Houthis Seize Bab el-Mandeb as Hormuz Traffic Collapses

The Bab el-Mandeb Strait, an 18-mile-wide waterway connecting the Red Sea with the Suez Canal, normally carries approximately 12 percent of global seaborne trade. Kpler vessel tracking data showed that about 7 percent of global oil shipments passed through the strait in June.

That route is now under growing pressure after Houthi forces captured positions along Yemen’s Red Sea coast. The offensive comes as the Strait of Hormuz has been virtually shut down by the wider conflict with Iran. Industry reports recorded only seven commercial vessels crossing Hormuz on Thursday, compared with a pre-war daily average of 125 ships. Shipping companies have consequently diverted vessels around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope, imposing immense financial and operational costs.

The crisis has prompted high-level discussions between Washington and Riyadh. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman held several telephone conversations with U.S. President Donald Trump and urged the United States to launch military strikes against Houthi military installations to stop the group’s advance along the Red Sea coast.

Trump declined to commit the United States to direct military action or independent kinetic operations. He nevertheless assured the Crown Prince that Washington would provide substantial intelligence, surveillance, and targeting assistance for Saudi forces. Admiral Brad Cooper, commander of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), traveled to Saudi Arabia for emergency consultations with Saudi military leaders.

Cooper previously commanded the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, where he managed initial international maritime security task forces in the Red Sea. The United States has said it remains focused on protecting core national security interests, including freedom of navigation, while continuing to emphasize that regional partners should manage security challenges.

The immediate territorial shift followed a rapid Houthi offensive that overran the strategic port of Mocha. The port had been held by the Joint Forces, an anti-Houthi alliance that includes the UAE-backed Giants Brigades and the National Resistance forces led by Tareq Saleh.

Mocha had remained a key government-held coastal stronghold since its capture during the 2017 campaign known as Operation Golden Victory. After taking the port, Houthi forces advanced south toward the Bab el-Mandeb.

Yemeni government forces then withdrew from Mayyun Island, also known as Perim. The strategic volcanic landmass sits inside the strait and divides it into two channels. The withdrawal enabled the Houthis to occupy both Mayyun Island and the mainland coastal town of Dhubab, giving the group direct visual and physical oversight of the deep-water shipping channel used by international commercial fleets.

Departing government units also left behind substantial stockpiles of weapons, ammunition, tactical vehicles, and unmanned aerial vehicles, according to Hisham Al-Omeisy, a senior Yemen adviser at the European Institute of Peace. Al-Omeisy said the Houthis would likely redirect the captured equipment to active offensives on other internal fronts, including the contested energy-rich province of Marib.

Former U.S. Special Envoy for Yemen Timothy Lenderking attributed the ease of the coastal blitz in part to the long-term effects of the April 2022 UN-brokered truce. Although the truce paused active hostilities, Lenderking said it allowed the Houthis to “regroup, retrain, refit, [and] restock.” He described the group as an exceptionally entrepreneurial non-state actor that used the ceasefire to develop and test asymmetric military capabilities, calling it the most lethal non-state group in the region.

Lenderking identified flights by Iran’s Mahan Air into Sanaa International Airport as a key factor in the Houthis’ expanded military capacity. Linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force, the flights carried advanced military equipment and specialized Iranian personnel to Yemen to help upgrade the group’s missile and drone arsenals.

Behnam Ben Taleblu, senior director of the Iran program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), said the Red Sea offensive fits Iran’s wider effort to counter U.S. economic and military pressure. As U.S. deterrence measures restricted Tehran’s maritime leverage in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, Ben Taleblu said, Iran redirected its efforts toward the Red Sea.

Ben Taleblu described the policy as a dual approach: Tehran maintains diplomatic dialogue with Arab Gulf states while using Houthi offensives to pressure those same states from the south. With the group controlling positions overlooking the Bab el-Mandeb, the Trump administration must weigh its aim of avoiding direct military entanglements against the immediate need to secure one of the world’s most critical trading arteries.