President Trump may have a big decision to make regarding Yemen and the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in the next couple of days.
Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen have intensified attacks on Saudi Arabia while making their biggest territorial gains in years along the Red Sea coast, raising new concerns over security at one of the world’s most important shipping chokepoints.
The Houthis’ advance brings them within 20 miles (32 kilometers) of the U.S. military base in Djibouti, located across the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. This base is the main U.S. military facility in Africa and is one of several foreign military bases in Djibouti, which also hosts forces from China, France, and Japan.
Fighting escalated Sunday again after the Houthis claimed drone and missile attacks against Saudi targets, including a military base near the Yemeni border. Saudi authorities sounded air-raid sirens in the southern city of Abha and the Khamis Mushait area, warning residents of possible incoming attacks.
Saudi civil defense officials separately said a projectile struck the Jazan region near the Red Sea, injuring two people and damaging a mosque, homes and other buildings. Saudi authorities blamed the Houthis. The attacks come as Houthi fighters push south along Yemen’s Red Sea coast. The group recently captured the strategically important port city of Mokha and Mayun Island, also known as Perim, which sits inside the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.
The narrow waterway connects the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden and serves as a major route between Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Control of territory surrounding the strait could give the Houthis greater ability to threaten shipping moving through the region. The Houthis have declared a blockade targeting Saudi shipping and oil infrastructure, although they say they do not intend to interfere with commercial vessels belonging to other countries.
International shipping companies and oil traders remain cautious because of the group’s previous attacks on vessels in the Red Sea. The escalation is particularly significant because the Bab el-Mandeb has become even more important following disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz.
Saudi Arabia has increasingly relied on its East-West pipeline to move crude oil from fields near the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea coast, allowing exports to bypass Hormuz. That alternative route is now under pressure as well. Saudi Arabia shut down the roughly 745-mile East-West pipeline after drone strikes damaged it last week. Saudi officials said those drones originated in Iraq, and Baghdad announced an investigation after determining that attacks had been launched from Iraqi territory.
The Houthis were not directly blamed by Saudi Arabia for that particular strike, although regional officials have said the group has coordinated with Iran-backed militias in Iraq during previous attacks. The combination of the pipeline shutdown and the Houthi advance around Bab el-Mandeb has increased concerns about global energy supplies.
Reuters reported that Saudi Arabia has enough oil stored at its Red Sea terminal in Yanbu to maintain exports for only several days if the damaged pipeline remains closed.
As much as 4% of global oil supply could eventually be affected if the disruption lasts, on top of existing losses caused by problems in the Strait of Hormuz. The renewed fighting also threatens to pull Yemen back into full-scale civil war. A ceasefire beginning in 2022 had dramatically reduced fighting between the Houthis and Yemen’s internationally recognized government, which is backed by Saudi Arabia.
That truce is now rapidly unraveling. Government-aligned forces said more than 500 of their fighters have been killed and approximately 1,500 wounded during recent fighting on Yemen’s western coast. They claimed more than 1,000 Houthi fighters had also been killed, although those figures have not been independently verified.
Yemeni government forces launched airstrikes Sunday against Houthi positions around Mokha, Dhubab and other areas of Taiz province as officials vowed to retake territory lost during the rebel advance.
