AL-MUKALLA: At least 80 Iran-backed Houthi militia fighters have been killed in two days of fierce fighting with government troops and by Arab coalition airstrikes in flashpoint areas outside Yemen’s central city of Marib.
New clashes erupted in Al-Kasara, Mashjah, Helan, Jabal Murad and Rahabah on Monday and Tuesday when hundreds of Houthi fighters attacked government troops with the hope of advancing toward Marib city.
“The national army’s artillery fire and the Arab coalition warplanes have managed to exterminate almost 20 waves of Houthi fighters in Marib. We counted the bodies of 81 dead Houthi strewn all over the battlefields,” Col. Yahiya Al-Hatemi, director of Yemen Army’s military media, told Arab News.
He said the coalition’s warplanes killed a large number of Houthi fighters and destroyed military equipment before they reached the battlefields in Marib.
“The warplanes have carried out 43 air raids in Al-Kasarah and Rahabah during the past 24 hours. We could see Houthi vehicles burning before reaching us,” he said.
The latest fighting in Marib began in February when the Houthis resumed a major military offensive to seize control of the energy-rich city, the government’s last stronghold in the north.
Despite the continuing Houthi military pressure in some battlefields, Al-Hatemi said loyalists mounted counterattacks on the Houthis in Marib province on Monday night, scoring limited advances with the help of the coalition’s air support. “We carried out feigned retreats in some areas and attacked the Houthis in others,” Al-Hatemi said.
Despite suffering heavy losses and a series of defeats on the battlefields, the Houthis have rejected local and international calls to halt their offensive on Marib and engage positively with peace efforts to end the war.
Less intensive heavy fighting also broke out on Tuesday in the western province of Hodeidah when the Houthis renewed assaults on government forces.
The Joint Forces, an umbrella term for three major military units on the western coast, said the Houthis, who regrouped forces and brought in reinforcements, attacked locations in Hays district on Tuesday, triggering fierce clashes that ended hours later when the militia retreated after suffering casualties.
The same district witnessed heavy fighting between government forces and the Houthis last week as the militia sought to seize control of new areas.
Also in Hodeidah, 17 civilians, including women and children, were injured on Monday when a land mine planted by the Houthis exploded in the rural area of Attuhayta district. The victims were returning home from a wedding when their Toyota pickup drove over the land mine, triggering the explosion.
80 Houthis killed as loyalist forces repel new assault on Marib city
https://arab.news/w7j6j
80 Houthis killed as loyalist forces repel new assault on Marib city
- Iran-backed militia also resume their offensive in the western province of Hodeidah
Syrian army continues advance against Kurdish-held towns despite US calls against it
- Kurdish forces say Syrian army breached withdrawal deal
- US envoy meets with Kurdish leaders in Irbil
DEIR HAFER, Syria: The Syrian army continued its push into Kurdish-held territory on Saturday, despite US calls to halt its advance in towns in the area in Syria’s north.
State media said the army took over the northern city of Tabqa and its adjacent dam, as well as the major Freedom dam, formerly known as the Baath, west of the Syrian city of Raqqaa.
Syrian Kurdish authorities had not acknowledged their loss of control over those strategic points, and it was unclear if fighting was still ongoing.
For days, Syrian troops had amassed around a cluster of villages that lie just west of the winding Euphrates and had called on the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces stationed there to redeploy their forces on the opposite bank of the river. They have been clashing over strategic posts and oilfields along the Euphrates River.
SDF fighters withdrew from the area early on Saturday as a gesture of goodwill — but then accused Syrian troops of violating the agreement by continuing to push further east into towns and oilfields not included in the deal.
Brad Cooper, who heads the US military’s Central Command, said in a written statement posted on X that Syrian troops should “cease any offensive actions in areas” between the city of Aleppo and the town of Tabqa, approximately 160 kilometers further east.
Arab residents rejoice at troops’ arrival
The initial withdrawal deal included the main town of Deir Hafer and some surrounding villages whose residents are predominantly Arab. The SDF withdrew on Saturday and Syrian troops moved in relatively smoothly, with residents celebrating their arrival.
“It happened with the least amount of losses. There’s been enough blood in this country, Syria. We have sacrificed and lost enough — people are tired of it,” Hussein Al-Khalaf, a resident of Deir Hafer, told Reuters.
The Syrian Petroleum Company said that the nearby oilfields of Rasafa and Sufyan had been captured by Syrian troops and could now be brought back online.
SDF forces had withdrawn east, some on foot, toward the flashpoint town of Tabqa — downstream but still on the western side of the river and near a hydroelectric dam, a crucial source of power.
But when Syria’s army announced it aimed to capture Tabqa next, the SDF said that was not part of the original deal and that it would fight to keep the town, as well as another oilfield in its vicinity.
Syria’s army said four of its troops had been killed in attacks by Kurdish militants, and the SDF said some of its own fighters had been killed, but did not give a number.
US-led coalition planes flew over the flashpoint towns, releasing warning flares, according to a Syrian security source.
The US has had to recalibrate its Syria policy to balance years of backing for the SDF — which fought against the Daesh — against Washington’s new support for Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa, whose rebel forces ousted dictator Bashar Assad in late 2024.
Main oilfields are still under Kurdish control
To try to end the fighting, US envoy Tom Barrack traveled to Irbil in northern Iraq on Saturday to meet with both Abdi and Iraqi Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani, according to two Kurdish sources. There was no immediate comment from Barrack’s spokesperson.
The latest violence has deepened the faultline between the government led by Sharaa, who has vowed to reunify the fractured country after 14 years of war, and local Kurdish authorities wary of his Islamist-led administration.
The two sides engaged in months of talks last year to integrate Kurdish-run military and civilian bodies into Syrian state institutions by the end of 2025, repeatedly saying that they wanted to resolve disputes diplomatically. But after the deadline passed with little progress, clashes broke out earlier this month in the northern city of Aleppo and ended with a withdrawal of Kurdish fighters. Syrian troops then amassed around towns in the north and east to pressure Kurdish authorities into making concessions in the deadlocked talks with Damascus.
Kurdish authorities still hold Arab-majority areas in the country’s east that are home to some of Syria’s largest oil and gas fields. Arab tribal leaders in SDF-held territory have told Reuters they are ready to take up arms against the Kurdish force if Syria’s army issues orders to do so. Kurdish fears have been deepened by bouts of sectarian violence last year, when nearly 1,500 Alawites were killed by government-aligned forces in western Syria and hundreds of Druze were killed in southern Syria, some in execution-style killings.
