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Yemen’s Houthis on Sunday seized the al-Safiya area and cut the main supply road linking Taiz with Aden, the interim capital of the internationally recognized government, effectively encircling Taiz city, according to four security sources cited by the Agence France-Presse (AFP).
“We were informed that the Houthis had taken control of the al-Safiya area, where they cut the main road and took control of the police station,” a police source in the area told AFP.
Three Yemeni military sources also confirmed Houthi control over the area and the supply route.
The military sources said the Houthis had halted traffic on the main road between Taiz and Aden, while fighting in the area remained ongoing.
The Houthi advance follows days of heavy fighting in and around Taiz between the group and government forces.
Taiz city remains under government control but has long been besieged from the north, east and west by Houthis and remains one of the main fronts in Yemen’s civil war.
Yemen’s conflict reignited in July after several years of relative calm, against the backdrop of the widening Middle East war.
The country, one of the poorest in the world, continues to face a major humanitarian crisis.
Fighting intensified further in September as the Houthis launched a rapid offensive that saw them seize Yemen’s entire Red Sea coast, including the Bab al-Mandab Strait, a vital shipping route.
The Houthis have also imposed a blockade on Saudi energy exports, which were already under pressure from Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
Yemen’s war began in 2014 when the Houthis seized the capital, Sanaa, from the Saudi-backed government and later took control of large parts of the country’s north.
Saudi Arabia intervened the following year at the head of an international coalition.
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