Captured soldiers in Yemen. Al-Masirah/Washington Post.
Houthi rebels have released footage of their battle where they claim to have captured or destroyed three brigades of troops. Washington Post. The rebels claim that they killed 500 troops and captured 2000 more, along with hundreds of vehicles and weapons. The footage shows ambushes of armored vehicles and hundreds of surrendering fighters. The Houthis claim that the fighters are mostly local Yemeni fighters, with some Saudi Arabian soldiers in the mix.
The below video was released by al-Masirah, the Houthi's media/propaganda wing. It has graphic footage of the aftermath of combat and should not be viewed by more sensitive people. Also keep in mind that this is Houthi propaganda and will not be an 100% accurate accounting of the battle.
My Comment:
Just a follow up post to yesterday's discussion on this battle. It looks like the Houthi claims are a lot more realistic than I had realized. Having watched the entire video it really does seem like they captured thousands of troops.
However, I was under the impression that most of these troops were Saudi regulars. That's clearly not the case. There were very few Saudi Arabian soldiers mixed in with the mostly Yemeni fighters. There appeared to be some African mercenaries mixed in as well, but this wasn't a loss for the Saudi military itself.
It was, however, a huge defeat. Hundreds, if not thousands, of soldiers surrendered and were captured with the Houthis. Many were killed as well and it looks like the Saudis lost millions of dollars worth of equipment. They lost many APC's along with a lot of advanced equipment and firearms.
As for the battle itself it looks like the Saudi coalition walked into an ambush and handled it very poorly. I'm not military expert but I do know that when you get caught in an ambush you are supposed to rush through it, but the forces involved failed to do so. Indeed, in many cases it looked more like a traffic jam than a true battle. Unable to get out of the kill zone the Saudi APC's and trucks were damaged and destroyed.
That's when the retreat turned into a rout. Some of the vehicles ended up with flat tires and couldn't escape. Others crashed while trying to speed out of the ambush, including a few that flipped over. And many more were just abandoned by their drivers and passengers, leaving stacks of weapons and equipment behind.
It also almost seems like these troops were left out to dry. They didn't really seem to have any heavy equipment like tanks and they did not get much in the way of air or artillery support.They did have a few airstrikes launched to protect them but they didn't appear to do much to save them.
In the combat footage that I saw it seems like the Saudi coalition did very little in terms of effective return fire. I didn't see any infantry firing back and only one of the APC's I saw fired. The APC's and other combat vehicles were also severely hampered by the fact that they all had dozens of men hanging off of them. That made it very hard to return fire.
Overall this was not a good showing by the Saudi's and their allies. In my estimate they had the arms and equipment to fight their way out of this ambush but failed miserably to do so. I think the real problem was the lack of leadership and the poor quality of the troops involved in the incident. I don't think there is an army in the world who could have gotten through that battle without casualties, but the better trained ones wouldn't have hundreds dead and thousands surrendered.
As for the Houthi's this is going to be a gamechanger victory for them. They have eliminated a large number of enemy fighters. Though I do think that there estimates are probably inflated a bit, they did eliminate a large enemy unit and captured a massive amount of equipment. Plus they massively embarrassed their enemies.
I've always been impressed at how effective the Houthi rebels have been. They are good fighters and surprisingly well equipped. They seem well trained as well as I saw many of them actually aiming their rifles, a rarity in Middle Eastern combat. I think they will serve as a model for other insurgent groups in the future.
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