Al -Mukalla – At least three Houthis were killed and five more were injured, in a fight with government forces on Saturday in Yemen’s beleaguered city of Taiz, according to a local military officer.
The Houthis, who are backed by Iran, attacked government forces in two contested locations northeast of Taiz, according to Abdul Basit Al-Baher, spokesman for the Yemeni army in Taiz, who spoke to Arab News. This led to a combat in which three Houthis were killed and five Yemeni government troops and five Houthis were injured.
According to Al-Baher, the Houthi militia carries out these attacks in Taiz to seize territory.
The Houthi strike on Saturday is the most recent in a string of military operations in Taiz and other contested areas of Yemen that, according to analysts and officials, might obstruct continuing efforts by the international community to end the crisis.
The Houthi militia’s occasional fatal bombardments and assaults on civilian areas, according to residents of Taiz, have continued despite the more than a year-old UN-brokered cease-fire not easing the siege on the city.
Residents of Taiz said that the Houthis have fired mortar bombs in the last 48 hours at a camp for internally displaced people and workers on a new road in Taiz.
Separately, Sami Hemaid, the Yemeni leader of the teams in Hodeidah for the Saudi-funded Masam demining programme, told Arab Media that information from two young herdsmen resulted in the discovery of two Houthi-planted land mine fields.
Hemaid said that the herdsmen called Masam’s team in Hodeidah after finding land mines, perhaps uncovered by water, in the Hays district of Hodeidah. Masam sent out a crew, who surrounded the damaged areas with a cordon and started looking for land mines. At least six land mines were found early on in the mission by the deminers, which led them to another contaminated area.
This area had previously seen intense fighting between government forces and the Houthis during the conflict in Hodeidah, which was largely resolved by the Stockholm Agreement in 2018.
Hemaid stated that the Houthis liberally and carelessly planted mines in this location, which led to a number of civilian fatalities.
Since 2018, according to Yemeni organisations monitoring civilian casualties from Houthi land mines in Hodeidah, hundreds of people have died and several others have been injured. A 29-year-old civilian slain on Friday in the At-Tuhayta region was Houthi land mine victim in Hodeidah that has most recently been confirmed.
