It may be coincidence that, on the 25th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, bad news from the Arab world is once again dominating the headlines. But the latest developments in Yemen point to a conflict whose consequences extend far beyond the country itself. The war between the United States, Israel and Iran threatens to widen again, not only through direct military confrontation but through a proxy conflict that is rapidly becoming more dangerous.
On Thursday, the Yemeni city of Mokha in the south fell to Houthi militias. To most people, the name may carry little strategic significance. Yet it has entered languages around the world: the word “Mokha” derives from the port from which Arab coffee was exported for centuries.
Today, however, another black liquid gives the city its wider significance. Yemen’s western coastline lies along an important export route for oil, and Mokha is only 80 kilometres from Bab al-Mandeb, the “Gate of Tears”, one of the region’s crucial maritime passages. The strategic importance of the Strait of Hormuz is now widely understood. Bab al-Mandeb is its counterpart, connecting the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean.
Between five and six per cent of the world’s oil shipments have recently passed through the Red Sea. On its own, that volume is not enough to represent an existential threat to the global economy. But Bab al-Mandeb and the Strait of Hormuz, on opposite sides of the Arabian Peninsula, function as interconnected routes. Saudi Arabia has been able to partially bypass a blockade of Hormuz by moving some of its oil through the East-West Pipeline to the Red Sea, from where it can be shipped onwards.
The Huthis, and indirectly Iran, could now close that alternative route. Global energy markets have already anticipated the possibility, with crude oil prices rising in recent days.
The consequences could extend well beyond the immediate military theatre. The developments in the far south-eastern corner of the Arabian Peninsula could represent a decisive turning point in the Middle Eastern war. They are a catastrophe for Saudi Arabia, the United States and Israel and could further destabilise the global economy. From the perspective of Iran’s regime, however, the advance could represent a decisive move towards checkmate against its opponents.
The Houthi rebels have repeatedly attacked ships in the Red Sea in recent years. Their position is now different. They are moving towards control of the critical strait itself. With Mokha’s fall, forces supporting the Saudi- and US-backed Yemeni government have lost a crucial supply point, leaving the Huthis able to advance southwards with little apparent obstruction.
According to the latest reports, the Huthis also control the strategically important island of Mayyun, located directly within the approximately 30-kilometre-wide maritime passage. If that control is consolidated, the alternative route for Saudi Arabia’s oil, gas and fertiliser exports would be cut off, leaving it in the hands of forces closely linked to Iran.
Western intelligence services have determined that hundreds of military advisers from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard are already active alongside the Huthis. CNN reports that the United States has now sent more than 100 additional advisers to Saudi Arabia.
The arrival of military advisers evokes a familiar pattern. The Vietnam War itself began with the deployment of military advisers. The developments in Yemen now point towards a proxy war over Iranian influence, adding another layer to an already expanding regional conflict.
The Huthis were originally a local, religiously motivated insurgent movement opposed to autocratic rule in Yemen. Their militias officially call themselves “Ansar Allah” — “Helpers of God” — and are led by the Houthi family, based in northern Yemen. They predominantly belong to Zaidism, a branch of Shia Islam. Iran provides the Huthis with weapons, money and training, as it does other members of the Iranian-Shia “Axis of Resistance”, although the Huthis operate more independently than organisations such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
Their rise began accelerating when Yemen’s dictatorship came under pressure following the Arab Spring in 2011. Advancing from the north, the Huthis captured increasingly large parts of the country and seized the capital, Sanaa, in 2014. The ensuing civil war, which continues today, has claimed at least 370,000 lives.
In 2015, a Saudi-led military alliance intervened with US assistance. Despite overwhelming military superiority and a prolonged air war, the coalition failed to defeat the Houthi militias, even though the rebels possessed neither an air force nor a navy.
Instead, the Huthis developed ways of threatening maritime traffic using ballistic missiles, drones, explosive boats and mines from Iranian stocks. They now stand on the verge of capturing Yemen’s entire western coastline, potentially transforming the balance of power in the region and creating consequences that could reach the global economy.
Saudi Arabia is already confronting the immediate danger. According to a report by Axios, the Saudi Crown Prince asked Donald Trump twice on Thursday for air strikes to halt the Houthi advance. Trump refused. The question now is whether the United States can continue watching if the Huthis seize additional territory and move towards Aden, the strategically important port city that the internationally recognised government has declared its interim capital.
For Washington, the choices are increasingly difficult. Images are already circulating of Houthi fighters posing with large quantities of captured American equipment. In the photographs, the fighters appear in their characteristic dress of kufiyas and sandals, carrying machine guns on armoured vehicles while thanking the enemy for its generous “donation”.
Yet the immediate military question is part of a much larger strategic problem. The possibility of attacks on Bab al-Mandeb was not unforeseen. Like the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, it has featured in war games — military simulations in which the region’s geopolitical chokepoints are central scenarios. The significance of the two narrow maritime passages is evident even from a basic map.
The supplied account raises the question of why the United States and Israel apparently did not make greater preparations for this possibility. The assumption that Iran would not risk closing Hormuz, or use its allies in Yemen to close Bab al-Mandeb, has become increasingly difficult to sustain. Energy experts and military planners have long described such a simultaneous move as Iran’s “nuclear option”.
Only weeks ago, the Trump administration threatened Tehran with an “economic D-Day”, promising economic destruction through a comprehensive sanctions regime. Iran is now demonstrating that it possesses countermeasures and is prepared to use them.
The contrast with the beginning of the year is stark. Yemen was then in a fragile stalemate. The Persian Gulf and Red Sea remained open to shipping. Oil prices were 40 to 45 per cent lower than they are today. Iran’s regime was under severe pressure, unpopular among its own population and isolated in the neighbourhood, while negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear programme had only recently resumed.
The fall of Mokha and the reported capture of Mayyun therefore represent more than another battlefield development in Yemen’s long war. They place a critical maritime chokepoint at the centre of a widening confrontation involving regional powers and the world’s major military actors. The consequences of that confrontation are no longer confined to the Middle East. They are being transmitted through the energy markets, shipping routes and strategic calculations that connect the region to the rest of the world.
