Houthi forces appear to make slow advance in south

Houthi forces appeared to be making slow advances on Wednesday in south-west Yemen, approaching the city of Taiz and firing a missile and an explosive towards the airport in Aden, the chief international hub of the Saudi-backed government.

The explosive hit the key airport moments before a plane was due to land. The British ambassador to Yemen, Abda Sharif, said the attack could have endangered thousands of people. It forced the flight – from Cairo – to be diverted to Jeddah and led to a review about the safety of flights in Aden.

Independent observers said there was a danger that the Houthis were on course to capture Yemen’s third city of Taiz, with some signs that forces linked to the Saudi Arabian-backed government were pulling back to secure Aden. Saudi warplanes had been using their air superiority to try to hit any Houthi accumulation of forces near the city, especially to the west.

Houthi forces also claimed that they had fired missiles towards two airports in Saudi Arabia, including Riyadh. Saudi authorities initially said the attacks had been repelled, but then said three people had been killed and 36 people wounded.

The Institute for the Study of War said it was adjusting its previous assessment that Houthi forces on the coastal plain were collapsing “in light of evidence in the last 24 hours indicating that the Houthis have stopped Yemeni government-aligned advances”.

There has been widespread criticism on social media of some of the claims about Yemeni government advances issued at the beginning of the week.

Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, the reclusive leader of the Houthis, gave a lengthy address marking the third anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel, and singled out the Qatari-owned Al Jazeera for criticism of its coverage of the Yemen war. Trying to link the various conflicts in the Middle East, he urged Yemenis to investigate the Saudi role in the Palestinian cause, “stressing that whoever searches will only find it stabbing the nation in the back”, and said the formal positions taken by the Saudi regime did not in reality benefit the Palestinian people.

The Houthi leader also stressed that the Saudi government was not content with complicity in Gaza, but played a key role in conspiring against the Islamic resistance in Lebanon, where it incited everyone against Hezbollah in a single front with the US and Israel.

Southern Giants forces – a pro-government militia in Yemen – are still leading efforts to recapture the Bab al-Mandab strait, the narrow waterway at the bottom of the Red Sea that had been the first target of an offensive launched by the Yemen government on Monday. The group is now positioned in the military airport sector in the Dhubab district near the Bab al-Mandab strait.