Rashad al-Alimi, chairman of Yemen's Presidential Leadership Council (PLC) and supreme commander of its armed forces, announced the start of military operations against Houthi-held territory in a televised address from Riyadh on Sunday 4 October. "In the name of God, and in the name of the people, and based on the decisions of the National Defense Council, we announce today the commencement of military operations to recover what remains of the Republic's lands, and to extend the authority of the state and its institutions over the entire national territory," he said.
Al-Alimi said peace and de-escalation options had been exhausted. He blamed the Houthis (Ansarollah), the Iran-aligned movement that holds Sanaa, for choosing escalation. He said the operations were "not a war against any sect or tribe." These are the PLC chairman's own statements, and Crisis.Zone cannot independently confirm the scope of the plan. Reuters reported on 2 October, citing six regional and Western officials, that Saudi Arabia was preparing a new offensive. Riyadh had not officially confirmed it when we reported it.
State of play: confirmed events and combatant claims
Reported, not independently verified: a police source and three military sources told AFP (Agence France-Presse) that Houthi fighters seized the al-Safiya area on 4 October, including its police station, and cut the main road linking Taiz to Aden. Farea Al-Muslimi of Chatham House told AFP: "They've achieved the military objective of isolating Taiz from Aden, even if they haven't fully taken control of it."
Claimed: Colonel Majed Abdullah al-Nazili, the Yemeni military spokesman, said on 3 October that government forces had carried out 257 targeting operations. He said initial estimates showed at least 700 Houthi fighters killed. A further 97 operations around Tor al-Baha and Taiz were reported early on 4 October. Al Jazeera attributed them to the Saudi-led coalition; the Yemeni army said they killed 260 Houthi fighters. The Houthis have not commented on the army's figures. They claimed an attack on an Aramco facility in Riyadh on 3 October, and smoke was reported at an oil facility south of the city. The coalition spokesman called the Houthi claim "misleading." None of these figures is independently verified, and all are still changing.
The Houthis took Mocha on 10 September. By 12 September, Yemeni military sources said they held nearly the whole Red Sea coast, as we reported at the time.
Observers are reading: our assessment of whether Riyadh and the PLC can match the declaration with forces, and the indicators to watch.
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Civilians in Taiz bear the immediate cost
Taiz, Yemen's third-largest city, holds hundreds of thousands of civilians and was already besieged on three sides. The World Food Programme said on 2 October that almost three in four households in the areas where it operates cannot meet their basic food needs. The International Organization for Migration counted 112,000 displaced as of mid-September, and tens of thousands more have fled since.
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