The Emiratis and the Hirak (or Southern Resistance) are pushing along the Red Sea coast from Khukha towards north, in direction of Hodeida.

While this is coming forward quite well, there's the usual problem with the lack of 'high quality' troops to secure areas that were already taken. With Emiratis up front, the Hirak seems to be given the task for securing the flanks, perhaps corsetting less reliable troops - like those of Saleh or the Islah Militia.

After nearly three years of this war, the Houthis have learned their lessons about the Emirati firepower. Thus, they're using hills and mountains on the eastern side of the coastal plain to launch counterattacks into the flank of this advance; furthermore, they've heavily mined all the roads towards north, and are constantly ambushing the advance.

The last few days, they also launched several bigger counterattacks in the area of Hays. Rumour has it, the Saleh- and Islah-forces run away from there, leaving the Hirak on their own.

While Emirati armour is harder to crack (seems, the Houthis run their and ex-YA's stocks of ATGMs quite dry), Hirak is primarily using soft-skin vehicles, and relatively few MRAPs. Unsurprisingly, there are reports about the Hirak losing 'hundreds of fighters and 70 vehicles', since 8 December.

It's going to be interesting to see if the Emiratis might stop their advance until they can clear the Houthis on their flank (or at least weaken them sufficiently to pre-empt most of further counterattacks).

**************

Related to all of this is the following, OSINT-based assessment about the performance of the AMX-66 LeClerc MBT in combat. It's nearly a year old and in French, but a very interesting read: Lessons from the commitment of the tanks of the Leclerc in the Yemen.