The Deputy Speaker of the Yemeni Parliament warned of the fall of Marib at the hands of the Houthis, at a time when members of Parliament demanded the government to withdraw from the Stockholm Agreement that was concluded with the group in 2018, because the Houthis did not abide by it.

According to a statement issued by them - on Monday - members of Parliament demanded to move all battle fronts to confront the Houthis, and not to allow them to assemble their forces and confront the National Army in the governorates of Ma'rib and Al-Jawf.

Parliament members held the government responsible for the failure to implement the two previous demands, which, according to the statement, may be explained by the government's failure of the army to confront the Houthis in Marib.

Al-Jazeera sources reported that dozens of the dead and wounded were killed in the last hours in battles between the Houthis and the Yemeni army in Marib, in the east of the country.

Meanwhile, Houthi sources said that they had made progress in the Serwah area, west of the Ma'rib governorate, and had taken control of the Coufal camp.

For its part, the National Army said that its forces repelled Houthi attacks, bombed gatherings of them in Sirwah, and shot down a drone bomb.

Sources reported that hundreds of the Houthis and the National Army were killed and wounded as a result of the battles in Marib in recent days (Al-Jazeera)

The media center of the Yemeni National Army added that the Saudi-Emirati coalition aircraft launched raids targeting military reinforcements for the Houthis, west of the Marib Governorate.

According to at least two military officials in the pro-government forces, the Houthis had pushed in "large numbers" of fighters and launched attacks from several directions on Marib.

Why Marib?

The city, located about 120 kilometers east of the capital, Sanaa - where the Houthis have imposed their control since 2014 - avoided the war at its beginning, but the Houthis launched attacks to control it for nearly a year, and they intensified in the last two weeks.

The Houthis are seeking to control Marib before entering into any new talks with the recognized government, especially in light of US President Joe Biden's administration pressures to push for a political solution.

Since 2014, the conflict has killed tens of thousands and displaced millions, according to international organizations, while nearly 80% of Yemen's population of 29 million have become dependent on aid, in the largest humanitarian crisis in the world.

On Friday, United Nations agencies warned that half of children under the age of five in Yemen will suffer from malnutrition in 2021, and hundreds of thousands of them could die due to lack of humanitarian aid.

The Biden administration had announced the withdrawal of US support for Saudi Arabia in Yemen, and decided to remove the Houthis from the blacklist of terrorist organizations, despite the escalation of fighting and drone attacks that targeted Saudi Arabia in the last week.

The field developments in Marib came in conjunction with the announcement by a Houthi spokesman - earlier on Monday - that two drones had attacked the Saudi airports of Jeddah and Abha.

The Houthi military spokesman, Yahya Saree, tweeted - on Twitter - saying, "The Air Force is carrying out an air attack on Jeddah and Abha international airports on Monday morning ... and the injury was a minute, resulting in the two airports being stopped for two consecutive hours."

And Saree had announced yesterday that two drones had targeted Abha International Airport, as part of what he described as a natural and legitimate response to the escalation of the air aggression and siege on Yemen.