Yemeni forces say they have taken Dhubab, near Bab al-Mandeb

Forces loyal to Yemen's internationally recognised government said on Monday they had taken the district of Dhubab and positions that cover the roads toward the Bab al-Mandeb strait. The claim, carried by the government's Saba news agency, named the Homeland Shield forces and the Giants Brigades. A Saudi-led coalition spokesman said about 100 fighter jets were supporting the advance.

An army source, quoted by Saba without a name, said the units cut supply lines and roads leading to the strait, and that Houthi fighters were killed and wounded and equipment destroyed. The source did not give a body count or a list of captured posts beyond Dhubab and the approaches. Other officials, cited in wire accounts, also named Bab and Hadeid among the places taken. Those three names are the whole public map of the gain. They sit on the Yemeni side of the narrow water between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

Major General Turki al-Maliki, the coalition spokesman, said the jets had secured air protection over the strait and had destroyed hundreds of Houthi targets. A hundred aircraft is a large package for a district fight. It is the coalition's way of saying the ground move is not a local raid. Bab al-Mandeb is the lane oil, grain and container ships use if they are bound for Suez. A government flag in Dhubab does not reopen the lane by itself. It changes who holds the shore batteries and the roads that feed them.

The Houthis have not issued a matching account that concedes Dhubab. On the same night they claimed missile and drone strikes on Saudi airports and military sites, including Jazan and Najran, which the Saudi civil aviation authority later confirmed as damaged, with three minor injuries. A force that is losing a coastal district and firing at the neighbour's airports is doing two things at once. One is a ground defence. The other is a cost imposed on the coalition's home front. The coalition, for its part, said early on Tuesday that it had destroyed a ballistic missile launch platform in Sanaa.

The government side also said it had opened a wider operation, including a push described as strategic toward Sanaa, which the Houthis have held since 2014. A statement of intent toward the capital is not a position taken. Dhubab is a position. It is a district on the strait, and it is the name that can be checked against the next satellite pass and the next Houthi communique.

Shipping insurers price this water on control of the shore, not on speeches. If Dhubab, Bab and Hadeid stay in government hands through the week, the risk note for the strait changes by a line. If the Houthis take them back, Monday's statement joins a long list of advances that did not hold. The 100 jets are the coalition's argument that it does not intend to let that happen. The argument is still in the air.