The Houthis have scored a solid victory today, capturing the main supply route that runs to the city of Marib in northern Yemen.
Fighting around the city of Marib has been going on for months, but with little progress from either side. However, today, the Houthis managed to clear Saudi-backed forces from the towns of Baihan and Harib, which sit to Marib’s south.
These settlements sit on the strategic Marib-Ataq road that was acting as the main supply line to Marib. With it now cut, Saudi-backed forces will have to use the eastern route, which runs through over a 100 miles of empty desert. A Houthi capture of Marib would essentially wrap up the rest of Saudi-backed forces in northern Yemen, making the new frontline Ataq.
The distance between the new Houthi positions and Marib is about 30 miles, but it would probably be unpleasant for the Houthis to advance through desert terrain like that. One could use the the dunes as cover from direct fire, but airstrikes would nullify such positions. Unless they used a large and quick infantry movement, the Houthis will likely continue to push up the highway to get closer to Marib.
The Houthis are a largely Zaydi religious armed movement that is aligned with Iran. The Zaydi sect of Islam is rather unique and is only really found in northern Yemen, the area that the Houthi’s control. The war in Yemen is not sectarian like the conflicts in Iraq and Syria. Though the war is largely seen as a proxy war between Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shia’a Iran, this overlooks the local elements of the conflict. The Houthis formed on their own in the 1990s, and only gained Iranian support in recent years. Some even believe that Iran only began to supply the Houthis after the Saudi military intervention in 2015. Yemen also did not experience the types of communal violence seen in Iraq and Syria between different religious communities.
Saudi Arabia supports the Yemeni government led by Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi. I don’t want to explain everything that has happened up until now because its honestly confusing even for me. Saudi Arabia, alongside some other Gulf countries, directly intervened in 2015 against the Houthis, who had just captured the major city of Sana’a and were advancing on Yemen’s southern capital of Aden. The Saudi’s managed to push the Houthis away from Aden, but got bogged down once they reached the mountains of northern Yemen. Saudi-backed forces almost captured the port city of al-Hudaydah in 2018, which is the last entrance into Houthi controlled Yemen, but failed to do so, as the Houthis managed to hold their ground. The conflict has largely been in a stalemate since then.
I know I don’t really talk much about Yemen, as it is an incredibly complicated topic, and I don’t think I can do it much justice in general. The conflict has also been somewhat frozen since 2018’s battle for al-Hudaydah, which ended in a stalemate. However, I have been following the situation around Marib to some degree since fighting began in that area six months ago. The Houthi’s capturing Marib would be a major progression of the conflict and would severely weaken Saudi-backed forces.
Overall, I think it is definitely possible that the Houthis capture Marib, especially now that its most important supply line has been cut. That being said, Saudi-backed forces could launch a large counter attack. The Houthis have generally demonstrated that they are a somewhat stronger fighting force than Saudi-backed forces, and have proved to be proficient in defending their territory from one of the best-supplied militaries in the entire world. Saudi-backed forces are fragmented and can be rather ineffective. They do, however, possess a lot more fire power than the Houthis, which weakens the Houthi’s ability to launch offensive operations.
I will likely write another post if things develop more.