SANAA/RIYADH, Oct. 2 (Xinhua) -- More than 70 people have been killed in fierce fighting between Yemen's Houthi group and government forces in southwestern Taiz province over the past 24 hours, military and medical sources said Friday, as the Houthis reported 94 Saudi air and missile strikes while Riyadh claimed interception of three Houthi ballistic missiles.
A Yemeni government military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said more than 20 government soldiers and nearly 10 allied local fighters had been killed and dozens of others wounded in fighting in Taiz over the past 24 hours.
The official described fierce battles across several fronts, with opposing forces engaging in close-range combat for key positions in the province.
The most intense confrontations were concentrated in rural areas stretching toward Yemen's Red Sea coast, where government forces were seeking to halt Houthi advances and prevent the group from consolidating its recent gains near the Bab al-Mandab Strait, according to the official.
In the southern port city of Aden, government forces' air defenses intercepted several Houthi drones as they approached vital facilities and public service sites in the city, according to a statement posted on social media platform X.
Majid al-Nuzaili, spokesperson for the government forces, said on X that government forces had carried out 474 strikes and targeting operations against the Houthis using fighter jets, drones, and other weapons. He claimed the strikes had killed or wounded 1,540 Houthi fighters, most of them in Taiz, and destroyed or disabled 216 pieces of military equipment.
On the other hand, a medical source affiliated with the Houthis, also speaking on condition of anonymity, told Xinhua that more than 40 Houthi fighters had been killed and dozens of others wounded over the past 24 hours.
"Many of the deaths resulted from airstrikes on vehicles transporting reinforcements to active combat areas in rural Taiz," the source said.
In a separate statement posted on X, Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Sarea said 94 Saudi air and missile strikes had hit areas across the provinces of Sanaa, Saada, Taiz, Hajjah, Amran and Ibb over the previous 24 hours. He claimed civilian sites were among the targets and that the attacks had caused casualties, without providing a detailed toll.
He said the latest attacks brought the total number of air and missile strikes recorded by the group since the current escalation began to 1,350.
Meanwhile, the Saudi-led coalition's spokesperson Turki Al-Maliki said on X that three ballistic missiles launched by the Houthi group toward Khamis Mushait were intercepted and destroyed.
The latest fighting is part of a broader escalation around the Bab al-Mandab Strait, the strategic waterway linking the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden and a major route for international shipping.
Clashes have intensified in Taiz and neighboring Lahj since the Houthis captured the Red Sea port city of Mocha on Sept. 10 and Mayyun Island, also known as Perim, on Sept. 11, expanding their presence around the strait and pushing some of the heaviest ground fighting into nearby mountainous areas.
The escalation has also been accompanied by renewed Houthi attacks against Saudi Arabia and what the group says are Saudi air and missile strikes on Houthi-held areas in Yemen, reviving cross-border hostilities that had largely subsided after a UN-brokered truce in 2022.
Yemen's conflict began in late 2014 when the Houthis seized the capital Sanaa and much of northern Yemen, prompting a Saudi-led coalition to intervene in March 2015 in support of the internationally recognized government. ■
