Yemen government forces say hit Houthis in Red Sea city

Yemen's Riyadh-backed government forces said on Saturday that they had struck Iran-allied Houthi fighters in the strategic Red Sea city of Mocha.

Following a week-long offensive, the Houthis on Friday captured Yemen's Red Sea coast, cementing their hold on the Bab al-Mandab Strait, a vital artery for Saudi Arabian oil exports as the Strait of Hormuz remains closed amid the US-Iran war.

They had seized Mocha the day before after heavy fighting.

"The armed forces destroyed vehicles and weapons and killed members of the Houthi terrorist militia backed by the Iranian regime" near Mocha's port, the government news agency Saba reported on Saturday.

The spokesman for the Yemeni government forces, Majed Abdullah al-Nazili, said they had also struck Houthi vehicles and fighters on the Mocha-Dhubab road, just outside the city, according to Saba.

Nazili said on Friday that government forces had begun shelling areas in Mocha, and called on citizens not to use the Taiz-Mocha and Mocha-Dhubab roads.

The fall of the city to the Houthis on Thursday drove many residents to flee to Aden, where the internationally recognised government is based.

On Friday, Houthi media said two Saudi strikes hit Mocha's airport, while a local official said the city's seaport was hit by six missiles of unknown origin.

News site Axios reported that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman had twice called US President Donald Trump to request American strikes on the Houthis last week.

But on Saturday, Trump told reporters that "the Houthis called us and they don't want to fight with us".

He didn't say if Washington would take action, but added "everything's gonna work out fine and dandy" in the region.

The United States previously conducted a seven-week bombing campaign against the Houthis, starting in March 2025, in response to the group's repeated attacks on international shipping in support of Hamas in the Gaza war.

That effort ended with a negotiated ceasefire, though the Houthis kept up their missile and drone attacks targeting Israel.

More recently, the group has resumed attacks on ships in the Red Sea after declaring a maritime blockade of Saudi Arabia.

The Houthis' ground offensive, launched last week, has killed more than 500 people, according to sources on both sides.

It has also displaced about 76,000 people, the UN migration agency said on Saturday, a figure that had quadrupled since last week.

Yemen's civil war began with the group's takeover of the capital Sanaa in 2014, and was paused by a 2022 truce that fell apart in July.