The Houthis are attempting to push into the Kahboub Mountains after seizing much of Yemen’s Red Sea coast in a lightning offensive this month – an advance that experts say could dramatically shift the balance of power in the country’s war if successful.
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experts → attempt → war
The renewed fighting in recent months with forces aligned with Yemen’s Saudi-backed, internationally recognised government has brought an end to the relative calm that had largely held since 2022.
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that → renew → 2022
In recent days, the conflict has moved into the rugged highlands overlooking the approaches to Bab al-Mandeb, one of the world’s most important shipping routes.
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conflict → move → routes
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The strait connects the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, and its importance is only growing as shipping through the Strait of Hormuz remains disrupted by the Houthis’ main ally: Iran.
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shipping → slam → ally
Experts said taking the high ground would help the Houthis defend the newly captured coastline and make it far harder for government forces to push them back.
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forces → say → them
While the mountains may not necessarily be used as a launchpad for attacks on ships, controlling them would provide defensive depth and cover for Houthi positions closer to the coast, making missile and drone operations in the Red Sea easier to sustain and harder to disrupt.
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operations → use → Sea
The Houthis have said they do not intend to target United States shipping and attacks would be limited to vessels linked to Saudi Arabia.
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attacks → say → Arabia
But the group has repeatedly attacked ships in the Red Sea in previous years, including vessels with no clear connection to its stated targets.
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group → attack → targets
The Houthi advance has taken on added urgency after The New York Times reported that US President Donald Trump came close to ordering air attacks against the Houthis on Sunday, only to call them off at the last minute.
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Trump → take → minute
Britain, meanwhile, said it will support Saudi Arabia with defensive refuelling.
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it → say → refuelling
Kahboub, a mountainous region spanning parts of the Lahj and Taiz governorates in southern Yemen, derives much of its strategic importance from its proximity to Bab al-Mandeb.
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Kahboub → span → Mandeb
Some of its heights lie about 40km (25 miles) from the waterway, providing commanding views across a stretch of the Red Sea, through which a significant share of global maritime trade and millions of barrels of oil pass each day.
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share → lie → oil
While that vantage point has considerable military value, experts said the mountains are unlikely to serve directly as a launchpad for attacks in the Red Sea.
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mountains → have → Sea
Their more immediate importance for the Houthis lies in securing the territory the group has already captured.
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group → lie → territory
“The mountains are the natural wall that protects the Houthis’ rear on the coast.
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that → protect → coast
Controlling them would cut the coast off from the government-held south and place direct pressure on Lahj and, in the longer term, Aden,” Faozi Al-Goidi, a visiting fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs, told Al Jazeera.
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Goidi → control → Jazeera
Securing their rear would help the Houthis prevent government forces from attacking their coastal positions from behind or severing the routes connecting their newly captured territory.
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Houthis → secure → territory
Until the high ground is secured, Houthi forces stationed along the Red Sea remain vulnerable to attacks from government-held areas to the south and east.
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forces → secure → south
Capturing the elevated positions, therefore, would make Kahboub less important as a potential launchpad for maritime attacks than as a defensive shield for the Houthis’ military gains along the coast.
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Kahboub → capture → coast
Ewa K Strzelecka, a visiting senior fellow at the London School of Economics, told Al Jazeera that controlling the coastline, Mayyun Island and the neighbouring highlands would give the Houthis “strategic resilience”.
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controlling → visit → resilience
“Holding the coastline, Mayyun and the adjacent highlands together would give the Houthis a much deeper and more defensible position around one of the world’s principal maritime chokepoints,” she said.
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she → hold → chokepoints
Those positions would allow the Houthis to move fighters, weapons and supplies along the coast with less risk of their routes being severed from behind.
“From the high ground, the Houthis could monitor movements along the coast, around Mayyun Island and towards the chokepoint while protecting missile, drone and potentially unmanned-boat infrastructure positioned farther inland,” Andreas Krieg, a senior lecturer at the School of Security Studies at King’s College London, told Al Jazeera.
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Krieg → allow → Jazeera
The battle is already proving slower than the Houthis’ rapid advance across the coastal plains.
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battle → prove → plains
Footage circulated on X by the Taiz Military Axis Command’s media centre appears to show intense fighting between forces aligned with the Yemeni government, local fighters and the Houthis on mountain fronts.
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Footage → circulate → fronts
The footage could not be independently verified by Al Jazeera.
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footage → verify → Jazeera
“This is not an easy battle,” said Mohammed al-Basha, an analyst and a former spokesperson for Yemen’s embassy in Washington.
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Basha → say → Washington
“The fighting is taking place across some of Yemen’s most unforgiving terrain where control of a single hilltop or mountain peak can come at a heavy cost.”
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control → take → cost
Could the Houthis isolate Taiz by controlling Kahboub?
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Houthis → isolate → Kahboub
Control of Kahboub could also place greater pressure on Taiz, a symbolically and strategically important city, as the Taiz governorate forms a bridge between the Houthi-held north and the government-held south and the Red Sea coast.
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governorate → place → north
Whoever controls it gains the upper hand in the movement of weapons and supplies between the interior and the southern port city of Aden.
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controls → control → Aden
Losing it, therefore, could deal a serious blow to the government.
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Losing → lose → government
Murad Al-Arefi, an editor at the Sana’a Center, told Al Jazeera that taking Kahboub would “increase pressure on the southern and western approaches to Taiz” although he cautioned that it should not yet be seen as evidence of a broader attempt to encircle the city.
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it → tell → city
The immediate threat to the Taiz-Aden connection is less direct because Kahboub does not itself sit across the route.
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Kahboub → sit → route
“What matters is whether the Houthis can subsequently push farther east through Al-Wazi’iyah and towards the Al-Turbah-Lahj axis, which would place much greater pressure on the southern approaches to Taiz and potentially weaken its connection with Aden,” Strzelecka said.
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Strzelecka → matter → Aden
A further advance, therefore, could leave government forces defending several mountain fronts simultaneously while relying on fewer secure routes to move troops, weapons and supplies, leaving Taiz increasingly exposed.
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advance → leave → Taiz
One of Yemen’s largest population centres, Taiz became an important centre of resistance to the Houthis after they seized Sanaa in 2014, and was besieged by the rebel group for years.
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they → become → years
A major Houthi breakthrough there, therefore, would carry symbolic significance far beyond the territory captured.
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breakthrough → carry → territory
What could it mean for Red Sea shipping?
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it → mean → shipping
Officially, the Houthis have said their current restrictions in Bab al-Mandeb would apply only to Saudi-linked shipping.
But during its previous Red Sea campaign, the group struck or endangered ships with no clear connection to Israel – their purported target during Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza – raising questions about how narrowly any new restrictions would be applied.
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restrictions → say → questions
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