Yemeni government forces clashed with Houthi fighters near the Saudi border, with AFP footage showing soldiers in armoured vehicles and trucks pushing across desert terrain under the crackle of machine-gun fire.
The Houthis also released footage on Wednesday of the fighting in the northwestern Al-Jawf area, as well as a video purporting to show the downing of a fighter jet belonging to Saudi Arabia, the group’s longtime foe and the Yemeni government’s main backer.
The group has recently made major gains in a lightning offensive that Saudi airstrikes have failed to roll back, leaving the Yemeni government scrambling to respond.
“The First Division Emergency Forces are advancing on the Al-Labanat front and, God willing, will reach Houthi positions,” Waleed Al-Mahajeri, operations commander of the government’s Fifth Brigade, told an embedded AFP journalist on Tuesday.
AFP footage showed the soldiers firing heavy machine guns, artillery and RPGs at distant targets, as well as the bodies of Houthi fighters and entrenchments the government forces said the group had abandoned as they fell back.
“Al-Masariya Hill has been liberated, as has Al-Labanat camp, and the advance is continuing,” said soldier Abu Mithaq.
Two sources from the government’s military later told AFP on condition of anonymity that government forces were in control of the lower points of Al-Labanat camp, located on a hill, but were facing difficulty seizing control of the rest, as the Houthis held the higher ground.
Taking the camp would be a strategic win for the government forces, as it would clear the path to Al-Hazm, the capital of Al-Jawf governorate, just 50 kilometres (30 miles) away.
Yemen’s civil war roared back to life in July after lying mostly dormant since 2022, with the Houthis making rapid advances that saw them seize the entirety of the country’s Red Sea coast and strategic islands in the Bab al-Mandab Strait at the sea’s southern tip.
The group has long held large parts of the country’s north, including the capital Sanaa.
In their own video, Houthi fighters can be seen racing across the desert in pick-up trucks, at one point firing on an advancing vehicle.
“We are conducting now, God willing, an operation to… cut off the enemy,” one of the fighters can be heard saying.
A separate video issued by the group includes night-vision footage appearing to show a projectile striking a fighter jet.
Other scenes show the wreckage of a downed plane, with a charred tailfin bearing the Saudi flag.
The Houthis said on Wednesday that they had shot down a Saudi fighter jet using a locally made missile.
