Yemeni forces retake the strategic port city of Mokha from the Houthis

Forces of Yemen’s internationally recognised government have retaken the strategic Red Sea port city of Mokha from the Houthis, in what is being described as the first major territorial victory of the Saudi-backed coalition counteroffensive, as Al Jazeera reports.

According to defence analyst Nawaf Obaid, a senior research fellow at the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, the swift recapture of territory came thanks to “sophisticated” military planning ahead of the operation. “The Houthis are fighting in a very traditional way, whereas with the Saudi coalition you have an evolved battlefield,” Obaid said.

“What you saw yesterday is only the beginning of the systematic collapse of their defences,” Obaid told Al Jazeera, adding that the Houthis and their Iranian advisers are not used to fighting in this way. In his assessment, the Houthi militia will not be able “to withstand the assault that is coming from the air, the land and the sea.”

Mokha is a historic and strategic port on Yemen’s Red Sea coast, near the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, control of which has become one of the main fronts of the widened regional war. Its recapture comes as part of the Saudi-led coalition’s counteroffensive to free the strait from the Iran-backed Houthis.