A month after Yemen government offensive began, war of attrition takes hold

Sanaa, Yemen – When news broke on October 5 that Yemen’s internationally recognised government was launching a major new offensive to take control of territories held by Houthi fighters, Mohammed Ahmed began to prepare for the worst.

Sanaa has been under Houthi control since late 2014 after the Houthis seized the capital city in the initial phase of a civil war that has ebbed and flowed for more than a decade.

But when it announced Operation Dawn of Yemen, the new offensive, last month, Yemeni government forces, backed by a Saudi Arabia-led coalition, declared they would aim to retake control of all parts of the country held by the Houthis, including Sanaa.

“A state of worry and uncertainty overwhelmed my family and me,” Ahmed, a 40-year-old resident of Sanaa, said.

Ahmed was not concerned about which side would emerge victorious. Instead, he feared the consequences of hostilities near or inside Yemen’s most densely populated city.

A month after the operation began, Ahmed’s anxiety has eased as Sanaa remains largely calm, apart from recurring air strikes.

Meanwhile, the Houthis, an armed group also known as Ansar Allah (Arabic for Supporters of God), have scored territorial gains in other provinces, including Taiz and Lahij in southern Yemen, where fighting has not ceased.

But while Yemenis such as Ahmed said the initial momentum surrounding Dawn of Yemen has faded, experts and researchers view the operation as marking a new phase in a war of attrition that shows no signs of easing.

Striking the pillars of Houthi strategy

Turki al-Goblan, head of the Saudi Daimumah Center for Studies, told Al Jazeera that the Houthis have survived in previous years by adapting to strikes and leveraging complex geography, clandestine supply and concealment networks, and the use of civilians as human shields.

That survival strategy is now under stress. The Dawn of Yemen offensive has “dealt a blow to the three pillars of this strategy”, al-Goblan said.

The first pillar, according to him, is the fuel and supply system, which keeps Houthi combat vehicles moving, transports ammunition and delivers reinforcements. Second, the operation has hit the Houthis in the maritime areas around the Bab al-Mandeb strait and the western coast, which serve as outlets through which alternative external supply routes pass. Bab al-Mandeb connects the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea and is a major waterway through which Saudi Arabia exports its oil and Asian economies, such as China, ship commodities to Europe.

Third, some of the tribes surrounding Sanaa have begun declaring mobilisation in support of the internationally recognised Yemeni government, undermining the Iran-backed Houthis’ reliance on them.

“When these three pillars are targeted simultaneously, the question shifts from the scale of losses to the ability to replenish them,” al-Goblan added.

He argued that the pace of attrition has exceeded the Houthis’ ability to recover.

“Attrition ceases to be the opposite of a decisive victory and becomes the means of achieving it as repeated losses translate into an accumulating inability to sustain the fight. This is the scenario I consider more likely.”

Since seizing Sanaa in September 2014, the Houthis have taken control of much of northern and western Yemen. Since then, the conflict has remained unresolved.

Abdulsalam Mohammed, chairman of the Yemeni Abaad Studies and Research Center, said the Dawn of Yemen pushed the Houthis to move their forces and their military capabilities, exposing the group to deadly attacks.

“Many of the Houthi field commanders and hundreds of fighters have been killed in air strikes, especially in Taiz and Yemen’s western coast. While the killing of these fighters has not stopped Houthi territorial gains, these gains can be short-lived if the government airpower and ground fighters keep launching coordinated military attacks,” Mohammed said.

Last month, the Yemeni government said its forces killed or wounded 1,540 Houthis in 24 hours. Late last week, the government said 16,100 Houthi operatives and commanders had been killed or wounded since October 5. The Houthis have not confirmed a death toll and have in the meantime been firing missiles and drones daily into Saudi Arabia too, hitting multiple airports and disrupting air traffic over the kingdom.

A war of attrition

Yazeed al-Jeddawy, a research manager at the Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies, told Al Jazeera that the course of the conflict increasingly appears to be moving towards a prolonged war of attrition as the government offensive has not shifted the balance of power over the past 30 days.

“The conflict is no longer driven solely by the dynamics inside Yemen; it is intertwined with the wider regional confrontation and the war involving Iran,” he said.

Iran sees the Houthis as a source of strategic leverage, al-Jeddawy noted. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia seeks to curb the group’s military capabilities and prevent it from threatening vital maritime routes, particularly Bab al-Mandeb.

“The growing intensity of the fighting, the scale of the losses they are prepared to absorb and their willingness to climb the escalation ladder suggest an increasingly zero-sum approach,” al-Jeddawy added.

Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree said the total number of attacks by the Saudi-led coalition, including air strikes, in Yemen has reached 3,939 since the latest escalation began.

On Monday, the country’s Presidential Leadership Council reaffirmed its commitment to the Dawn of Yemen and its objectives, namely ending the Houthi “coup”, restoring state institutions and extending the state’s authority over its entire territory.

Colonel Wadah al-Dubaish, spokesperson for the government-aligned Joint Forces on Yemen’s West Coast, told Al Jazeera the Houthis have lately expanded their military gains in Taiz; however, the price of such a move is extremely high.

“The group’s expansion has been a big adventure. What the Houthis have lost over the past month is more than their losses over the past years combined.”

Yemeni government forces said they had reclaimed control of the Taiz governorate’s Dhubab district and key positions near Bab al-Mandeb.

Al-Dubaish indicated that the Houthis capitalised on ceasefires over the past decade that offered the group more time to prepare and mobilise for war.

“The lesson is clear: The group threatens all factions in Yemen, and efforts should be united to confront this threat,” he said.

Yemen’s government said on Sunday that its forces recaptured military positions and strategic heights east of al-Hazm, the capital of the northern governorate of al-Jawf.

The Houthis’ resilient missile capability

Since the start of the Dawn of Yemen, neither Yemen’s government-controlled territories nor Saudi Arabia has been safe from Houthi missile attacks.

The group has repeatedly launched missiles, occasionally causing damage, deaths and injuries. One of its latest missile attacks killed at least 70 government security recruits in Shabwah.

Al-Jeddawy said the continued attacks showed that the Houthis retain a functioning and resilient missile capability.

“But the more important question is not simply how many missiles they still possess; it is the scale and nature of the external support they continue to receive – whether in intelligence, targeting assistance, components, technical expertise or weapons replenishment,” he said.

The timing and volume of the attacks, together with the precision and damage achieved in some strikes, point to a wider support system that goes beyond the Houthis’ capabilities in isolation, according to al-Jeddawy.

Al-Goblan, however, interpreted the Houthis’ continued missile and drone attacks differently, arguing that they do not necessarily demonstrate military strength or a coherent operational strategy as the Dawn of Yemen continues.

“Rather, it may represent an attempt to compensate for declining ground manoeuvrability through long-range firepower. It may also be an effort to preserve cohesion across fronts and create a political impact and an illusion of maintaining the initiative,” al- Goblan said.