A mountain city in Yemen guards the road to a global oil chokepoint
The city is the last pro-government stronghold in Yemen's southern highlands, overlooking the lowlands that run to the Bab al-Mandab Strait.
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The city of Taiz sits in Yemen's southern mountains, the mountainous interior of the country. It is the last major city there still held by pro-government forces, and it is now surrounded as Houthi forces tighten a siege. The Houthis, a rebel movement that holds the north and west and seized the capital in 2014, have made Taiz what Angus McDowell, Reuters' Middle East lead writer, calls "the most important battlefront in Yemen's civil war."
Height is the reason. Taiz commands the high ground over two lowland corridors. To the west lies the Red Sea coastal plain, a flat strip that runs south toward the Bab al-Mandab Strait. To the south and east lies the coastal plain along the Indian Ocean, where the city of Aden sits.
Whoever holds Taiz holds the gate to those plains. An army in the mountains can push down toward the coast, while whoever holds the heights can stop an army trying to advance up from the coast.
That geography is why a local siege has wider stakes. The Bab al-Mandab Strait is a narrow passage at the southern end of the Red Sea, and it is crucial for global oil supplies. Ships carrying oil and other goods pass through it to move between the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea, and the Suez Canal beyond.
The human cost is already severe. Relief agencies report more than 120,000 people forced from their homes around Taiz, while the World Health Organization cautions that fuel at some hospitals could run out within days. Relief groups caution that a Houthi capture of the city could deepen the area's already grave humanitarian emergency.
Questions people ask
What exactly is the Bab al-Mandab Strait?
It is a narrow waterway, about 20 miles wide at its narrowest point, connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. About 10 percent of global seaborne oil and a large share of container traffic between Asia and Europe normally pass through it, which is why disruptions there raise shipping costs worldwide.
Who is fighting over Taiz?
Yemen has been in civil war since 2014, when the Houthi movement seized the capital, Sanaa. The Houthis, who control much of the north and west, are fighting a pro-government coalition backed by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Taiz has been contested for most of that time because it sits between Houthi-held highlands and government-held coastal areas.
Why does the city of Aden matter in this fight?
Aden is Yemen's main southern port and the seat of the internationally recognized government. Unlike Taiz, it sits on the low coastal plain along the Gulf of Aden. Control of the highlands above it helps determine whether Aden can be supplied and defended, and whether goods can move safely in and out of its port.