Houthi trenches from Al-Shuraija to Al-Faza
English - Thursday 24 November 2022 الساعة 04:46 pm
Mocha, NewsYemen, exclusive:
In the second step of its kind, the terrorist Houthi militia began to build trenches and fortifications in the coastal Al-Faza area of the Al-Tuhaita district of Al-Hodeidah Governorate, western Yemen.
According to local sources, the militias have created a combat trench in the area, in the form of a water channel that extends from the sea in the west and cuts the asphalt line to the Madman area in the east, with a length of 2 km, a width of 18 meters, and a depth of 9 meters.
The militias created the water trench after imposing a military cordon and preventing approaching the trench digging sites, which isolated the areas of Al-Faza from each other, including the "Al-Matinah" area and the northern villages in the same district, as the sources say.
Military analyst Waddah al-Obaly described the water trench as the "Houthi Bar Lev line on the western coast," similar to the Bar Lev line that the Israeli army built in Sinai on the eastern bank of the Suez Canal, half a century ago.
Al-Obaly published pictures of maps showing the location of the watertreat, indicating that the Houthi militia had fortified this canal with two trenches, one to the north of the canal at a distance of 1 km and the other to the south of the canal at the same distance, and the length of each of them is equal to 1 km.
Al-Obaly believes that the Houthi militia will mine and booby-trap this channel, especially its southern bank, with mines and explosive devices, which reminds us of what the militias did in the Al-Shuraija area, which is located between the governorates of Lahj and Taiz in 2016, after its defeat from the southern governorates.
At that time, the militias dug deep trenches in the area along the road linking the Karish area in Lahj and the city of Al-Rahda in Taiz, and booby-trapped them with mines and explosive devices in order to prevent the progress of the southern forces on this road, but this did not prevent the liberation of the area in early 2018.
The resort of the Houthi militia to the method of digging trenches reflects their level of despair over the possibility of their military advancement and their fear of any advance of the forces in the south or the coast, given the defeats they have suffered in the past years.
It is noteworthy that the militias did not take this step on the fronts under the control of the Brotherhood in the north, such as Taiz and Marib, which indicates the extent of their confidence in the possibility of achieving military progress in them, as happened during the years 2020 and 2021, in contrast to the case on the coastal and southern fronts.
