(Central News Agency, Jeddah, comprehensive foreign news report on the 16th) The war between the Yemeni rebel "Youth Movement" (Houthi, also known as the Houthi armed forces) and the coalition led by Saudi Arabia has intensified. At present, the youth movement has completely surrounded Taiz, the third largest city in the country, located in southwestern Yemen.
The British "Financial Times" pointed out that since Taiz guards the Red Sea coast and the transportation hub in southern Yemen, once it is lost, the youth movement will gain access to Aden (Aden), the current seat of the Yemeni government.
In September, the youth movement launched a lightning attack from its base in northern Yemen along the Red Sea coast. It successively captured the strategic port city of Mocha and captured Perim Island, a key choke point of the Bab al-Mandeb Strait. In addition to seizing the gateway to the Red Sea, it also captured almost the entire coastline of Yemen facing the Red Sea.
The youth movement has surrounded Taiz again in the past few days, and all the main routes in and out of Taiz have become front lines. Local residents say only a few cars and cargo trucks can currently enter and leave the city through the fierce fighting zone in the south. Residents said that the fighting came too fast and there was no time to escape to safe areas. There was also an increasing shortage of local food, medicine and fuel.
The Yemeni civil war has been dragging on for many years. Behind the scenes, the Iranian-backed youth movement occupied the Yemeni capital Sanaa and many areas in the north in 2014. The Arab coalition led by Saudi Arabia intervened militarily in March of the following year to help the internationally recognized Yemeni government. The two sides later reached a ceasefire agreement in 2022.
However, following Saudi Arabia's air strikes on Sana'a Airport this summer, the civil war in Yemen, which had been quelled for nearly four years, reignited in July this year. In addition to rapidly advancing southward to seize control of Mocha and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait from forces supporting the Yemeni government, the youth movement also moved northward to conduct air strikes on Saudi energy facilities and airports, dealing heavy blows to Saudi Arabia.
The Saudi-backed Yemeni government launched a counteroffensive this month. Analysts pointed out that although government forces have made progress around the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and Mocha, many important strongholds are still in the hands of the youth movement.
Yemen's state-run Saba News Agency reported that the youth movement fired missiles at the presidential palace complex in the southern city of Aden on the 15th, killing and injuring several guards. This is also the first time since the civil war resumed that the youth movement has attacked al-Maashiq Palace in Aden, the seat of the Yemeni government.
Taiz has long been a target of youth movements, which blocked the area in 2015.
Adam Baron, a researcher at the New America Foundation, a US think tank, said that controlling Taiz has both symbolic significance and important strategic value.
He said: "Taiz has always been an important stronghold of the youth resistance movement and the hometown of President Rashad al-Alimi. The youth movement's capture of Taiz will be able to remove this thorn in the side and eliminate worries."
Government forces failed to effectively stop the youth movement's advance and now allow them to control large swathes of rural areas around Taiz. Many rural residents fled into urban Taiz, exacerbating the already severe humanitarian crisis there.
The World Food Program (WFP) notes that Taiz hosts the largest number of displaced people since the outbreak of the Yemen crisis. The World Food Program said that currently more than 600,000 people who rely on humanitarian aid are unable to receive assistance.
