seized<\/a> Yemen\u2019s Red Sea coast this month, including the port of Mocha \u2013 are now battling to take the Kahboub Mountains in Taiz and Lahj provinces. Control of the strategic heights, which overlook the Bab al-Mandeb Strait and Mayyun Island in the Red Sea, would allow the Houthis to sever the coast from the remaining government-held south.<\/p>\n\u201cSince the Houthis entered Mocha and seized control of the port and later took Mayyun Island, they have been trying to advance into the mountains or make gains that would allow them to secure their rear,\u201d said Al Jazeera\u2019s Maha Ali, reporting from Taiz.<\/p>\n
\u201cKahboub is now the main battlefield. It may remain so in the coming days given the mountain\u2019s strategic importance and its oversight of Mayyun Island,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Trump reportedly calls off strikes<\/p>\n
The fighting come amid media reports that Saudi Arabia\u2019s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has repeatedly pressed the US to join the fight. The Houthis on Saturday claimed an attack on the Saudi capital, Riyadh, for the first time since the recent escalation.<\/p>\n
But Washington has so far rebuffed the requests, according to the reports.<\/p>\n
The New York Times said on Monday that the Trump administration had prepared to launch air attacks on Sunday against the Houthis after fresh pleas from Riyadh. But it said Trump called off the attacks at the last minute, even as troops were loading bombs onto aircraft.<\/p>\n
Houthi leader Abdel-Malik al-Houthi also said in an address that the US\u00a0was considering a joint escalation with Saudi Arabia against his forces.<\/p>\n
\u201cRegional circumstances have kept the US and Israel somewhat preoccupied, creating a problem for the Saudi regime, which seeks their participation in its aggression and blockade against the Yemeni people,\u201d the Houthi leader said. But he warned the US against escalation, saying \u201cwhoever sympathizes with the oppressor\u2026 bears all consequences morally, legally, humanely\u201d.<\/p>\n
He also called on Pakistan and Turkiye, which have signed a defence pact with Saudi Arabia, not to get involved.<\/p>\n
Analysts said Trump\u2019s reported reversal underscored his administration\u2019s reluctance to take on a new military commitment in a region where US forces were already stretched thin.<\/p>\n
\u201cPresident Trump was put in a very difficult position of whether to come to the aid of a world leader who he is trying to garner good relations with, but also whether to add another very difficult dimension militarily in a region where the US is already pretty bogged down,\u201d said Jason Campbell, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute.<\/p>\n
The US military, he said, has already \u201cexpended a good amount of of higher end munitions\u201d and a lot of the \u201cinterceptors need to be replenished\u201d.<\/p>\n
Toll rises<\/p>\n
Yemeni government forces, meanwhile, said they struck Houthi fighters and supply lines near the Bab al-Mandeb Strait and in al-Bayda governorate, and shot down a Houthi drone in southwestern Taiz.<\/p>\n
Major-General Abdulaziz al-Majidi, chief of staff of the Taiz military force, also told the state-run Saba news agency that soldiers and allied tribal fighters \u201cliberated a number of areas\u201d on the outskirts of Taiz after battling Houthi ground forces. Al Jazeera could not verify the battlefield claims.<\/p>\n
The Houthis said Saudi Arabia carried out at least 157 air attacks in the provinces of al-Jawf, Taiz, Saada and Marib on Monday, killing at least one civilian. Another attack in Mocha late on Monday killed six civilians, including two children and a woman, the Houthi-affiliated Al Masirah TV reported.<\/p>\n
There was no immediate comment from Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n
As fighting intensified, the World Health Organization said 674 people had been killed and almost 3,000 injured since August 6, including 164 deaths and 516 injuries between September 13 and 18 alone.<\/p>\n
More than 158,000 people have been displaced this month, according to Yemen\u2019s Executive Unit for the Management of Displaced Persons Camps. It said roughly 23,550 families had fled their homes across eight governorates, including Aden, Hodeidah and Taiz.<\/p>\n
The conflict is also driving hunger across Yemen, where more than 18 million people or roughly half of the country already face acute food insecurity.<\/p>\n
Carl Skau, the acting executive director of the World Food Programme, said \u201ctens of thousands\u201d of people are arriving in \u201coverstretched\u201d camps \u201cwith nothing\u201d. He noted that Yemen imports 90 percent of its food, so when ports or airports are not working, \u201cthat\u2019s having an impact on food security\u201d.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that continued fighting risked further damage to Yemen and its people, and said the UN special envoy for Yemen, Hans Grundberg, remained in contact with all parties to the conflict.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fighting continues to rage in Yemen, with the Houthi rebels battling Saudi-backed government forces for control of strategic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":856314,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3995,1127,86696,16948,129,155934,3,131,4870,21,19,22,20,25,24,28489],"class_list":["post-856313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-asia","tag-conflict","tag-houthis","tag-humanitarian-crises","tag-middle-east","tag-mohammed-bin-salman","tag-news","tag-saudi-arabia","tag-united-nations","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-yemen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=856313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856313\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/856314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=856313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=856313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=856313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}