Government forces take Dhubab and reach Mocha on the Bab el-Mandeb

Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces retook the coast around the Bab el-Mandeb Strait up to the city of Mocha on Monday, pushing Houthi fighters out of most of the ground they had taken last month, Reuters reported from military sources. The forces had already taken key positions, including an airstrip, in Dhubab district at the mouth of the strait.

Four government sources told Reuters the advance, covered by heavy Saudi air strikes, had reached the outskirts of Mocha late on Monday, and that Houthi fighters were falling back into the highlands. Riyadh said it had attacked hundreds of targets to provide air cover for the strait and for the Yemeni ground force. Saudi Arabia arms and trains those units and has asked allies for logistical help.

The Houthi-run health ministry said two people had been killed and seven wounded in strikes on the Sanhan and Sa’wan districts of the province. The UN migration agency’s figure for displacement since the war resumed stands at 184,000. No troop count for the government column was published.

A strait, not only a district

Bab el-Mandeb is the gate between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. Dhubab sits on the Yemeni side of that gate. An airstrip in that district is a local military fact with a shipping consequence: whoever holds the coast can place missiles, drones and coastal guns within range of the lane. The government statement framed the day as a lightning advance that recovered most of what was lost last month, up to Mocha, the old coffee port north of the strait.

This is a battlefield update on the campaign Rashad al-Alimi, head of the Presidential Leadership Council, announced as an order to retake remaining Houthi-held territory, including Sanaa. Monday’s reported gain is narrower than that order. It is the coast from the mouth of the strait to the edge of Mocha, not the capital, and not the highlands the sources say the Houthis are using as the line of retreat.

Saudi air power is the other half of the day’s account. The government sources described the strikes as heavy. The Saudi statement, as carried by Reuters, put the number of targets in the hundreds and tied them to cover for the strait and the ground force. That is a different claim from a general expression of support. It is a count of strikes on a named piece of coast, on the day the infantry moved.

What is not yet in the communique

The sources do not say Mocha itself has fallen. They say the column reached the outskirts late on Monday. Dhubab is described as positions taken, including the airstrip, not as a district cleared and held under a civil administration. Houthi forces are described as retreating, not as destroyed. A retreat into the highlands leaves the fighters on ground that has favoured them in earlier rounds of this war.

Casualty figures are partial. The only numbers Reuters carried from the Houthi health ministry are two dead and seven wounded in Sanhan and Sa’wan, which are not the coastal districts named in the advance. The displacement figure of 184,000 is an agency total since fighting resumed, not a count from Monday. Both belong in the record. Neither measures the coast road.

Al-Alimi has said government forces will fight until the country is liberated. The Saudi coalition has said it will back that campaign. Monday’s map, if the four sources are right, moves the line to the edge of Mocha and puts an airstrip at Dhubab in government hands. The next report that matters is whether that line is still there after the highland counter-move, and whether ships treat the strait as open.