Yemeni forces advance in Taiz, Iran state media reports encirclement
Iran's state news agency says forces have surrounded the area, as Houthi gains again outpace coalition efforts to hold ground
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Map: The Middle East, marking Bab el Mandeb, Yanbu
Yemeni forces are advancing in Taiz and have reportedly encircled the area, Iran's state news agency said Sunday.
The advance adds to a string of territorial losses for the Saudi-backed government, which has already ceded control of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and key Red Sea ports. It comes as Iranian-backed forces appear to be consolidating control across strategically important zones faster than Saudi-led coalition air campaigns have been able to reverse.
The push follows weeks of on-and-off diplomacy. Saudi Arabia had been pursuing a two-week truce with the Houthis through Omani mediation, an effort that continued even after the Houthis said they had fired a drone at the Saudi city of Taif and, separately, claimed an attack on Saudi Aramco's Yanbu facility. Iran's top security official has said Tehran wants the Saudi-Yemen war to end, a statement at odds with Iran's recent pattern of military escalation elsewhere in the region.
Taiz has been a contested front for years, and control of it carries weight beyond the city itself. Continued Houthi gains there, alongside the group's claimed strikes on Saudi infrastructure, deepen pressure on regional stability and on the security of shipping routes through the Red Sea.