Alimi orders a campaign to retake Houthi ground as Al-Turbah changes hands

Rashad al-Alimi, chairman of Yemen's Presidential Leadership Council, said on Sunday that government forces had been ordered to begin operations to retake remaining territory held by the Houthis. In a televised address from Riyadh he said the aim was to extend the authority of the state and its institutions over the whole country, and that armed forces, security forces and other formations would carry out an approved plan until that was done. He placed state institutions on alert for the duration.

The order landed on the same day Yemeni sources reported that Houthi fighters had entered Al-Turbah, the administrative centre of Al-Shamayateen district, south of Taiz. Yemen Online, citing those sources, said the commander of the Tur al-Bahah axis had left for Aden, and that Houthis had taken Al-Samsarah and Al-Safiyah, cutting the road that links Taiz to Aden. The same account said the Heijah al-Abd road, the main route between the two cities, had been cut for a second day after a small bridge was blown. A Sanaa-aligned agency said nearly 20 military and armoured vehicles, plus five trucks of weapons, had withdrawn toward Sharjab and then Tur al-Bahah in Lahj, and that factions led by Abu Bakr al-Jabouli of Islah had left by the Al-Sihi and Al-Zariqa routes. Those claims come from parties to the fight. They agree on the direction of movement around Al-Turbah. They do not agree on how much of the town is held.

Colonel Majed Abdullah al-Nazili, spokesman for the recognised government's forces, said those forces had carried out 257 targeting operations on Saturday against Houthi sites, movements and equipment. The Houthis answered with a claim, not a confirmed strike report. Military spokesman Yahya Saree said the group had fired ballistic missiles and drones at two Saudi Aramco sites, one in Riyadh and one in the Khurais area, which he placed east of the capital. He said both operations had hit their targets and started large fires. Saudi authorities had not confirmed damage by Sunday afternoon. The BBC noted flames at an Aramco facility south of Riyadh on 3 October, a separate image from the day before Saree's Sunday claim. Riyadh has in past rounds dismissed some Houthi strike claims as false.

The sequence matters more than any single town. Al-Alimi's campaign announcement follows days of cross-border fire. The Houthis described their Aramco claim as a reply to what they called 50 Saudi-led coalition strikes in 12 hours. If Al-Turbah and the Taiz-Aden road are in Houthi hands, the recognised government has lost a southern approach to Taiz in the same week it has been told to advance. Taiz has been split for years. Cutting the Aden road isolates the government-held part of the city from Lahj and the temporary capital.

Khurais is not a symbolic target. It is one of Saudi Arabia's main oil fields, about 150 kilometres northeast of Riyadh. A confirmed hit there would sit on top of the Strait of Hormuz closure that has already pulled emergency stocks out of consumer countries. An unconfirmed claim does not move barrels. It does force Aramco and the Saudi defence ministry to spend a news cycle on denial or silence. Silence is what Sunday produced.

Al-Alimi does not command a single army. The Presidential Leadership Council sits over factions that have fought each other, including Islah-linked units and southern groups. The withdrawal reported at Al-Turbah was blamed on an Islah-linked axis. An order from Riyadh to "begin assigned tasks" does not by itself put those units back on the road they left. The test in the next few days is whether any government formation moves north or east of Al-Turbah, and whether Saudi Arabia states what, if anything, struck Khurais or a Riyadh facility on Sunday.