Hormuz virtually shut, Houthis now move to control Bab-al-Mandab

Multiple media reports suggest that the Ansarallah-led Yemeni Armed Forces (YAF) have stormed Red Sea islands, including the UAE-occupied island of Mayun, while also advancing toward and capturing the entrance to the Strait of Bab al-Mandab. Mayun is among several islands surrounding Yemen, in which the UAE had established military and intelligence sites in collaboration with Israel over the years. Two military sources in the Yemen's Saudi-backed Aden government told Reuters that Ansarallah had reached the Hanish Islands in the Red Sea, and AFP reported that they seized Zuqar Island.

Local sources told the Qatari Al-Araby TV that Ansarallah-led forces took control of the strategic island of Mayun in the Bab al-Mandab Strait. CNN reported that over 100 US military personnel are deployed on the ground in Saudi Arabia, providing direct real-time intelligence and targeting support in the ongoing war against Yemen.

Yemen shares a roughly 1,800-km border with Saudi Arabia, and the Houthis have repeatedly launched missile and drone attacks on Saudi cities and energy infrastructure, including in Jazan, Abha and Najran. Saudi Arabia intervened militarily in Yemen in 2015, at the request of the internationally recognized government, after the Houthis seized Sana'a and expanded southward. Ansar Allah, the formal name of the movement commonly known as the Houthis, is a Zaidi Shia Islamist movement that is closely aligned with and supported by Iran. Yemen remains fragmented, with the Houthis controlling Sana'a and much of the north and west, while Saudi-backed government forces and UAE-backed southern factions control other parts of the country. The UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council advocates an independent South Yemen. 

With Saudi-backed forces reportedly in retreat, the Houthis are said to have captured Mokha and expanded their control along Yemen’s Red Sea coast. Unconfirmed reports suggest that Saudi Arabia has sought Pakistan’s assistance. Pakistan has a bilateral security pact with Saudi Arabia, as well as a trilateral defence pact with Saudi Arabia and Türkiye. The same reports, however, claim that Pakistan has ruled out direct intervention, pointing out that these arrangements are defensive in nature and are not intended to draw the parties into pre-existing conflicts or conflicts involving non-state actors.

Iran, meanwhile, is reported to have told Pakistan that it does not control the Houthis. The Houthis, while closely aligned with and supported by Iran, retain a degree of autonomy and have nevertheless joined Iran’s confrontation with the United States and Israel.

Bab al-Mandab Strait is a crucial waterway and one of the world’s busiest global shipping lanes that links the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. It was being increasingly used for shipping with the Strait of Hormuz being unsafe and effectively shut. Fighting in Yemen since last week has killed at least 500 people, mostly combatants, according to AFP. Nearly 20,000 have fled their homes, according to the International Organization for Migration.

The Wall Street Journal reports that US vice-president J.D. Vance and secretary of state Marco Rubio have privately warned Trump that the war could run through January 2029, long after the US mid-term elections in November. Oil prices have crept upwards and the average price of diesel in the United States this week at $6 a gallon is said to be the highest in history. The former US director of Intelligence Joe Kent, who resigned following differences with the White House on the Iran war, warned of worse to follow.

“The Houthi’s ability to capture key terrain and strategic ports along the Red Sea coast speaks to not just their military capabilities but also to their ability to gain support from tribes far from the traditional Houthi strongholds in northern Yemen. This is very significant — these tribes are predominantly Sunni, while the Houthis are Zaydi Shias. Yemen is a tribal region — deals among rivals are frequently cut before or during battles, and even then, those alliances can be murky. Now, however, the Houthis are fighting alongside the IRGC as a member of the axis of resistance against the Saudis, the US, and Israel. This has given them far more popular support than a standard tribal deal or a military victory ever could — not because Yemenis support or particularly care about the Iranians, but because the Yemenis have witnessed what the US-backed Saudis have done to their people and what the US and UAE backed Israelis have done to the people of Gaza, & how the Iranians are fighting back,” Kent wrote in a longer post on X.

Kent’s advice to President Trump: walk away from the West Asia conflict to cut your losses and to avoid prolonging America’s ‘forever wars’.