Yemen government forces say struck Houthi targets

SANAA— Yemen's government forces announced on Sunday that they had targeted Houthi positions across the nation, escalating the protracted conflict that has devastated one of the world's most impoverished countries and its surrounding regions. Military spokesman Colonel Majid al-Nuzaili revealed that the armed forces carried out assaults on Houthi forces in the capital Sanaa, the northwestern Saada governorate, a strong Houthi stronghold, and Taiz in the southwest.

The Yemeni civil war, which resumed in July after a period of relative peace, pits the Iran-supported Houthis, who govern most of northwestern Yemen including Sanaa, against Yemen's internationally acknowledged Saudi-backed government. The government, headquartered in the city of Aden, controls a vast portion of the country's south and east, a region that is geographically large but sparsely inhabited.

The strikes occurred shortly after the Houthis asserted responsibility for an attack on an oil facility near the Saudi Arabian capital, where an AFP correspondent observed flames and smoke, and accused the Gulf kingdom of striking Sanaa multiple times. The adversaries have engaged in a series of retaliatory strikes since the Houthis claimed full control of Yemen's Red Sea coast and seized command of the Bab al-Mandab strait.