Follow-Up: Yemeni Government Forces Withdraw Near Bab el-Mandeb, Leaving Houthis in Control of Key Strait
Yemeni forces fighting for the internationally recognised, Saudi-backed government said on Sunday, November 15, that they were withdrawing from an area overlooking the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, leaving the Iran-aligned Houthis in control of the strategic waterway, according to Reuters.
The Southern Armed Forces said in a statement that they were carrying out a redeployment from Dhubab Airport and the Bab el-Mandeb area, west of Taiz Governorate, toward Aden, where the government is based. The step, the statement said, was based on the priority of securing Aden and the neighbouring governorates, strengthening the front lines and addressing existing threats.
The Bab el-Mandeb Strait is one of the world's most important and busiest routes for seaborne goods, particularly shipments from Asia to Europe via Egypt's Suez Canal. The government's retreat hands the Houthis greater leverage over the maritime chokepoint, while Iran continues to disrupt traffic through the Strait of Hormuz on the other side of the Arabian Peninsula.
Government forces had launched a military campaign in October to recapture the strategic coastal areas after the Houthis pushed south in September in an attempt to seize Yemen's entire Red Sea coast, bringing them within reach of Bab el-Mandeb. The escalation broke a 2022 UN-brokered truce.
Reuters also reported intensifying fighting around the western region of Taiz, where humanitarian conditions are worsening. The city hosts about half of the 300,000 people displaced across Yemen by the latest fighting, aid supplies are unable to enter, and civilians are unable to leave. Yemen has been mired in civil war since 2014, when the Houthis pushed the government south.
Source: Reuters
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：曼德海峡与红海海域卫星图。照片：NASA Johnson Space Center 地球科学与遥感部门，公共领域，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Photo: Satellite view of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and the Red Sea. Photo by the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, NASA Johnson Space Center, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
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