Yemen’s Houthis have reportedly taken control of the country’s coast along the Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb Strait, raising concern of threats to shipping through the corridor and potentially opening a new front in the war in Iran.
According to various reports, the internationally recognized Yemeni government has confirmed that fighters of the Iran-backed militant faction seized Perim Island, which sits at the narrowest point of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.
The Saudi-backed Yemeni government also said the Houthis have taken the mainland Bab el-Mandeb coastal town of Dhubab, which faces the island, and the Hanish islands farther north.
The capture followed the Houthis’ Thursday seizure of the coastal port city of Mokha, which is roughly 50 miles north of the strait. Yemen relapsed into war in July after years of calm, drawn into the regional conflict triggered by the U.S.-Israeli offensive against Iran that began at the end of February.
Control of these positions could give the U.S.-declared terrorist organization a significantly stronger military presence around the shipping route.
From roughly two years from late 2023 through late 2025, the Houthis had attacked commercial shipping with missile and drone strikes in the Red Sea, Bab el-Mandeb Strait and neighboring Gulf of Aden. The onslaught effectively forced the container shipping industry to avoid the Suez Canal altogether, with ocean carriers instead opting to sail a longer route around southern Africa’s Cape of Good Hope.
“Capacity transiting the Bab el-Mandeb strait in August doubled compared to 12 months ago, but still sits at just 23 percent of pre-Red Sea crisis levels in August 2023,” said Peter Sand, chief analyst at freight rate benchmarking platform Xeneta, noting that nearly 213,000 20-foot equivalent units of capacity per week transited through the strait in August. He called the return of capacity to the Red Sea “the single biggest variable in the ocean freight market.”
The Houthi capture of Perim does not itself amount to full control of the Bab el-Mandeb, but it materially increases the group’s geographic leverage over the approaches to the strait, according to Ana Subasic, a trade risk analyst at ship tracking intelligence provider MarineTraffic.
“Consolidation around Mokha, and particularly any further gains toward Dhubab or the Hanish Islands, would improve the Houthis’ position from which to monitor or threaten traffic approaching the chokepoint,” Subasic said. “Any commercial response is therefore more likely to appear in the next several days than in the current crossing set.”
There were 152 Bab el-Mandeb crossings from Monday through Thursday, according to MarineTraffic data, up 2 percent from 149 during the equivalent four days of the previous week. Directionally, flows were exactly balanced at 76 entries and 76 exits.
Because the Houthi advance occurred on the final day of the reporting window, Subasic said the stable crossing count should be treated as a “pre-reaction” baseline rather than evidence that operators are comfortable with the deteriorating security environment.
According to Subasic, the broader risk is the potential for Iran-aligned control of both the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and the Strait of Hormuz, making the two waterways “less substitutable at exactly the same time.”
Hormuz is seeing direct military action against tanker assets as the U.S. and Iran trade strikes in the region, while the previously operationally steadier Bab el-Mandeb is now exposed to the Houthi advance. The recent tit-for-tat sent oil prices to their highest point since late May this week, with Brent crude futures sitting at $104.31 per barrel as of 2 p.m. on Friday.
The Bab el-Mandeb has served as an alternative to the Strait of Hormuz for the movement of oil since the war in Iran began. According to U.S. Energy Information Administration data, oil and petroleum-product flows through the Red Sea’s southern entrance climbed from 5.4 million barrels per day in the final quarter of 2025 to 8.1 million per day in the second quarter of this year.
The Houthis have insisted that maritime shipping in the Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb Strait “remain safe and uninterrupted.”
“The operations currently underway have specific objectives, as previously announced, and are defensive in nature,” said Houthi spokesperson Mohammed Abdulsalam, in a post on X Thursday.
Despite the security concerns surrounding both maritime chokepoints, Maersk CEO Vincent Clerc has defended the return to the Red Sea route, indicating in an earnings call the conditions for a gradual, full return by the end of the year have already been met.
Clerc’s rationale was centered on the Houthis recent tendencies to mainly target Saudi Arabian vessels passing through the strait. The Houthis have imposed a blockade on Saudi ships, as well as any vessel attempting to stop at the port.
“Once the aggression against Yemen stops and the blockade is lifted, the current operations will also stop,” Abdulsalam said.
