Yemeni presidential council says forces carried out over 40,000 attacks on Houthis in month

Around 20,000 Houthi leaders, fighters ‘neutralized,’ more than 5,000 vehicles destroyed or disabled since Oct. 5, council says

Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council said Thursday that government forces had carried out more than 40,000 operations against the Houthi group across several fronts during the first month of its “Dawn of Yemen” operation. In a statement marking one month since the operation began on Oct. 5, the council said the armed forces conducted 40,761 operations against Houthi positions. It claimed that around 20,000 Houthi leaders and fighters had been “neutralized” during the campaign and that more than 5,000 vehicles had been destroyed or disabled. The operation will continue until the “restoration of state institutions and government control across the country,” according to the statement. It also praised Saudi Arabia for supporting Yemen’s internationally recognized government, including through assistance to state institutions, salaries, public services, and humanitarian relief. The council highlighted continued fighting around Taiz, saying government forces and local resistance groups were confronting Houthi attacks and a siege of the city. Since Oct. 5, Yemeni government forces have been conducting an operation dubbed “Dawn of Yemen,” aimed at regaining control of state institutions and retaking the capital Sanaa from the Houthis. Fighting between government forces and the Houthis resumed in July, killing and wounding thousands and displacing more than 250,000 people, according to UN reports. The renewed clashes ended a period of relative calm that had prevailed since April 2022, worsening Yemen’s humanitarian crisis. Yemen has been engulfed in civil war since the Houthis seized Sanaa and several provinces in September 2014, prompting a Saudi-led coalition to intervene in March 2015 in support of the internationally recognized government.