Continuing to amass gains amid a week-long ceasefire, pro-Saudi forces have seized a pair of mountains in the northeastern portion of Yemen’s Sanaa Province, putting them only about 60 km away from the nation’s capital city.
The advance came amid heavily fighting along the Yemen-Saudi border over the past week, with both sides bringing a growing amount of armored vehicles into the battle. Ultimately, neither side won a decisive victory, but the pro-Saudi forces have advanced into some new territory.
The pro-Saudi forces have, however, definitely gained overall on the “ceasefire” fighting, capturing multiple cities in the past week including the city of al-Hazm in the northwest. The Shi’ite Houthis are threatening more retaliation against targets inside Saudi Arabia.
Houthi Brigadier General Sharaf Luqman said that 300 Saudi military targets had been selected for potential strikes, and claimed the Houthis still had “about 60 to 70 missiles,” many more than the Saudis had previously estimated.
In the initial few weeks of the war Saudi warplanes bombed many of the Yemeni missile bases under Houthi control, and had estimated they had few remaining missiles. Last week, the Houthis fired a Tochka missile at a Saudi base near Taiz, killing 152 troops. They’ve fired a few smaller missiles and rockets at Saudi territory, but to much less effect.