Houthi forces aligned with Iran have captured Yemen’s Red Sea port city of Mocha and pushed south along the coast toward key islands, military sources said—developments that sharpen pressure on one of the world’s busiest maritime corridors just as President Donald Trump predicted the Iran war would end only after the US midterm elections.
Yemeni government military sources said the Houthis’ latest gains strengthen their hand around the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, the southern gateway to the Red Sea, and that their fighters have reached the Hanish islands.
Red Sea navigation is safe for all shipping companies except for Saudi vessels, Yemen’s Houthi-run humanitarian operations coordination centre said in a statement.
Fighters deployed in Yemen’s Al-Kadha area, west of Taiz province
Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, has leaned heavily on the Red Sea route since the Iran conflict effectively shut the Strait of Hormuz, a passage that previously carried about a fifth of global oil flows.
Houthi spokesperson Mohammed Abdulsalam said, without providing details, that the group’s operations were defensive and would end once attacks on Yemen stopped.
Second chokepoint
Any move by the Houthis to choke off Bab el-Mandeb—on the far side of the Arabian Peninsula from the Strait of Hormuz—could hand Iran a powerful advantage in its war with the US by constricting shipments through a second critical transit corridor and potentially sending oil prices sharply higher.
Brent crude prices jumped as much as 4% to $105 a barrel on concern over disruption to supply routes.
The Houthis joined the current war on Iran’s side with an attack on Israel in March, but largely kept a lower profile before announcing a naval blockade against Saudi Arabia in July and intensifying strikes on the kingdom’s south this month.
Reflecting the heightened tensions, Saudi civil defence authorities issued emergency alerts in the southwestern city of Khamis Mushait for the fourth time in 24 hours as Houthi attacks continued.
Fighters deployed in Yemen’s Al-Kadha area, west of Taiz province
Pakistan has delivered a Saudi warning to Iran to rein in its Yemeni Houthi allies in an effort to prevent the crisis from spiralling, Saudi, Pakistani and Iranian sources said.
A senior Iranian official confirmed that Pakistan conveyed the message to Tehran on Tuesday and said Iran’s response was that “Iran does not control the Houthis”.
Axis of resistance
The Yemen conflict—pitting the Houthis against Saudi Arabia’s Yemeni allies in the internationally backed government—unfolds as Iran and the United States carried out their biggest declared round of tit-for-tat attacks on shipping in the Gulf region this week since the war began in February.
Cast as part of the Iran-backed regional alliance known as the “Axis of Resistance,” the Houthis have also voiced support for Palestinians in the Gaza war, launching drones and missiles at Israel and targeting commercial shipping in the Red Sea.
Government military sources said Yemeni government forces and allied units are repositioning south along the Red Sea coast toward Dhubab, which sits directly on the strait opposite the island of Perim. Securing Dhubab and the island would be pivotal to exerting control over the waterway, the sources said.
Bab el-Mandeb—often translated as the Gate of Tears, a reference to its treacherous navigation—lies between Yemen and the African coastline of Djibouti and Eritrea. That geography makes it a strategic prize for the Houthis, who hold Yemen’s most populous areas and much of the north.
The strait is a vital artery for crude oil and fuel moving from the Gulf to the Mediterranean through the Suez Canal or via the Suez-Mediterranean pipeline on Egypt’s Red Sea coast. It is also used by cargoes bound for Asia, including Russian oil.
Trump sees war ending after midterms
The war and the resulting rise in fuel prices have helped push Mr Trump’s popularity to record lows. The president said Tehran was trying to sway the November US midterm elections, which will decide whether his Republican Party keeps control of Congress.
“I think war is going to end immediately after the election because they can’t hold out any longer. They’re desperate to try and affect the election,” Mr Trump told reporters yesterday.
Mr Trump has previously set deadlines for the war to end.
Donald Trump said Iran were ‘desperate to try and affect the election’
Speaking yesterday at the midterm Republican convention, he said the US may strike Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain, a heavily fortified location with two deeply buried tunnel complexes near Iran’s damaged Natanz uranium enrichment facility.
The US and Israel began military strikes on Iran in February, citing in part concerns about Tehran’s nuclear programme.
Iran says its nuclear activities are for peaceful purposes.
In recent weeks, Washington had pointed to growing success in escorting tankers through the Strait of Hormuz. But renewed fighting this month appears to have undermined any tentative steps toward reopening that route.
Only seven vessels passed through the strait yesterday—about half the 10-day average—according to preliminary ship-tracking data.
Yesterday, Iran said it had attacked 10 ships near the Strait of Hormuz after the US sank five Iranian oil tankers.
US aircraft damaged in Iranian strikes
Iranian strikes damaged multiple American military aircraft this week at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan, a US official said.
The US military, the highest-funded in the world, had already sustained significant material losses before Iran’s strikes on Tuesday, including the destruction of more than two dozen drones, fighter jets hit by Iranian fire, and aircraft lost in accidents.
A May report by the Congressional Research Service said 42 US military aircraft had already been lost or damaged during the conflict.
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Since the Iran war began in February, 18 US service members have been killed and more than 800 injured.
A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Iran’s attack struck an A-10 Thunderbolt II—known as the Warthog—leaving it with a missing wing. The official said roughly eight F-15s suffered light damage but were returned to service.
Iran’s strike on the US base in Jordan followed US claims that its forces destroyed five Iranian crude oil carriers. The US said those strikes were in response to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps targeting a US Navy warship with ballistic missiles twice over the previous two days.
To counter the incoming missiles, US forces fired roughly 30 Patriot interceptors, the official said, as concern grows about the stockpiles of US air-defense interceptors and other missiles.
Although exact inventory levels are classified, the Center for Strategic and International Studies has estimated that about 65% of US Patriot interceptors were used between February and July, leaving fewer than 850 available, down from 2,330 before the Iran war began.
