What Is Operation Dawn of Yemen? Army Claims 723 Strikes

Yemen’s internationally recognised government forces have claimed 723 air, drone, rocket and artillery strikes on Ansarullah positions within a matter of hours on November 14, the third such tally in five days from the offensive they call Operation Dawn of Yemen. Staff Colonel Majed al-Nuzaili, the official spokesman of the Yemeni Armed Forces, listed 37 airstrikes by warplanes, 56 drone strikes, 89 rocket launcher strikes and 541 field artillery strikes. He gave preliminary estimates of about 321 Houthi commanders and fighters killed or wounded and about 117 vehicles and pieces of equipment destroyed or disabled, none of which has been independently verified. With artillery accounting for three quarters of all strikes and aircraft for barely five percent, the tally highlights that the campaign remains overwhelmingly a ground war fought along largely static lines.

The operation was launched on October 5, a month after Ansarullah opened a broad offensive on September 3 that carried its forces to the Red Sea coast and, by October, around the city of Taiz. The government frames its aims as protecting citizens and removing the threat the movement poses to shipping through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. The claimed figures have grown with each statement, with the same spokesman having reported 874 strikes and about 190 Houthi fighters killed or wounded on November 10, then 703 strikes and about 200 casualties on November 12. Government forces fight alongside the Popular Resistance at Taiz, while the Giants Brigades, the Nation’s Shield Forces and the National Resistance fight on the southern fronts, where Houthi units have pushed towards Aden’s border district of al-Madaribah wal Ara, as our front line map shows. Fighting around Taiz, the decisive front of the war, had by November 11 entered its 61st consecutive day.

Ansarullah has offered a mirror image of the government’s account, with military spokesman Yahya Saree stating on November 10 that Saudi-backed forces had carried out 109 air and missile strikes on Sanaa and on positions in al-Jawf, Saada, Taiz, Lahij and Marib. He said the strikes killed and wounded “a large number of women and children”, and claimed heavy losses among government fighters at al-Madaribah and Ras al-Ara in Lahij. The Saudi-led coalition, which entered the war directly and backs the ground campaign with airstrikes, has spent the week intercepting Houthi drones and missiles over the kingdom. Coalition spokesman Turki al-Maliki stated on November 14: “Two drones launched by the Houthi militia were intercepted and destroyed in the Riyadh and southern regions.” That came a day after the movement claimed two ballistic missile strikes on Saudi troops at Al-Tuwal in Jazan, a claim Saudi authorities had not addressed by November 14.

Casualty figures from either side cannot be checked on the ground, and the government’s three tallies, which together claim more than 700 Houthi commanders and fighters killed or wounded in five days, have not been acknowledged by Ansarullah. The civilian toll is better documented, with the World Health Organization having counted at least 1,771 people killed and 7,959 wounded in Yemen’s hostilities since August, and more than 300,000 displaced. Families from western Lahj districts including al-Madaribah and al-Maqatirah have been fleeing towards Aden as the fighting moves closer to the city’s outskirts.