Houthi forces attacked the Maqbanah and Al-Kadhah fronts west of Taiz in the early hours of 3 September, aiming to seize the road connecting the city with Mokha, according to the internationally recognized government’s SABA news agency. Government troops and the National Resistance counterattacked. The ground being fought over was the land connection between the interior and the western coast.
The port at the other end was already damaged. In a 2 September interview with Taiz Time, Mokha director Abdulmalik al-Sharabi said missile and drone strikes had hit the quay and the dredger’s central workshop, along with equipment used for dredging and navigation support. Ships carrying cargo, and goods sitting on the quay, had also been struck, he said. He described efforts to restore operations gradually.
The government is fighting to keep a coastal foothold that needs a usable road to Taiz and a working port at Mokha, on the stretch of coast that faces Bab al-Mandab, where Lloyd’s List Intelligence still rated the threat to Saudi-linked shipping elevated on 3 September. Holding Mokha is not control of the strait. It is a coastal position whose value depends on what can move through it. A defended waterfront and a road under intermittent fire can stay on the government’s side of the map while providing no dependable access between the port and its inland markets.
The road was built in stages
The construction record shows the scale of the investment now under fire. On 22 May 2024, SABA recorded the inauguration of the Al-Kadhah to Al-Birain section by Presidential Leadership Council member Tariq Saleh and Taiz governor Nabil Shamsan. The UAE financed the 14-kilometer project at a reported cost of $8 million. Construction took eighteen months. That is one section, not the whole journey between Taiz and Mokha.
The work then moved toward the coast. On 27 October 2025, SABA reported the opening of a 37-kilometer section between the Mawza-Mokha junction and Al-Kadhah, with bridges and drainage works included. Saleh said the onward section to Mokha would be completed soon and ordered a technical study for rehabilitation work between Al-Birain and Al-Kadhah. Those were the outstanding works at that date.
By 31 March 2026, contractor Salim al-Badawi was telling Al-Ain News that drainage works and retaining walls on the Al-Kadhah and Mawza sections had kept the roads passable through floods. His account is evidence of use after construction, not a current condition survey. The engineering was built to keep a continuous surface through terrain that carries floodwater to the coast. It gives the road no protection against the pressure now on it.
The successive projects explain why a fight at Al-Kadhah reaches beyond the ground the attacking force occupies. An interruption at one junction removes the benefit of completed work farther along the route without destroying it. The asphalt survives while the traffic stops. Defending the road therefore means more than keeping an enemy unit off the carriageway. It means preventing nearby positions from making regular civilian use too dangerous to sustain.
Passage, overlooking positions and possession
The fighting reports describe three conditions that should not be collapsed into one verdict on whether the road is open. Passage means vehicles get through. A force on nearby high ground can threaten passage without occupying the junction. Possession means troops physically hold the road or checkpoint.
On 4 September, SABA carried the government’s claim that its forces had retaken Al-Khazzan Hill in Jabal Habashi the previous day, with fighting continuing on the Maqbanah and Al-Kadhah fronts. A claimed recapture does not establish secure passage along the Taiz to Mokha road or settle possession of other contested positions.
Yemen Monitor’s 7 September report, drawing on military and local sources, described Houthi forces reaching the asphalt on 5 September and interrupting traffic. It carried conflicting accounts of government counterattacks around Al-Sharajah and the Al-Kadhah junction, including claims that government forces had recovered positions by the following evening. That supports a dated report of interrupted passage. It does not establish lasting control of the route.
On 8 September, SABA quoted the Taiz axis chief of staff, Major General Abdulaziz al-Majidi, saying a joint operation with Homeland Shield (Dir’ al-Watan) forces had begun that day to retake Al-Kadhah and had regained al-Makazimah and al-Mihal. Yemen Monitor had placed Houthis at al-Makazimah two days earlier. He described the fighting as continuing. That is the latest dated claim, and it is a claim about positions, not passage.
A checkpoint can change hands before the firing positions around it are cleared. A credible account of reopening would have to separate a military advance from resumed civilian movement and say how long that movement lasted. For a haulier, an announced recapture is worth little until a loaded vehicle completes the journey.
The interruption concerns Taiz’s western connection with Mokha. It does not make the city cut off. Other connections limit the damage without making the western road expendable or restoring the commerce that normally uses it.
The port must function behind the front
Mokha is a separate recovery problem. In its 14 August account of four ballistic missiles fired at the port, SABA quoted al-Sharabi describing strikes on the quay where a dredger was deepening the entrance and navigation channel, with damage assessment still ahead of a final loss figure. Dredging keeps the port reachable from the water. Cargo handling moves goods onto land. Damage to either restricts a port that stays under the same administration.
Al-Sharabi also told Taiz Time that more than 1,300 loading and unloading workers had stopped working, alongside more than 200 port employees. His account identifies disruption to both dredging and cargo handling but supplies no measured throughput or engineering survey from which to calculate remaining capacity. Mokha cannot yet be described as closed or as restored.
The road and the port need different evidence of recovery. On land, the test is sustained passage through the contested area. At the waterfront, it is the ability to receive vessels and discharge cargo. A road reopened by troops does little for cargo still unable to leave a ship, and a repaired quay does little for cargo that cannot reach Taiz.
