Onlykashmir.in News Desk
Fighting between Yemen’s Ansar Allah movement and the Saudi and UAE backed coalition has intensified over control of a strategic mountain range overlooking the Bab al-Mandab Strait, even as reports of a foiled drone attack on Mecca have stirred anger and calls for retaliation against the Houthis, claims Ansar Allah has denied. Iran, meanwhile, has urged restraint, cautioning against using the security of Islam’s holy sites as a tool to inflame regional tensions.
The current phase of conflict traces back to 13 August, when Saudi Arabia bombed the airport in Yemen’s capital Sanaa, an action Ansar Allah cited as justification for subsequent missile and drone strikes on Saudi territory. Since then, the group has pushed Saudi and UAE backed forces out of much of Yemen’s Red Sea coastline. Fighting has since shifted to the Kahbub mountain range, where the Saudi and UAE backed Giants Brigade continues to hold key peaks; full control of the range would allow Ansar Allah to conceal short range ballistic and anti-ship missiles capable of striking shipping lanes near the strait.
Coalition warplanes have struck telecommunications infrastructure in Yemen’s Taiz province and carried out further strikes in Hajjah province that killed at least one civilian and destroyed homes and vehicles, according to Al Jazeera. Coalition backed forces claim to have repelled Ansar Allah infiltration attempts around Mayyun Island and the Kahbub peaks.
Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said protecting Islamic holy sites from politicisation was essential, warning that the region had witnessed repeated false flag operations designed to divert attention from actions elsewhere and to sow discord among Muslim nations. His statement pointed to the decades long, complex history between Saudi Arabia and the Zaydi movement that eventually became Ansar Allah, a movement Riyadh itself once backed against Yemen’s republican government before it evolved into an adversary.
Veteran Indian diplomat Talmiz Ahmad, a former ambassador to Saudi Arabia with direct experience in Yemen, has argued that no outside force has ever succeeded militarily in the country’s mountainous, tribally fragmented terrain. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia has reportedly asked France, Britain, Pakistan and Egypt for air defence support, after its own missile interceptor stocks, along with those of its principal supplier the United States, were depleted during the ongoing six month war with Iran, underscoring the widening regional dimensions of a conflict that shows no sign of near term resolution.
