Houthis seize Yemen's Red Sea coast, expand offensive into eastern oil provinces

Houthi advances and Saudi pipeline outage squeeze global oil supplies

Yemen’s Houthi militia has seized a strategic port city and several islands along Yemen’s Red Sea coast in recent weeks, gaining control over the Bab al-Mandab strait, a vital waterway for energy shipments and global trade, according to Guardian US columnist Mohamad Bazzi.

The militia has pushed beyond the Red Sea coastline into two provinces in Yemen’s eastern region, including the resource-rich Marib province under the control of Yemen’s internationally recognized government, which is supported by Saudi Arabia, the Guardian reported. If the Houthis capture those regions, it would be their biggest territorial advance in more than a decade, Bazzi wrote.

The offensive has displaced more than 100,000 people inside Yemen and forced thousands of others to flee across the Red Sea into Djibouti, according to the Guardian. Before the latest escalation, Yemen was already facing one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, with about 22 million people — nearly half the population — needing relief aid and protection, according to United Nations figures cited by the paper.

The advances come amid a broader regional conflict involving the US and Israel that began in late February with attacks on Iran, the Guardian reported. Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, was killed by US-Israeli airstrikes in the war’s early hours, according to the paper. The Houthi gains, combined with Iran’s shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz, have left Iran and its allies in control of the Middle East’s two major regional energy chokepoints: Bab al-Mandab and Hormuz.

After Iran shut down the Strait of Hormuz — through which a fifth of the world’s energy supplies transited before the war — Saudi Arabia moved much of its oil shipments via its east-west pipeline to Red Sea ports, the Guardian reported. On July 20, the Houthis declared a siege on Saudi vessels transiting the Red Sea through Bab al-Mandab, saying the blockade would be lifted only when the kingdom removed its own blockade on Houthi territory.

The Houthis fired on several Saudi vessels in the Red Sea after announcing the July blockade, forcing the kingdom to reroute a significant portion of its oil exports to Asia through a route that can take more than 30 days, transiting the Suez Canal, the Mediterranean Sea and around the southern tip of Africa, according to the Guardian.

A drone attack blamed on Iranian-backed Shia militias in Iraq struck the east-west pipeline, forcing Saudi officials to shut down the nearly 750-mile pipeline on September 11, the Guardian reported. Repairs are unclear. If the network remains offline for a month, the disruption could reduce global oil supply by 120 million barrels and raise crude prices as high as $120 a barrel.

Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and de facto ruler, Mohammed bin Salman, reportedly called Trump twice on September 10 urging him to order US airstrikes against the Houthis, according to the Guardian. Trump has ruled out direct US attacks on the militia despite the appeals.

The 2022 UN-brokered ceasefire between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis had largely held until mid-July, when Saudi airstrikes struck the main airport in Sana’a, the capital under Houthi control, the Guardian reported. The Saudi-aligned Yemeni government said the attack was intended to stop an Iranian plane from landing and to enforce an air and naval blockade. The plane was carrying a Houthi delegation returning from the funeral of Khamenei, the Iranian leader killed by US-Israeli airstrikes in the war’s early hours.

The conflict dates to September 2014, when the Houthis — officially known as Ansar Allah — overran Sana’a, forcing the internationally recognized government to flee to Saudi Arabia, the Guardian reported. In early 2015, Saudi Arabia led a coalition of Sunni Arab states to intervene, with the Obama administration supporting the coalition with US weapons and extensive intelligence sharing. After seven years of stalemate, Saudi Arabia agreed to the 2022 ceasefire. Negotiations over a permanent peace agreement had stalled over economic incentives for the Houthis and recognition of the militia’s rule over parts of Yemen, the Guardian reported.