Houthis close in on Bab el-Mandeb as Saudi Arabia strikes back: 10 updates - The Indian Express

Fighting has broken out along Yemen’s Red Sea coast this week as Houthi fighters and Saudi forces strike at each other over control of a key shipping route. Houthi fighters reached the coastal town of Mokha at dawn on Thursday, September 10, then pushed on through the night. By early Friday, September 11, they had taken the last government-held towns on the coast and landed on Mayun island, inside the Bab al-Mandeb strait, the gateway between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

Saudi Arabia hit back with air strikes on Mokha airport after the Houthis seized the town, and on Friday, 11 September, said it had shut down a major oil pipeline after it was struck by drones a day earlier. The clash adds a new front to the wider war between the United States and Iran, which is now in its seventh month, and it is already pushing up oil prices and unsettling world shipping. Meanwhile, Houthi forces and Saudi Arabia trade strikes as fighting over the critical Bab al-Mandeb chokepoint on the Red Sea coast of Yemen continues.

Houthi fighters seized the last government-held towns on Yemen's Red Sea coast early on Friday, 11 September, after forces loyal to the internationally recognised government withdrew. A Houthi military spokesman said the operation had pushed Saudi-backed forces out of six districts covering a total of 5,400 square kilometres, and said hundreds of fighters had been killed, captured or wounded on the other side. It marks the first time the group has held the entire coastline since the war in Yemen began, and it gives Houthi commanders a continuous strip of territory running down to the mouth of the Red Sea.

Supporters of Yemen’s Houthi rebels chant and raise rifles during a rally organized to celebrate the group’s capture of Mayun Island in the strategic Bab el-Mandeb Strait, in Houthi-controlled Sanaa, Yemen. (Photo: AP)

Boats carrying Houthi fighters crossed to Mayun island, also known as Perim, which sits directly in the middle of the Bab al-Mandeb strait between Yemen and the coast of Africa. Government forces had already pulled out before the boats arrived, according to officials on both sides who spoke on condition of anonymity.

A satellite image taken the day after showed the island firmly under Houthi control, and supporters later held a rally in the Houthi-run capital, Sanaa, to celebrate the capture.

Bab al-Mandeb links the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and carries a large share of the world's oil and general trade, acting as the main alternative route to the Strait of Hormuz on the far side of the Arabian Peninsula. With the coast and the island now in Houthi hands, the group holds a position from which it could threaten ships heading to and from the Red Sea.

Analysts describe this as a worst-case outcome long feared by Western officials: Iran-aligned forces holding influence over both of the region's principal oil choke points at once.

Saudi Arabia closed its East-West pipeline on Friday, 11 September, a day after it was struck by drones, calling the shutdown a precautionary measure. Built in the 1980s, the pipeline carries crude across the kingdom to a Red Sea port and has taken on new importance since the Strait of Hormuz became unsafe for tankers.

Saudi Arabia had more than doubled the volume of oil moving through the pipeline this year, pushing exports from that Red Sea terminal above five million barrels a day.

The East-West pipeline carries crude from Saudi Arabia’s eastern oil-producing region to the Red Sea port of Yanbu, allowing exports to bypass the Strait of Hormuz. (Photo: Al-generated)

Saudi officials said the drones that hit the pipeline had been launched from Iraqi territory, and Riyadh said it would not respond militarily, to give Baghdad room to act first. Iraq's prime minister ordered an investigation and dismissed the commander of a military operations centre in Maysan province after authorities traced the attack there.

Regional officials also told reporters that the Houthis had helped Iran-backed militias in Iraq plan and carry out the strike, pointing to closer coordination between armed groups across the region.

Saudi aircraft struck the airport at Mokha, a Red Sea port town, shortly after Houthi fighters seized it on Thursday, 10 September. No deaths or damage were reported in the strike. A senior military official from Yemen's government told reporters he was shocked the Saudi air force had not acted sooner to stop the town falling, and suggested Riyadh had not been given a green light by Washington for a larger air campaign. The Houthis, for their part, said shipping remained safe for every vessel except those flying the Saudi flag.

Crude prices rose above $100 a barrel this week for the first time since mid-May, as traders weighed the risk to two major oil routes breaking down at the same time. In the United States, the average price of diesel passed $6 a gallon, adding further strain to a Republican Party already facing a difficult set of midterm elections in November.

The International Energy Agency said on Friday that it now expects global oil supply and demand to fall further than previously thought this year, with normal Middle East flows unlikely to return before 2027.

With the Red Sea route now at risk, Saudi Arabia has increasingly sent oil north instead, routing it through the Suez Canal or a pipeline across Egypt to reach the Mediterranean, a far longer journey for its customers in Asia. Houthi fighters have already shown they can reach that route too, striking a Saudi vessel in the northern Red Sea in late August.

Shipping through Bab al-Mandeb had fallen by roughly 60 percent since Houthi attacks on vessels began in late 2023, before picking up again this year as Saudi Arabia looked for alternatives to Hormuz.

Officials in Tehran praised the advance soon after it was reported. A senior Iranian lawmaker who heads parliament's national security committee said Yemen stood alone against outside pressure, while an adviser to Iran's Supreme Leader congratulated the Houthis on what he called a resounding victory and said Iran's own actions at the Strait of Hormuz had pushed Washington and its allies into a difficult position.

A spokesman for Iran's Revolutionary Guard separately said for the first time that any future settlement with the United States would need to include Yemen.

More than 46,000 people have fled the fighting in the past week, the United Nations migration agency said on Friday, with the number of people displaced more than doubling within days and expected to keep rising. Aid workers said families were leaving with whatever belongings they could carry, including doctors and other medical staff from Mokha, where one aid group said it was struggling to keep the town's hospital open.

The escalation threatens a fragile truce that has largely held in Yemen's civil war since 2022, a conflict that has already killed around 150,000 people and pushed millions to the edge of famine.

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