• The US virtual embassy in Iran urges American citizens to leave the country, citing fighting in Yemen between the Houthis and a Saudi-led coalition.
• Four people have been reported killed in Yemen’s al-Jawf province as fighting continues to rage between the Houthis and Saudi-backed forces. Mahdi al-Mashat, head of the Houthis’ Supreme Political Council, says Riyadh will “pay compensation” for the “unjust blockade” on Yemen.

Houthis say Saudi forces carried out 28 air raids in Yemen over the past day

Yahya Saree, the Houthi military spokesperson, says the Saudi Air Force has carried out 28 air attacks across Yemen in the past 24 hours.

In a statement on X, Saree said the attacks hit the provinces of Taiz, al-Jawf and Marib. He added that the Saudi-led coalition has carried out at least 760 air attacks since the recent escalation began.

Fierce fighting continues in Yemen, but neither side making big gains

There are military operations being carried out by government forces supported by warplanes and drones along various fronts that generally extend across the northern and western regions.

The most prominent and fiercest front is the western coast front along the mountain range stretching from the western countryside of Taiz towards Lahj.

The fighting is extremely fierce. The government forces are still engaged in heavy clashes with the Houthis in those areas, in an attempt to halt the attacks that the group has been carrying out for several days to take control of that strategic area.

The area is surrounded by a mountain range that provides protection on two fronts – not only the western coast and the Bab al-Mandeb and Mocha, but also Taiz governorate from the interior and the surrounding rural areas.

Inland, neither [side] is making significant progress. And it is difficult to speak of any advance by either force, particularly given the extremely challenging strategic location.

Key Kahbub mountains remain under Yemeni government control

In Kahbub, strategic mountains near the Bab al-Mandeb Strait that overlook Mayyun Island, control remains with Saudi-backed government forces fighting the Houthis in Yemen.

It has been the main focus of recent fighting. Since the Houthis entered the city of Mocha, took control of the port, and then moved on to the strategic Mayyun Island, they have been trying to advance into these mountains that would enable the rebels to secure rear positions.

Government forces have managed to drive the Houthis out of large parts of these mountains. Therefore, the situation on the Mocha front is calm but Kahbub is now the main battlefield.

It may remain so in the coming days given the mountain’s strategic importance and its oversight of over Mayyun Island.

Houthis using drone warfare following Iran’s playbook

Iran is using Yemen’s Ansar Allah Houthis as a “wild card” to push its regional agenda, an analyst says.

“The Houthis have been one of the more independent proxies of Iran in terms of action. But we also know they have been constantly supplied – including [with] military technology, especially missile capability and drones,” defense analyst Alexandru Hudisteanu said.

“Houthis have been basically the prototype that Iran has generally used in terms of drone warfare,” he added, underscoring “how much pain it brought to global shipping”.

“What we see in Hormuz is basically the same model” the Houthis are following in Bab al-Mandeb Strait by blocking oil exports by Saudi Arabia.

“We have to look at the targets the Houthis have preferred during this past week or so: the East-West Pipeline in Saudi Arabia. So that could be seen as a clearer indication that there is some form of alignment between what Iran and Houthis,” Hudisteanu said.

More than 86,000 Yemenis displace by fighting arrive in Taiz

People in Yemen are on the move as fighting expands across battle fronts in the southern countryside of Taiz governorate between the Houthis and government forces.

Taiz city has received the largest number of displaced people despite its limited resources. A government agency announced more than 86,000 Yemenis have arrived since the start of the current escalation.

Local authorities are scrambling to provide tents, food, and emergency supplies. Taiz is a city that has lived under a suffocating siege since 2015 and is connected to the southern governorates by only one route.

Many families arriving have been displaced multiple times during the 12-year conflict, and most include elderly people, children and women.

Yemen government forces recapture positions near Taiz, says general

Yemeni government forces have retaken several front-line positions west and south of Taiz city from Houthi fighters, a military commander says.

Major-General Abdulaziz al-Majidi, chief of staff of the Taiz military force, told state-run Saba news agency soldiers and allied tribal fighters “liberated a number of areas” on the outskirts of the key city after battling Houthi ground forces.

Al-Majidi said the Houthis suffered casualties and equipment losses during the clashes.

He said fighters repelled a Houthi advance aimed at tightening a siege of Taiz, Yemen’s third-largest city, which has been divided along front lines between the internationally recognised government and the Houthis since 2015.

Air strikes hit Yemen’s Hayfan district in Taiz

Saudi-led coalition aircraft carried out a strike on Hayfan district in Yemen’s Taiz province, Houthi-run al-Masirah television reports.

Air attacks follow the Houthis’ rapid advance on the ground in western Yemen with the group gaining control over much of Yemen’s Red Sea coast and advancing to areas adjacent to the Bab al-Mandeb Strait.

The United Nations says hostilities in Yemen have displaced at least 125,000 people since the start of the month.

Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Kuwait discuss regional tensions

Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan bin Abdullah has talked to Middle East counterparts on the latest regional developments.

The conversations were held in phone calls with the foreign ministers of Egypt, Turkey, and Kuwait.

During the discussions they reviewed “joint efforts to contain tensions in a manner that contributes to maintaining regional security and stability”, Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Leaders from Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan last month signed the Mecca agreement, committing to reinforce collective deterrence against any aggression.

Yemen’s Houthis only understand the language of ‘brute force’

Nawaf Obaid a senior research fellow at King’s College London, says the Houthis need to reconcile their “remarkable” military achievements against Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces with the next phase of the conflict.

Obaid told Al Jazeera the rebels will likely see the Saudis, Americans, and their allies strike with “much greater force” in the coming days.

“We see the Houthi leader say the group is invincible, he’s threatening Turkiye and Pakistan, but there will be a humbling of them and their Iranian sponsors very soon,” he said.

“They are overstretched militarily and the only language they understand is brute force. The only way they will be removed from power is through brute force,” Obaid added.

Houthi leader says conflict with US ‘will persist’ until dominance ends

Houthi leader Abdel-Malik al-Houthi says that conflict with the US will persist as long as Washington’s objective is “dominance over the Yemeni people”.

In a televised speech on Monday, he said the US is considering a joint escalation with Saudi Arabia against his forces.

“Regional circumstances have kept the US and Israel somewhat preoccupied, creating a problem for the Saudi regime, which seeks their participation in its aggression and blockade against the Yemeni people,” said the leader of the Iran-backed group.

Earlier on Monday, Yemeni government forces, backed by Saudi Arabia, said they have recaptured several front-line positions west and south of Taiz city from Houthi fighters.

Yemeni government forces say Houthi fighters struck near Bab al-Mandeb

Yemeni government forces say they have struck Houthi fighters and supply lines near Bab al-Mandeb and in al-Bayda governorate south of the capital Sanaa.

Yemeni government forces say Houthi drone shot down in Taiz

Yemeni government forces say they shot down a Houthi drone in southwestern Taiz.

In a social media post, the armed forces said the reconnaissance aircraft was downed on the al-Kadha front in Taiz governorate.

Heavy fighting continues in Taiz as Houthi fighters attempt to capture more territory from Saudi-backed government soldiers. Casualties have been reported on both sides.

Trump does not want involvement in another Middle East conflict

Trump says quite openly that they’re talking to the Houthis. He mentioned in Ireland last weekend that the Houthis called and said they don’t want to fight the US, and this has kept him out of this conflict thus far.

The Saudis were pushing the US to strike Houthi military targets. There is another call that has been reported in the US today between the Saudi Crown Prince and Trump, in which the Saudi crown prince asked for military assistance and strikes.

It is said that Trump agreed, spoke to his military commanders, decided on targets, and they were even loading the planes on Sunday. Trump came back from Camp David at the weekend earlier than most people thought, and they thought that was because he was going to go to the situation room and give the all clear for that attack. Trump called it off at the last minute.

That perhaps suggests that talks are ongoing with the Houthis and that Trump doesn’t really want to get involved in what would be a second conflict in the Middle East when he is working very hard to try and get an end to the first one.

At least 158,000 people displaced by fighting in Yemen

The number of internally displaced people in Yemen has risen to 158,000 as a result of the recent fighting, according to the country’s Executive Unit for IDPs Camp Management.

Approximately 23,550 families have been forced to flee their homes in the governorates of Abyan, Aden, Hadramout, Hodeidah, Lahj, al-Mahrah, Shabwah and Taiz, it said.

Over 3,600 casualties reported in Yemen since August, says WHO

The World Health Organization (WHO) says escalating fighting on multiple fronts in Yemen resulted in 674 deaths and 2,998 injuries since last month.

Between September 13 and 18, the WHO reported 164 deaths and 516 injuries.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) says 129,438 people have been displaced in seven Yemeni governorates due to growing instability.

The number of displaced people increased by 11,352 in just three days between September 18 and 21, according to Othman Belbeisi, IOM Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa.

Continued conflict in Yemen will have increasing impact globally: UN spokesperson

Stephane Dujarric, spokesperson for UN chief Antonio Guterres, says continued fighting in Yemen will have an increasing impact regionally and globally.

He told a press conference that continuing the conflict in Yemen risks “further damage done to Yemen to the people of Yemen”, adding that UN Special Envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg “is in constant touch with all necessary Yemeni parties”.

Houthi forces in Yemen ‘tend to get overextended and lose territory’

Houthi forces have had tactical successes in Yemen and are focused on confronting Saudi Arabia, but sometimes they also “tend to get overextended and then lose some territory”, says Jason Campbell, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute.

He said that war fronts in Yemen “remain in a state of daily tactical developments rather than a broader strategic outlook”.

“The Houthis are very focused on interdicting Saudi shipments, hitting Saudi targets and letting all others go through the Bab al-Mandeb Strait at this point, which I think is keeping them away from some of the pressure they would otherwise feel.”

The Saudi-Turkish-Pakistani Mecca agreement is “certainly under at least a small degree of pressure now”, Campbell said, adding that “Turkey and Pakistan have tried to intervene through diplomatic channels… the degree to which they’re going to become militarily involved I think very much remains to be seen”.

UK PM agrees to Saudi request for refueling support

UK’s PM Andy Burnham says he had agreed ⁠to a ⁠request from Saudi Arabia to provide defensive air-to-air refueling for a limited time period, a move he described as helping ⁠to stabilize the wider region.

“Because of course Saudi Arabia has been experiencing attack… and we need to ⁠keep those pathways open, and hence ⁠our agreement to the request,” he said.

Britain and Saudi Arabia have been close military allies for decades, with Britain serving as one of the kingdom’s largest arms suppliers.

This British activity is facilitating in aggression and violence in the act of the Saudi war on the Houthis.

Renewed fighting could deepen food insecurity in Yemen: WFP

Fighting in Yemen is causing hunger to grow as “people are not eating enough; there is no healthcare”, says Acting Executive Director of the World Food Programme (WFP) Carl Skau.

He said “tens of thousands” of people are arriving in “overstretched” camps “with nothing”, and the problem is particularly acute in Yemen because the country imports 90 percent of its food, so when ports or airports are not working, “that’s having an impact on food security”.

More than 18 million people, roughly half Yemen’s population, already face acute food insecurity, and some 2.2 million children under age five are acutely malnourished, according to WFP data.

Yemen facing ‘highly critical situation’ after Houthi gains, PM says

The Prime Minister of Yemen’s internationally recognised government, Shaya al-Zindani, says the Houthi capture of the country’s western coastline and control of the Bab al-Mandab Strait “represent a highly critical situation” but do not “mark the end of the fight”.

In an interview with Saudi newspaper Okaz, al-Zindani said Saudi-backed forces fighting for the internationally recognised government are “reorganising their deployments and raising readiness levels to retake lost positions”.