Yemen’s leader announced on Sunday (October 4, 2026) the start of a new military operation to retake all territory held by the Houthis, even as the group made fresh gains on the ground, effectively encircling a government-held city.
The announcement sets an ambitious goal for the embattled government, which recently lost large swathes of the country’s Red Sea coastline and areas around the Bab al-Mandab Strait — a chokepoint for international shipping — after a lightning offensive by the Iran-backed Houthis. Taiz itself remains under the control of government forces but has long been besieged from the north, east and west by Houthi fighters and remains one of the main fronts in Yemen’s long-running civil war. Muslimi also downplayed expectations over what the coming government offensive might accomplish.
Yemen’s government has struggled to roll back the surge, even with the military support of Saudi Arabia, where the Houthis said they had attacked oil infrastructure in the capital yet again on Sunday (October 4).
“I announce today the start of military operations to retake the remaining territories of the republic and extend the authority of the state and its institutions across the entire national territory,” Rashad al-Alimi, the head of Yemen’s presidential council, said in a statement. The statement came just hours after the Houthis cut a vital supply route linking the besieged city of Taiz with the government’s interim capital Aden, according to four security sources. They came a day after Yemen’s government said its forces struck Houthi targets around the country, including in the capital Sanaa, the northwestern governorate of Saada and the group’s positions near Taiz in the southwest.
