ALEXANDRIA: Heavy fighting broke out between Yemeni government troops and Iran-backed Houthi forces in key battlefields in the provinces of Al-Bayda, Marib and Jouf, as both sides sought to make territorial gains on the ground, local officials and state media said on Saturday.
During the past 24 hours, the Houthis mounted counterattacks on army troops and allied tribesmen in different locations in the central province of Al-Bayda, where loyalists scored major advances over the last seven days.
Rebel media said their forces managed to recapture the center of Al-Zaher district, and pushed back government forces from recently-liberated areas in the province.
Yemen’s Defense Ministry said on Saturday that the rebel forces suffered heavy casualties and lost military equipment in a fierce five-hour battle in Al-Zaher.
Backed by air support from the Arab coalition, government troops last week mounted an offensive to seize control of districts in Al-Bayda, and to relieve pressure on other government troops battling Houthi attacks in the central province of Marib.
Government troops seized control of a large swathe of territory in Al-Zaher district, south of Al-Bayda province, and pushed deeper into Houthi-controlled areas in Al-Saoma and Al-Hazemia, southeast of the province, after killing, wounding and capturing dozens of rebel fighters.
The offensive slowed over the weekend as the Houthis mounted deadly counter-offensives.
By attacking the Houthis in Al-Bayda, Yemen’s government has sought to secure neighboring provinces such as Lahj, Abyan, Shabwa and Al-Dhale, push into other Houthi-controlled provinces such as Sanaa, Ibb and Dhamar, and weaken the Houthi offensive on Marib, local army officials and experts said.
On Saturday, local media reports said that a Houthi field commander called Abu Yahya Al-Hanemi was killed in the fighting in Al-Zaher.
Government supporters on social media mourned the death of many loyalists killed in Al-Bayda.
Local officials say that fighting could escalate there in the coming days as the Houthis and government continue bringing in military reinforcements.
People from Abyan told Arab News that the Houthis had shut down internet and mobile services in Al-Bayda.
In Marib province, the scene of the heaviest fighting, Yemen’s Defense Ministry said on Saturday that army troops and tribesmen mounted an attack on the Houthis in the Halhalan Valley and Mezam Mas, northeast of the province, as other government troops pushed back Houthi attacks in Al-Mashjah and Al-Kasara, west of Marib city.
Thousands of combatants and civilians have been killed in the province since February when the Houthis resumed an offensive on oil-rich Marib, the government’s last bastion in the northern part of the country.
In the province of Jouf, Rabia Al-Qurashi, a Yemeni army spokesman, told Arab News on Saturday that government troops repulsed a Houthi attack in Al-Jadafer region, west of Hazem, the provincial capital, adding that several Houthis were killed in the area when a warplane from the Arab coalition targeted their vehicle.