Iran-backed Houthis seized control of Yemen’s port city of Mocha on Thursday and advanced down the Red Sea coast to strategic islands, military sources told Reuters. This posed a further threat to Red Sea traffic, while Gulf traffic remains restricted through the Strait of Hormuz.
Mocha is vital to controlling shipping through the Red Sea. The city is about 80 kilometers (50 miles) from the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a waterway that connects the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden and through which about 12 percent of the world’s goods are typically shipped.
The development came hours after US President Donald Trump said he expected the war in Iran to end after the US midterm elections.
The Houthis’ gaining control of Mocha gave them “a direct presence on the approaches to one of the world’s most vital straits,” raising serious concerns about freedom of navigation, UN Special Envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg said.
According to Reuters, Yemeni government military sources said the Houthis had gained further leverage over the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, the southern outlet of the Red Sea and one of the world’s most important shipping routes, and had reached the islands of Hanish.
Yemen’s Houthi-run humanitarian operations coordination centre said in a statement that Red Sea navigation is safe for all shipping companies except for Saudi vessels.
The Bab el-Mandeb’s importance to global oil supplies has grown since shipping through the nearby Strait of Hormuz has been impeded by Iran during its war with the United States and Israel.
Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, has relied on the Red Sea route since the Iran conflict effectively closed Hormuz, through which a fifth of global oil used to flow.
Grundberg told a UN Security Council meeting about Yemen on Thursday that the international community must act to address “a new and more dangerous phase” in the Yemen war.
The takeover gives Iran another potential point of leverage in its war with the US, analysts said, if the Houthis use their presence in Mocha to ramp up threats or attacks on shipping in the Red Sea.
If the Houthis were to gain control of the waterway on the opposite side of the Arabian Peninsula from the Strait of Hormuz, it could give their backer Iran a critical advantage in the war with the United States, reducing supplies through a second major transit corridor and sending oil prices surging, Reuters reported.
It could also make it harder for Trump to find an exit from a war that has hurt his Republican Party’s electoral prospects ahead of the November midterms.
Jenifer Neidhart de Ortiz, the US representative at the meeting, accused the Houthis of acting as “agents and tools of Iran.”
“This escalation is unacceptable, and those who enable it bear responsibility for its consequences,” she said.
Yemeni government forces and their allies are relocating south along the Red Sea coast to Dhubab on the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, across from Perim Island, government military sources said. Control of Dhubab and the island is key to gaining hold of the strait, they said.
Iran’s foreign ministry said in a statement that the Yemen conflict could not be solved by blockade or military action against the Houthis and called for dialogue, without addressing Iran’s own role.
Yemeni government, Iranian and regional sources told Reuters the Houthi advance down the coast this week came with direct guidance from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Houthi spokesperson Mohammed Abdulsalam said, without elaborating, that the group’s operations were defensive and would stop once attacks on Yemen stopped.
Brent crude prices jumped as much as 4 percent on Thursday above $105 a barrel on concern over disruption to supply routes, and the U.S. national average price of diesel surpassed $6 a gallon for the first time ever, according to price tracker GasBuddy.
After joining the war with an attack on Israel in March, the Houthis declared a naval blockade against Saudi Arabia in July and escalated attacks this month.
Tensions in the region remained high, with Saudi civil defence authorities issuing emergency alerts in the southwestern city of Khamis Mushait for the fourth time in 24 hours, as the Houthis attacked.
Pakistan has delivered a Saudi warning to Iran to rein in the Houthis to try to prevent the crisis from spiralling, Saudi, Pakistani and Iranian sources said. A senior Iranian official said Tehran’s response was: “Iran does not control the Houthis”.
The fighting comes during the biggest declared wave of U.S.-Iran tit-for-tat attacks on Gulf shipping since the war began in late February.
The U.S. Treasury Department on Thursday announced new sanctions against firms and individuals aiding Hezbollah and other Iranian proxies as part of “Operation Economic Outcast,” which aims to cut off Tehran’s war funding.
Mocha represents the Houthis’ biggest territorial gain since a truce was signed in 2022 to end a civil war that began more than a decade ago. A return to full-scale civil war would be devastating for the Yemeni people and potentially for world energy supplies.
The Houthis have been at war with Yemen’s government since 2014, when the rebels swept down from their mountainous heartland and seized much of northern and central Yemen. Saudi Arabia entered the war the following year on behalf of the government.
Residents of Mokha told AP that Houthi forces could be seen throughout the city Thursday and that markets were shuttered. Mokha was long held by forces aligned with Yemen’s internationally recognized government.
Mocha resident Amin al-Mohammdi said roads from the west coast leading to Mocha were closed and shops were shuttered. Resident Mohamed Salem said he saw vehicles belonging to Houthi forces in the streets.
