Yemen's Giants Brigades lead anti-Houthi push near Bab al-Mandeb

Forces aligned with the former Southern Transitional Council (STC), including the Southern Giants Brigades, joined troops of Yemen's internationally recognised government in a major offensive against the Houthis near the Bab al-Mandeb strait. The operation began on October 5 as part of a nationwide campaign aimed at pushing the Iran-linked group, also known as Ansar Allah, out of territory it controls, including a stretch of coastline it seized in September. By Monday afternoon, the pro-government force said it had severed the main road connecting the Red Sea port city of Mocha to Bab al-Mandeb, a key route for energy shipments.

The advance amounts to one of the anti-Houthi coalition's first major military gains in years. It followed an announcement by Rashid al-Alimi, chairman of Yemen's Presidential Leadership Council (PLC), of a broad offensive against the Houthis. The fighting has also demonstrated how effectively factions with competing political agendas can operate together: STC-affiliated groups, some of which seek an independent south, have allied with national government forces. That cooperation comes after a high-profile confrontation in southern Yemen in January, when Saudi-aligned government troops defeated the UAE-backed STC, leaving anti-Houthi forces relatively centralised.

The Giants Brigades, the leading formation in the offensive, grew out of the southern separatist movement and are commanded by Abd al-Rahman Abu Zaraa al-Muharrami, a Salafi who studied at the Dammaj religious school in the northern governorate of Saada. The force was largely assembled from Salafi fighters during the 2015 battle against the Houthis in Aden and is believed to have been armed, trained and funded by the UAE. It rose to prominence in 2017 by capturing much of Yemen's western coast before being halted outside Hodeidah under the UN-brokered Stockholm Agreement in late 2018, and in January 2022 it seized three districts in Shabwa and pushed into Marib before the Houthis attacked Abu Dhabi. Al-Muharrami joined the eight-member PLC in April 2022, around the time his forces took the Southern Giants Brigades name and later joined the STC.

The brigades' political loyalties remain a subject of debate. Fathi bin Lazraq, editor of the Aden Al-Ghad newspaper and a critic of southern separatists, told Al Jazeera that the force would fight the Houthis anywhere in Yemen, describing it as part of the contingent that has battled the group since 2015 on military, political, civil and religious fronts. He said the word 'Southern' in its name did not necessarily signal support for secession, noting past operations in Hodeidah and Marib, and argued the brigades fight as part of legitimate government forces backed by the Saudi-led coalition rather than as separatist units. Unlike the Homeland Shield Forces, created by al-Alimi in January 2023 and placed under his direct command, the Giants Brigades operate in a more ambiguous space.