Saudi-backed Yemeni forces say they expelled Houthis from areas near key Red Sea strait

Forces of the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen have recaptured several key areas around the Bab el-Mandeb Strait from Iran-backed Houthi rebels, Yemeni officials said Monday, according to multiple outlets including the Associated Press report carried by The Hill and The Washington Times. The officials said forces allied with Yemen's internationally recognized government retook the town of Dhubab, just north of the strait, and staged what France 24 described as a lightning advance to retake the coast up to the city of Mocha (also spelled Mokha).

Yemeni military officials said they had 'secured' the Red Sea waterway, according to BBC News, which also reported that Saudi-backed forces gave conflicting reports on whether they had seized the port city of Mokha. The South China Morning Post, citing a Yemeni minister, reported that government forces had seized control of the strait outright. The advance followed the Houthis' seizure of the entire Red Sea coast the previous month, according to the Washington Examiner, with government operations shifting back toward the coast after fighting had centered on the southwest highlands around Taiz.

The push was framed by Yemen's Presidential Leadership Council Chairman Rashad Al-Alimi as an all-out military campaign to retake all Houthi-held territory, Arab News reported. Al-Alimi, in a televised address on state media, said he had ordered government forces to begin large-scale operations aimed at restoring state control nationwide, according to the same report, as fighting also raged around Taiz.

As the ground offensive unfolded, a Saudi-led coalition said its fighter jets were bombing Houthi positions in Yemen, with Sky News reporting that 'hundreds of Houthi targets' were attacked in an air campaign. Several outlets, including The Straits Times, reported that the Houthis claimed to have struck Riyadh's airport and other Saudi sites, while the Saudi-led coalition said it had destroyed Houthi targets on the Red Sea coast. The Washington Times similarly reported Houthi claims of attacks on Saudi oil facilities, airports and military bases as fighting escalated on Yemen's western coast.

Semafor noted that Saudi Arabia's previous war against the Houthis resulted in a yearslong conflict and a severe humanitarian crisis, offering context for the current offensive.

How the coverage differed

Left-leaning outlets, including Al Jazeera, Bloomberg, The Hindu, HuffPost, PBS NewsHour and The New York Times, largely led with the claim that Saudi-backed Yemeni forces had expelled Houthis from areas around the strait, with The New York Times framing the operation as an effort to wrest control of the Red Sea coast from Iran-backed Houthis. The Los Angeles Times and The Guardian emphasized the air campaign, reporting that Saudi-led coalition jets were bombing Houthi positions.

Center outlets gave the story the broadest and most detailed coverage, with The Hill, France 24 and others carrying the AP account naming Dhubab and Mocha specifically. BBC News was notable for flagging that Saudi-backed forces gave conflicting reports about whether Mokha had actually been seized, a caveat not emphasized elsewhere. Arab News uniquely reported Al-Alimi's televised announcement of an all-out campaign, a detail absent from left- and right-leaning coverage. The Straits Times and Semafor both included Houthi counter-claims of strikes on Saudi targets, including Riyadh's airport, adding a dimension largely missing from left-leaning headlines.

Right-leaning outlets, including The Washington Times and Breitbart, emphasized the framing of the conflict as a broader confrontation with Iran, with PJ Media describing the Houthis as 'Iran's proxy' and The American Conservative labeling the conflict 'The Iran War.' The Washington Examiner provided additional background on the shift in fighting from the southwest highlands back to the coast after the Houthis' earlier seizure of the Red Sea coast, a detail not highlighted by left-leaning sources.

What is still unclear

Sources disagree on whether government and Saudi-backed forces actually captured the city of Mokha, with BBC News reporting conflicting accounts even from the Saudi-backed side, while other outlets including The Hill and France 24 described it as a stated objective or already reached. It also remains unclear from the supplied material how extensive the humanitarian impact of the renewed fighting has been, beyond Semafor's reference to the toll of Saudi Arabia's earlier war against the Houthis.