The Japan Times - Yemen military announces broad strikes against Houthis

The declared offensive sets a lofty goal for the beleaguered Saudi-backed government a month after losing swathes of the country's Red Sea coastline and territory around the Bab al-Mandab Strait -- a key chokepoint for international shipping.

The Houthis, at war against the internationally-recognised government, launched a lightning offensive in September that has killed hundreds of combatants on both sides and, according to UN figures, forced more than 145,000 people to flee their homes.

While the war in Yemen predates the Middle East war that began with US-Israeli strikes on Iran, the fighting there has in recent weeks become the most active front in the wider conflict.

Hours after the government announcement, Yemen's military spokesman said its forces launched over 1,000 "strikes against artillery and rocket launcher positions, defensive fortifications, approach and reinforcement routes, supply lines and logistics assets, combat reinforcements" belonging to the Houthis.

The government strikes, however, have yet to blunt ongoing Houthi advances on the ground.

On Sunday, the group effectively encircled the key city of Taiz after cutting the main supply route linking the city to the interim government capital of Aden.

- Vast humanitarian crisis -

"It is a significant development, but I think it is still too early to say that we are witnessing a decisive turning point," Ahmed Nagi, a senior analyst for Yemen at the International Crisis Group, told AFP.

Taiz city itself remains under the control of government forces but has long been besieged from the north, east and west by Houthi fighters and remains one of the main fronts in Yemen's long-running civil war.

The fighting in Yemen has also drawn in Saudi Arabia -- leader of an anti-Houthi military coalition since 2015 -- with the group regularly claiming attacks on the kingdom's territory in recent weeks and declaring a blockade of its ships in the Red Sea.

Yemen is one of the poorest countries in the world and has been gripped by a vast humanitarian crisis since the civil war broke out in 2014.

That year the Houthis seized the capital Sanaa from the Saudi-backed government, before going on to take control of much of the country's north, with Riyadh's international coalition intervening the following year.

S.Ogawa--JT