Sanaa, Yemen – A missile fired by Yemen’s Houthi group, also known as Ansar Allah, streaks across the sky over Sanaa at midday, leaving a trail of smoke behind it. Its intended target is unclear. It could have been a site in Saudi Arabia or territory to the south and east held by Yemen’s internationally recognised government.
For people in northern Yemen, missile launches have become a familiar sight. On Thursday, at least five people were killed near the al-Maashiq presidential palace in Aden after Houthi missile strikes. Yemeni Prime Minister Shaya al-Zindani was present at the palace at the time of the attack, but was unharmed.
Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said the attack targeted an operational headquarters, part of its campaign against Saudi-backed fighters and equipment supporting the internationally recognised government in Aden. Frequent Houthi missile attacks – combined with the Iranian-backed group’s territorial gains around the city of Taiz in southwestern Yemen – have severed key supply routes and threatened other roads, ports, and airports that government forces rely on for supplies. The disruptions could undermine the government’s Dawn of Yemen operation, which aims to recapture territory held by the Houthi group.
This includes the capital, Sanaa, which the Houthis seized at the start of the war in 2014. Government officials, however, say supply issues will not halt the offensive, emphasising that their forces can overcome logistical challenges. So, military operations against the Houthis will continue,” Colonel Wadah al-Dubaish, spokesperson for the government-aligned Joint Forces on Yemen’s West Coast, told Al Jazeera.
But losses to the Houthis over the past few months have been damaging to the government. A rapid Houthi advance south along the Red Sea coast in early September captured Mocha, a port on the Red Sea coast and a key supply hub for pro-government forces in western Taiz governorate. A government counter-offensive reclaimed some of the territory lost in the southern Red Sea coast region, but not Mocha itself, which continues to be in Houthi hands.
Houthi attacks and ground advances, al-Dubaish said, may delay the delivery of supplies to government military forces or increase the cost of delivering supplies to certain fronts. But the situation in the city of Taiz illustrates the limits of that logistical flexibility. Houthi forces have cut the main road connecting the city to Aden, the seat of the internationally recognised government.
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