Houthi militia escalates attacks against Southern forces

Two soldiers from the Southern forces were killed in an attack by the Iran-backed Houthi militia on the Al-Masemir front, north of Lahj Governorate, this morning, a military source told South24 Center.

The source said that the Houthi militia launched a violent attack on the Southern forces, including with the use of heavy weapons. Today’s attack is the latest one following a series of strikes on the same fronts in the past few days.

According to the source, the Houthis lost a number of their elements during the attack, and the militia moreover failed to achieve its goals.

In one week (September 7-14), the Houthis carried out more than five attacks against the Southern forces in the Lahj and Al-Dhalea governorates, during which seven Southern soldiers and three civilians were killed, according to monitoring by South24 Center.

Several soldiers were also injured in this noticeable escalation by the Houthis, which coincides with a decline in their attacks against ships in the Red Sea, ever since the militia hit and badly damaged the oil tanker Sounion on August 21.

The Houthis have not yet announced their losses in these attacks, but they often hold mass funerals in Sanaa for the dead without specifying the fronts where they were killed.

The Houthis are likely to have lost many elements, especially in the September 7 attack when the Southern Giants Brigades advanced in the Mawiah district between Taiz and Lahj and seized Houthi positions in the Shawkan area.

A senior military source in the Southern forces said that their forces had advanced on September 7 in response to the Houthis' attempt to penetrate the defenses of the Southern forces in the Ahamah area in Al-Masemir district in Lahj.

The Houthi attacks extended to the border fronts in the Yafa areas between Al-Bayda and Lahj as well, fronts that flared up with the Houthis' complete control of Al-Bayda in September 2021.

On Thursday, the Southern Transitional Council's Presidency discussed during a meeting in Aden the risks of opening land crossings between the South and the North in light of the Houthis' military escalation on the fronts and the security situation.

In his latest briefing to the Security Council on Thursday (September 12), UN Envoy to Yemen Hans Grundberg warned that military escalation in Al Dhalea, Lahj, Taiz and Marib “exposes Yemen to a full-scale war”. “The current dynamic is a stark reminder that the threat of a return to full-scale war remains ever-present,” he said.

Since the UN truce in Yemen expired in October 2022 without being officially renewed, the country has entered a state of calm, but the fronts between the Southern forces and the Houthis are witnessing ongoing mounting incidents.