Yemen civil war at Taiz is a fight for western security, says ex-PM Maeen Abdulmalik Saeed
Former Yemeni prime minister Maeen Abdulmalik Saeed said the Yemen civil war around Taiz is deciding the future of western security, warning a Houthi capture of the city would cost control of the Bab al-Mandab strait and the road to Aden.
Yemen civil war at Taiz is a fight for western security, says ex-PM Maeen Abdulmalik Saeed
Why Taiz matters
Maeen Abdulmalik Saeed, who served as Yemen's prime minister from 2018 to 2024 and now advises President Rashad al-Alimi, said the fighting in the mountains and hills around the south-western city of Taiz carries stakes far beyond Yemen's borders. He said the city sits at the gateway to the Bab al-Mandab strait in the Red Sea and on the road to Aden, the seat of the UN-recognised government, and that losing it to the Houthis would be catastrophic.
"The battle around Taiz is not just a battle for Taiz, but a broader battle that involves the whole of the western world, and one"
He said the Houthi plan is to take the whole of Yemen, and that the rebels' goal was to help Iran expand the chaos.
The offensive is a break with four years of relative calm: the Houthis launched a military campaign last month to seize Yemen's Red Sea coast, ending the calm that followed a UN-brokered ceasefire that froze the frontlines in 2022.
A city bracing for siege
According to Saeed, the Houthis are for now allowing some fuel and commodities into urban Taiz, home to more than 500,000 people, while they expand their control of the surrounding rural areas. He predicted that a full siege would begin within days and described it as worse than the siege of 2015.
"In a matter of days there will be a full siege and they will try to enter the city."
He said the government had not been prepared for the loss of the west coast, which allows the Houthis to press the city from several directions:
- the Houthis can attack Taiz from four different axes
- some fuel and commodities still reach the urban area of more than 500,000 people
- a full siege is expected within days
Saeed described Taiz as a modern democratic city untied to tribal culture, and said the Houthis would impose Zaydi education and their own financial and tax systems, though he expects citizens would resist.
How the government lost ground
Saeed was blunt about his own side's failures. He pointed to government-backed units that did not work together, rivalries between the Gulf states, and a delay in recognising what Yemen's long-range drone technology meant for the battlefield - factors he said had added to the pressure on his government and on Saudi Arabia. He called for more communication between the National Shield Forces, the National Resistance Forces and the Giants Brigades.
He also acknowledged the material imbalance: Taiz holds only light weapons, and Saudi Arabia did not plan at an early stage for this escalation. Even so, he said the position could still be recovered.
A decade of growing Houthi reach
Saeed traced the shift in the Iran-backed rebels' capability across the decade:
- in 2017 the Houthis had only blind missiles that missed their targets
- by 2020, intelligence showed Iranian experts in Sana'a were training the Houthis, and in December 2020 they fired ballistic missiles at Aden airport, killing 28 and injuring 107, including Saeed himself
- in January 2022 they attacked Abu Dhabi oil tanker trucks with missiles fired from more than 900 miles away
- in October 2022 they struck the Nushayma oil terminal and al-Dhabba port inside Yemen, severely damaging government finances
- by the US attack on Yemen in March 2025 they had dozens of targeted missiles, land-sea missiles and drones, and had become a unified front with Iran
He said the September attack on the Red Sea coast was no coincidence, coming when Iran was under heavy pressure, with its airplanes and airports unable to operate and 90% of its oil leaving via Hormuz.
"it was clear the Houthis had dozens of targeted missiles, land sea missiles and drones. They had become a unified front with Iran"
Saeed warned that the region is entering a new era of semi-state actors and militias threatening powerful states with cheap technologies and smuggled third-party components, and said Gulf countries must reshape their defences accordingly.
Despite the absence of early planning for the escalation, Saeed said it is never too late for the government and Saudi Arabia to regain their position.
