Liberation Battle Of Hodeidah Game Changer To Obliterate Iranian Presence In Yemen

YEMEN, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News / WAM - 05th Jun, 2018) The ongoing battle to liberate the strategic city and port of Al Hodeidah is of a crucial importance as it will change the balance of power on ground in favour of the Arab Coalition fighting on behalf of the internationally recognised government in Yemen.

Regaining the strategic city means that the Iran-backed rebels will be deprived of a main gateway where they smuggle in weapons and threaten the shipping movement on Yemen’s Red Sea Coast, as well as a major passage to the capital Sana'a.

In this brief report, the Emirates news Agency (WAM) sheds light on the strategic importance of the Hodeidah’s liberation battle, which comes amid successive and outright triumphs by the Yemenis against their coup perpetrators.

All indictors on ground prove in no uncertain way that the Arab Coalition and the joint Yemeni Resistance Forces are steadily advancing toward the strategic city which means an imminent end of the coup scheme orchestrated by the Iran-aligned Houthis who are sustaining successive losses at the hands of the Yemeni Army backed by the UAE Armed Forces operating within the Arab Coalition fighting on behalf of legitimacy in Yemen.

These successive victories secured on the country’s Red Sea Coast have dealt a heavy blow to the coup perpetrators who as a result lost control over Al Mo’mary Camp, east of Zubab City, west of Taiz, a strategic area whose fall into the hands of the Yemeni army dismantled the Houthis’ plans to control Bal el-Mandeb strait and consequently the international maritime navigation, as the camp connects three districts together on the Red Sea Coast: Bab El Mandeb, Al Wazi’ya, and Mocha.

In the meantime, the Saudi-led Arab Coalition Forces are constantly foiling all the attempts made by the Iran-aligned militias to threaten the international shipping movement in the region, recently destroying two booby-trapped boats that targeted an oil tanker in the Red Sea.

The consistent threats posed by the rebels to the Red Sea, which accounts for 12 percent of the world’s oil and merchandise trade movement, entails a concerted action by the international community against these acts of terror.

The port of Hodeidah consists of eight wharfs in total length reaches to 1405 metres in order to accommodate vessels up to a maximum draft of 32 feet ( 9.75 mtrs ) and an LOA of 200 mtrs. The port provides 11 sheds totaling 21000 sq.mtrs., 1 million sq.mtrs open storage and 300,000 sq.mtrs. for the container terminal.

The Houthi militias controlled Hodeidah Port in mid-October 2014 after capturing Sana'a as the port is considered the main gateway to the capital. Capturing the port has given the rebels an upper hand over the shipping lines connecting Yemen to the outer world, earning them large financial returns through the port which they have been using since then in smuggling in all forms of weapons and waging acts of terror by planting naval explosives across the entire region.