Yemeni government forces strike Houthi rebels near Mocha, destroy weaponry and troops

TUNIS, September 12. /TASS/. Yemen’s government forces have struck military hardware and troops of the rebel Ansar Allah (Houthi) movement near the city of Mocha in the west of the country, the spokesperson for the government forces, Majed Abdullah al-Nazili, said.

He was quoted as saying by the SABA news agency that government troops had "eliminated large clusters" of Houthi forces near the port city of Mocha, destroying their weaponry and military hardware.

He also said that Ansar Allah troops positioned along the Mocha-Dhubab highway were also destroyed.

Besides, Yemeni warplanes conducted air raids on dozens of trucks transporting weapons, ammunition, missiles and military gear north of the city of Taiz. Military sources said the convoy was headed from Mocha to the capital Sanaa.

Hizam al-Assad, a political bureau member of Yemen’s Houthi rebel movement Ansar Allah, told TASS earlier in the day that the Houthis had completed a military operation in western Yemen to establish control over territories and districts adjacent to the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. In his words, shipping traffic through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait is proceeding as normal, "and there is no cause for concern."

The armed confrontation between the Saudi-backed government forces and Houthi rebels has been ongoing in Yemen since August 2014. The situation deteriorated dramatically in early September, when the rebel Yemeni movement launched an offensive in the country’s southwest, advancing toward areas on the Bab el-Mandeb Strait’s coast.

On Friday, rebel military spokesman Yahya Saree announced that on September 3, Ansar Allah forces launched an operation on Yemen's west coast to drive out Saudi forces. According to him, the move was prompted by "attacks carried out over the past few years by Saudi-backed forces against residents, villages, and districts of the west coast." Saree stated that during the operation, Saudi forces were driven out of six districts across the Taiz and Al-Hudaydah governorates, covering a total area of 5,400 square kilometers.