Taiz battle decides western security, says Yemen's former PM

Yemen's former prime minister Maeen Abdulmalik Saeed has said the future of western security is being fought out in the mountains and hills around the south-western city of Taiz, as Houthi rebels press a campaign to take the country's Red Sea coast.

Saeed, who was prime minister from 2018 to 2024 and is now an adviser to Yemen's president, Rashad al-Alimi, said it would be catastrophic if Taiz fell to the Iran-backed Houthis. He said control of the strategic Bab al-Mandab strait in the Red Sea, and the road to Aden where the UN-recognised government is based, would be lost.

Appealing for more western help, he said he had no doubt the Houthis intended to seize all of Yemen, and claimed their goal was "to help Iran to expand the chaos".

'A broader battle'

Saeed said the battle around Taiz involved "the whole of the western world, and one of the most important maritime straits". He said the Houthis knew that controlling Taiz meant controlling the straits, the highlands before them, the coastal city of Mocha and the Gulf of Aden.

"If Taiz is lost, access to the strait will be lost," he said. "The rest of the country will come later."

Taiz, home to more than 500,000 people, became the new frontline after the Houthis launched a military campaign last month to take the Red Sea coast, ending four years of relative calm that followed a UN-brokered ceasefire in 2022.

Saeed said the Houthis were allowing some fuel and commodities into Taiz while expanding control of rural areas and smaller cities, but predicted a full siege within days. He said it would be "much worse than the siege of 2015".

He admitted that poor coordination between government-backed troops - naming the National Shield Forces, National Resistance Forces and Giants Brigades - competition between Gulf states, and a slowness to appreciate the Houthis' long-range drone technology had contributed to the pressure on his government and its chief backer, Saudi Arabia.

Missile reach

Saeed traced a decade of growing Houthi capability. In December 2020, ballistic missiles struck Aden airport, killing 28 people and injuring 107, including Saeed himself, who had just taken office. In January 2022, missiles hit Abu Dhabi oil tanker trucks more than 900 miles away; in October 2022 the Nushayma oil terminal and al-Dhabba port were struck. By the time the US attacked Yemen in March 2025, he said, the Houthis had dozens of targeted missiles, land and sea missiles and drones.

He described "a new era of radical terrorism" involving semi-state actors and militias using cheap technology and smuggled third-party components, and said Gulf countries had to reshape and rethink their defences.

Separately, Aidarous al-Zubaidi, the exiled leader of the southern secessionist force, called on Tuesday for a mobilisation of southern troops against the Houthis, alongside a demand for a referendum on secession within two years. He brought tens of thousands onto the streets in support on Wednesday.

Source: The Guardian World.