The terrorist Houthi militia is depleting the population in Yemen's Ibb governorate by thrusting them onto the Taiz fronts, while expanding its use of local military sites and mountain ridges as ballistic missile launchpads, deepening the risks facing residents. Local sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that the group has dispatched new military reinforcements from Ibb toward the Taiz fronts for the third time in less than a month. This reflects its ongoing reliance on recruiting the residents to offset human losses and replenish frontlines with new fighters as it faces mounting difficulties in mobilizing more residents and tribes across its territories. Meanwhile, thousands of families are left to endure the loss of their sons and breadwinners, alongside the broader economic and social fallout of the continuous deployment of young men into combat. Informed sources said that Ibb has become the primary source of fighters relied upon by Houthis to reinforce the Taiz fronts, followed by Dhamar, the Houthi-held capital Sanaa and its countryside, and the Amran governorate. A young man from Ibb city, who escaped from a Taiz combat front days ago, recounted the recruitment tactics used by the militia to enlist youth and deploy them into battle under misleading slogans. He revealed that he joined a military training course after being misled into believing it was preparation to confront Israel, only to find himself dispatched to Taiz to fight residents of a neighboring governorate who share fraternal bonds with the people of Ibb. “They told us that the fighting in Taiz was part of the training and that we would later head to Palestine. Days passed and none of that happened,” he recalled. Ibb has also been used as a launchpad for attacks on Taiz and other regions, said residents and local sources. Activists warned that persisting with these policies threatens to spill the conflict's repercussions from the battlefields into the social fabric of both Ibb and Taiz, whose populations are bound by proximity, history, and shared interests. Transforming these organic bonds into channels for mobilization and combat compounds local suffering, exposes more families to bereavement, and stokes divisions within communities, they said. The activists called on notables and families in Ibb to resist Houthi recruitment drives and protect their sons from being lured to the frontlines, warning against the exploitation of ideological slogans to enlist youth and thrust them into clashes where families and local communities ultimately bear the human and social toll. They also stressed the need of preventing residential areas and their vicinities from being transformed into military installations and ballistic missile launch sites, given the potential dangers such actions pose to civilians and their property.
