Government forces say they have secured Bab al-Mandab as Houthis deny the advance

Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces said on Monday that they had secured the Bab al-Mandab Strait, the 20-mile-wide waterway between Yemen and the Horn of Africa that carries oil and container traffic between the Indian Ocean and the Suez Canal. Information Minister Moammar al-Eryani told Reuters that the forces had effective control after a rapid coastal advance into the Dhubab area, though fighting with Houthi units was still going on. Houthi-run media denied that government troops had made any advance there.

A Yemeni military spokesman said the Giants Brigades and National Shield forces were besieging Houthi fighters in Dhubab, the Red Sea town that overlooks the strait, after taking the town's airport and cutting the road toward the port of Mokha. South24 Center, citing field sources, reported the capture of Dhubab district and its military airport. Xinhua, quoting an unnamed government officer in Aden, said the Giants Brigades had moved under air cover, recaptured several positions and cut a Houthi supply route. Al-Masirah, the Houthi channel, called those claims false and accused Saudi media of covering battlefield losses.

What Sunday's order actually said

The ground move followed a Sunday announcement by Rashad al-Alimi, chairman of the internationally recognised Presidential Leadership Council. He ordered armed forces, security units and allied formations to carry out assigned missions until the country was, in his words, liberated from the grip of the Houthi militia. The government has named the wider effort the battle of liberation. South24 reported the Bab al-Mandab operation under the label Dawn of Yemen, aimed at restoring state institutions and retaking Sanaa, which the Houthis took in 2014.

Saudi spokesman Major General Turki al-Maliki said on Sunday that the kingdom had the right to defend itself from Houthi attacks and pledged operational support until the militia was eliminated. The Saudi-led coalition said its jets had destroyed more than 300 high-value targets in support of the offensive. South24 put the air effort at 100 fighter jets and 324 targets, with strikes continuing over the strait and other fronts. The two figures come from different official and local accounts on the same day and have not been reconciled in a single coalition table.

Taiz is the other front

The coastal claim sits next to a Houthi gain inland. Government military sources told Reuters that Houthi fighters had cut a mountain road near Taiz and driven government forces from al-Mawasit district, reaching the home area of al-Alimi. Taiz, Yemen's third-largest city, has a population above half a million and a garrison of several thousand government fighters. Those sources said the city was now surrounded. South24 reported video of Houthi fighters at the house of parliament speaker Sultan al-Barakani in Taiz. The government offensive on the coast is, on this account, a counter to a Houthi move that last month pushed pro-government units off Dhubab, Mokha and Perim, also called Mayyun Island.

The Houthis said they posed no threat to international shipping through the waterway and would keep targeting Saudi vessels. They also said they had fired ballistic missiles and drones at Saudi Aramco sites in Riyadh and at Khurais, in answer to Saudi strikes and to what they called a blockade of ports and airports under their control, including a strike they blamed on the kingdom at Sanaa airport. Neither side has published a verified strike list for Monday.

The toll since August

The government's health ministry says at least 959 people have been killed and 5,000 injured in fighting since 6 August. The United Nations says another 197,000 people have been displaced in that period. Those figures predate Monday's coastal claims and do not separate Dhubab from Taiz. The civil war began when the Houthis took Sanaa in 2014. A Saudi-led intervention followed in 2015. An informal ceasefire that had held for about four years started to come apart in July.

Bab al-Mandab is the southern gate of the Red Sea. Oil from the Gulf and cargo bound for Europe through Suez both use it. A Houthi hold on the Yemeni shore last month was enough to move energy markets, Reuters noted, because the strait is one of a small set of chokepoints where a local advance changes insurance, routing and naval posture for ships that never dock in Yemen. Monday's government claim, if it holds, would reverse that shore position. The Houthi denial, and the encirclement of Taiz, mean the map is not settled. Shipping firms and insurers will treat the waterway as contested until one side can show a held coast rather than a press statement.

The open question is whether Saudi air power can turn a Dhubab airport seizure into a durable hold on the strait while Houthi units remain on the roads into Taiz. Al-Alimi has said de-escalation options are exhausted. The Houthis have answered with strikes on Saudi energy sites. Neither statement replaces a count of who holds Dhubab at nightfall.