What happened
On 4 October Rashad al-Alimi, chairman of Yemen's Presidential Leadership Council, announced operations to retake all remaining Houthi-held territory, restore state institutions and retake Sanaa. On 5 October the government military said a "strategic offensive" on Sanaa had begun, and the Saudi-led coalition's spokesman, Major-General Turki al-Maliki, said the coalition was providing round-the-clock air support to the ground forces and air cover for the Bab el-Mandeb strait, with 100 fighter jets and 324 "high-value" targets destroyed by its own count. The coalition called the operation "Yemen Dawn"; other reporting renders it "Dawn of Yemen". The Giants Brigades and the Nation's Shield Forces said they had secured the strait's shore and Dhubab airport, and a military source cited by the government agency Saba said Mokha had been taken; the Houthi movement denied losing any territory. On 10 October Yemeni military sources told AFP that forces were advancing near the strait but had not yet secured the waterway and that Perim (Mayun) remained in Houthi hands, while the movement said it had repelled an advance from Ras al-Ara in Lahj. Military sources on both sides put the dead at 63 in the preceding 24 hours. The coalition said it destroyed more than 130 targets that day. The United States Secretary of State sided with Riyadh and the Yemeni government on 5 October.
PLANNING BECAME AN ACKNOWLEDGED OPERATION, AND THE SHORE IS CONTESTED, NOT RETAKEN. On 2 October the module recorded a Saudi offensive reported in planning, with no date, and kept planning apart from a campaign. That line is now crossed: a party announced the operation with a stated objective, and the coalition acknowledged an air campaign in support and named the strait as a task. This is the first time since the July blockade that the shore Saudi Arabia's Red Sea outlet depends on is being contested by force rather than absorbed. What the record does not establish is the result. Every territorial claim is a party's, the movement denies them, and the government's own sources said on 10 October that the waterway was not secured. Target counts are the coalition's and are not established. The offensive is an air and ground operation on the shore, not a naval operation in the strait's approaches, and no interference with shipping in either direction is recorded here.
Confidence: Moderate
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