Yemen army takes control of Al Bareh Triangle as militia flees
AL HOUTHIS ABANDON ARMS , AMMUNITION AFTER GOVERNMENT ASSAULT NORTH OF MOKHA
Yemeni military units, led by Brigadier General Tareq Mohammad Abdullah Saleh, pushed the Iranbacked Al Houthis out of a new area in the southern province of Taiz.
Media outlets affiliated with the General People’s Congress, the party of Yemen’s ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh, said Tareq-led forces seized control of Al Bareh Triangle, north of government-controlled Mokha town, after heavy clashes with Al Houthis who fled the battlefield, leaving behind arms and ammunition.
Tareq’s forces recently announced the killing of Abu Abdu Al Quoad, Al Houthi field commander on the western coast battlefield, and a number of his associates in clashes in Taiz.
Last month, Tareq led thousands of soldiers who defected from Al Houthis in a new offensive aimed at expelling Al Houthis from plain and mountainous areas north of Mokha town and secure the eastern sides for government troops that would push into the city of Hodeida along the Red Sea coastline. The soldiers, mainly from elite Republican Guards and Special Forces brigades, fled battlefields and Al Houthi-held areas and regrouped in military camps in the southern city of Aden, where they received modern arms and equipment from the Saudi-led coalition.
The western city of Hodeida is the last major coastal city under Al Houthi control, and the target of a major military offensive that started early last year.
Meanwhile, in Al Houthi-held Sana’a, the militia mourned the death of an army general who was killed either in clashes with government forces or in an air strike by coalition fighter jets in the central province of Baydha. Hundreds of Al Houthis attended the funeral of Major General Mahmoud Mohammad Hadi Al Naqeb, the chief of staff of the 7th Military Region, and three of his associates in Sana’a.
Precise air strikes by the coalition’s fighter jets and drones have managed to kill dozens of senior Al Houthi military commanders, including Saleh Al Sammad, the president of Al Houthi Supreme Political Council.
Military experts believe Al Houthis usually keep deaths of commanders under wraps in order not to undermine the militiamen’s morale.