(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporter Lim Hwa-seop = Saudi Arabia and Yemeni government forces are preparing a ground and air offensive against Yemen's Houthi rebels and plan to carry it out within a few weeks, Reuters reported on the 2nd (local time).
Reuters confirmed this plan from six local and Western sources, explaining that Yemeni government forces under Saudi Arabia will lead the ground operation and Saudi airstrikes will support it.
Depending on the scale of the operation, more than 100,000 Yemeni government forces and pro-government armed forces may be mobilized.
Sources explained that the key goal of the offensive being prepared is to reverse the rapid gains achieved last month when the Houthi rebels advanced along the coast and took control of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.
Reuters reported that Saudi Arabia is considering two major attack plans.
One plan is to carry out a limited attack by focusing on the area around Bab el-Mandeb, and the other is a multi-front offensive, including simultaneous attacks in Al-Bayda, Marib, Taiz, and Al-Jawf governorates.
Michael Ratney, former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, told Reuters that the offensive would focus on limited areas.
He said he expected the scale of this operation to be smaller than the one Saudi Arabia launched in 2015 with the goal of ousting the Houthis.
“Saudi Arabia would like to completely defeat the Houthis, but they also need to return to the status quo before the Houthis took control of the Bab el-Mandeb coastal area,” he said. “Ideally, it would be a fairly limited operation to retake the coastal area and restore normal maritime traffic.”
The Bab el-Mandeb Strait is the southern exit of the Red Sea and a key sea route connecting the Mediterranean Sea and Asia. As the Strait of Hormuz was effectively closed due to the war with Iran, its importance as an alternative sea route increased.
It is not yet clear when the Saudi and Yemeni government forces will begin their major offensive against the Houthis.
The timing of the start of the attack predicted by the six sources varied greatly, from as close as a week from now to as far away as after the U.S. midterm elections in November.
Officials in the Persian Gulf region said one of the key concerns as Saudi Arabia launches a new offensive in Yemen is how to protect its oil facilities and other infrastructure from drone and missile attacks by Houthi rebels.
Saudi Arabia is said to have requested help from several allies to support its defense system.
According to Reuters, the United States is already providing intelligence to support Saudi Arabia's airstrikes in Yemen.
Turkiye and Pakistan, which signed a joint defense agreement with Saudi Arabia last month, provided military equipment that Saudi Arabia is using in Yemen.
Fighting and airstrikes between Saudi and Yemeni government forces and Houthi rebels are already intensifying even before the planned full-scale offensive.
According to AFP on this day, the Houthi rebels said at least 55 anti-government fighters were killed, while the Yemeni government forces said 26 soldiers were killed.
The Houthis claimed that Saudi forces carried out 94 airstrikes and missile attacks on areas under their control in the past 24 hours.
Saudi authorities recently reported that they had intercepted and destroyed three ballistic missiles launched by the Houthis, and that one person was injured and a building was damaged by fragments of the intercepted missiles.
It was also revealed that one projectile hit a school in Najran, causing material damage.
Houthi rebels took control of Yemen's capital, Sanaa, in 2014, and the Saudi-led coalition began a military intervention in 2015 under the pretext of supporting Yemen's internationally recognized government.
Although a ceasefire was reached through UN mediation in 2022, the civil war in Yemen, which had been in a lull, has recently spread again, raising concerns about civilian casualties and disruption of maritime transportation.
