BID TO SEVER HOUTHIS’ MAIN SUPPLY LINE

Yemeni army await air support to attack intersection connecting rebel-held areas and build on capture of military base

Yemen’s military is trying to disrupt the Houthi rebels’ main supply route in Taez after gaining an important strategic advantage with the capture of the Khalid bin Al Waleed military base.

Soldiers backed by the Arab coalition are fighting for control of a central road that runs from Sanaa, Yemen’s rebel-held capital, to Taez in the south-east, an area that has been fiercely contested since the civil war broke out in 2015.

The military briefly held the central vantage point that gave it control of Al Khazan junction, which connects the rebel-held north to areas in the south and east of Yemen, before being pushed out.

“Army forces could not maintain control for long because big reinforcements for the Houthi militia came from Al Hawban area in Taez city and deployed on hills overlooking Al Barh area,” Col Al Abdulbaset Baher, a military official in Taez, told The National.

The military retreated to recently captured areas but will make a renewed push for the junction with air support.

Arab coalition jets launched at least four strikes on Houthi posts in Al Barh and on a cement factory west of Taez on Saturday. The strikes killed rebel leaders and destroyed mortars and artillery positions of the Iran-backed rebels.

Meanwhile, elite Yemeni forces backed by the UAE pressed an offensive in Hadramawt province to stamp out Al Qaeda’s Yemeni branch.

The campaign, known as Operation Black Mountain, aims to eliminate a pocket of Al Qaeda fighters in Wadi Hager north of Mukalla, the main city in the eastern province.

On Saturday, soldiers in neighbouring Shabwa province captured one of Al Qaeda’s biggest strongholds in Yemen.

The operation in Rafah Al Ras included two coalition strikes that killed several militants and led to the capture of many more in “fierce confrontations”, said Col Mohammed Al Buhar, commander of the elite forces in Shabwa.

Yemeni security forces also killed a senior ISIS commander during a gun battle in Aden on Saturday. The death of Saleh Al Bakshi is a significant blow to the extremist group in the country.

The war that has engulfed Yemen after the Iran-backed Houthi rebels overran the capital created a security vacuum that Al Qaeda and ISIS exploited to increase their presence.

One of the deadliest attacks came in March 2015 when ISIS targeted two Shiite mosques in Sanaa, killing 142 people.

The military briefly held the central vantage point that allows control of Al Khazan junction