ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – Yemen’s Houthi rebels on Friday said they had succeeded in expelling Saudi troops from several districts in the country’s western coast, covering around 5,400 square kilometers. 

The statement comes amid an unprecedented Houthi offensive in recent days that has seen the rebels seize the vast majority of Yemen's Red Sea coastline in a major routing of Saudi-backed forces.

AFP, citing government sources, reported on Friday that the Iran-aligned group seized Mayyun Island in the Red Sea, coming a day after they successfully claimed the port city of Mokha from the official government.

The Yemeni rebels said in a statement they had expelled ”the Saudi enemy's buildups and troops from six districts in the governorates of Taiz and Hodeidah, covering a total area of ​​5,400 square kilometers.”

The forces said they targeted “seven military divisions of the Saudi enemy's forces, comprising 38 brigades, and the killing, capture, and wounding of hundreds of their members.”

The operation also led to the “liberation” of a number of Houthi prisoners previously held by Saudi forces in the recaptured territories, Saree added.

Having enjoyed a tentative piece for years following a UN-backed truce in Yemen's decade-long civil war, tensions between Riyadh and the Iran-backed Houthis flared following an airstrike on Sanaa International Airport that prevented an Iranian plane from landing in mid-July.

Despite Yemen's anti-Houthi government claiming the attack, the rebel group immediately accused Saudi Arabia of perpetrating the attack, striking a Saudi airport in retaliation and announcing a maritime blockade of the country.

Riyadh has relied on the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandab strait as a means of circumventing Iranian restrictions on the Strait of Hormuz, with the recent Houthi territorial gains posing a stark threat to Saudi exports by offering the rebels a greater capacity to control the bottleneck and strike commercial vessels. 

According to Reuters data, passage through Bab al-Mandab has fallen from a pre-blockade average of roughly 50 vessels per day to a current ten-day average of 27.