous criminal will be hunted down, whether sooner or later...there will be no escaping the pursuit of our security services.”
It is noteworthy that on October 4, the Syrian authorities announced the arrest of Jamal Trabelsi, whom they described as Ural’s deputy, on charges of participating in the same massacre.
The Syrian authorities are pursuing people involved in committing violations against civilians during the rule of the Assad regime, as part of their declared efforts to achieve transitional justice and hold those responsible for crimes accountable.
On December 8, 2024, the Syrian revolutionaries were able to enter the capital, Damascus, announcing the overthrow of the regime of Bashar al-Assad, who inherited power from his father, Hafez al-Assad.
