Saudi-backed forces strike hard at Houthi positions near Red Sea

Government forces in Yemen have hit Houthi positions with a series of airstrikes around the port city of Mocha and the nearby town of Dhubab, with Saudi aircraft flying in support, according to Yemeni army media.

Both towns sit on Yemen’s Red Sea coast, close to the Bab al-Mandab Strait, the narrow chokepoint that ships pass through on their way to and from the Suez Canal. The strikes came in response to a Houthi push along the coast. Houthi fighters had seized the port of Mocha and advanced further up the shoreline before the government’s air campaign began.

To understand why a fight over Mocha matters, it helps to know a bit about the town itself. Mocha, the same port that gave its name to mocha coffee centuries ago, sits at one of the most strategically sensitive points on Yemen’s coastline. It lies just north of the Bab al-Mandab Strait, a stretch of water only about 30 kilometers (19 miles) wide at its narrowest point, separating Yemen from Djibouti across the Red Sea. A large share of global shipping, including oil tankers and container ships bound for European and Mediterranean ports, passes through that strait every year. Whoever controls the coastline near it has leverage over that traffic, even if only briefly or partially.

That is part of why the area has changed hands repeatedly since Yemen’s civil war began in 2015. The war pits Yemen’s internationally recognized government, backed by a Saudi-led coalition, against Houthi forces, who seized the capital, Sanaa, early in the conflict and have held much of northern Yemen ever since. Mocha and the surrounding coastline have been contested ground for years, falling under government control at various points before facing renewed pressure from Houthi advances.

Saudi Arabia has backed the Yemeni government militarily since the war’s early months, flying airstrikes against Houthi positions as part of a coalition that also included the United Arab Emirates and other regional partners, though the coalition’s makeup and level of involvement have shifted considerably over the past decade. Saudi air support for Yemeni government ground operations has continued intermittently even as broader diplomatic efforts, including a United Nations-backed truce process, have sought to wind the conflict down.

The Yemeni army media report gave a general picture of the fighting but left out several details that would normally accompany a battlefield update. It did not specify how many aircraft took part in the strikes, what kind of ordnance was used, or whether there were any casualties among fighters or civilians in Mocha and Dhubab. It also did not give an exact date for when the Houthi advance on the port began or when the government’s air response followed.

Fighting around Red Sea port towns has drawn added attention over the past couple of years because of the wider disruption Houthi forces have caused to shipping in the region. Houthi attacks on commercial vessels transiting the Red Sea, launched in what the group described as solidarity actions tied to the war in Gaza, pushed some shipping companies to reroute around southern Africa rather than risk the Bab al-Mandab Strait.