Alimi orders a campaign to retake Houthi ground as Taiz road town falls

Yemen's internationally recognised president, Rashad al-Alimi, said on Sunday that military operations had begun to retake territory held by the Houthis and to extend state authority across the country. The announcement followed a Houthi claim of missile and drone strikes on Saudi Aramco sites, and a report that Houthi forces had taken Al-Turbah, a town south of Taiz on the road to Aden.

Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said on Saturday, and again on Sunday, that the group had hit Aramco in Riyadh and the Khurais field in the east with ballistic missiles and drones. He said the strikes were direct and had started fires. The New York Times said it had verified video of a fire at an Aramco refinery in Riyadh on Saturday. Major General Turki al-Maliki, spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition, told Asharq Al-Awsat that the claim of targeting Riyadh was misleading.

Early on Sunday the coalition said its forces had carried out 97 targeting operations against Houthi reinforcements on the Tor al-Baha front and the Taiz axis, using aircraft, drones, artillery, missiles and snipers. Colonel Majed Abdullah al-Nazili, speaking for government forces, said the attacks had hit at least 260 Houthi fighters and destroyed or disabled 44 military vehicles. Those figures are a government count. The Houthis have not confirmed them.

Al-Turbah is the territorial fact underneath the statements. Two Yemeni officials told the New York Times that Houthi forces had captured the town, which sits on the main road between Taiz and Aden, the temporary seat of the recognised government. Taking it moves the group closer to encircling Taiz, one of the country's largest cities. Last month the Houthis seized ground beside the Bab al-Mandab strait. The Sunday move is inland, on a road, not on the water.

Alimi's televised line was that operations would recover the remaining territory of the republic. BBC reported that he was answering an exchange of strikes, and that the Houthis had described their Aramco claim as a response to what they said were 50 coalition strikes in 12 hours. An all-out announcement from Aden does not by itself move a front. It tells Saudi Arabia, which has been under fire aimed at oil infrastructure, that the recognised government wants a ground campaign rather than a limited reply.

The oil claim and the town are separate ledgers. A fire at a Riyadh facility can be filmed and still be disputed as a cause. Al-Maliki's word, misleading, rejects the Houthi account of who hit what. It does not deny that flames were visible. Khurais, southeast of the capital, is a producing field. A confirmed hit there would matter to export volumes. A rejected claim matters to the political case each side is making for the next strike.

Taiz has been besieged, in whole or in part, for years. A town on the Aden road changes the siege geometry. If Al-Turbah stays in Houthi hands, supplies into Taiz from the south have to use longer routes, and the government in Aden loses a checkpoint on its own link to the highlands. That is why officials spoke about the town before they spoke about a nationwide campaign.

The coalition's 97 operations and the claim of 260 fighters hit are the first numbers attached to Alimi's order. They are not an independent count. They do show that Riyadh answered on the Taiz axis within hours, not only with a spokesman. The open question is whether that answer holds Al-Turbah or only hits columns moving toward it. Aden has announced a war to recover the map. The map, on Sunday night, had moved the other way at one town south of Taiz.