Houthis want to copy Iran’s Hormuz control in the Red Sea: Yemeni FM

Speaking in Riyadh, Yemen’s internationally recognised government warns that global complacency has emboldened the Houthis.

Yemen’s Houthi movement is aiming to replicate Iran’s ⁠strategy in the Strait of Hormuz by controlling shipping flows in the Red Sea’s Bab al-Mandeb Strait, the Yemeni government’s top diplomat warns.

“The Houthis want to copy the Iranian model , and this will shut down two main straits, the gateways into the ⁠Gulf and Red Sea,” the foreign minister-designate for the internationally recognised Yemeni government, Afrah al-Zouba, told journalists on Monday.

Speaking at the Yemeni embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, al-Zouba said the Iran-backed Houthis have been emboldened due to the insufficient international response to their activities in the region.

Bab al-Mandeb Strait connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and the wider Indian Ocean, and – much like the Strait of Hormuz – a significant portion of the global economy depends on the unimpeded flow of maritime traffic through it.

Approximately ۳۰ percent of global container traffic passes through the Red Sea, and ۱۲ to ۱۵ percent of overall global trade.

Yemen’s geography gives whoever controls the country’s west a commanding influence over traffic through Bab al-Mandeb.

Data suggests that shipping through the Red Sea is already declining, with just ۱۱ commodity vessels passing through it on Sunday.

Al-Zouba’s comments come as tensions between the Houthis on one side and Saudi Arabia and Yemen’s internationally recognised government on the other escalate.

Earlier in July, the Houthis declared a maritime siege on Red Sea shipping to and from Saudi Arabia, and launched missiles and drones at the kingdom.

Riyadh has since launched air strikes on Yemen’s key port city of Hodeidah, held by the Houthis.

July’s escalation is the biggest since a truce was agreed to in ۲۰۲۲ and came amid a resurgence of US attacks on Iran.

Al-Zouba said Yemen’s government, which Saudi Arabia backs, is prepared for an escalation, and that fire was being exchanged along the front line where Houthi-controlled territory meets government-controlled areas, but that no offensive had been launched.

Nearly ۲۰ fighters from both sides died earlier this month during clashes between the Houthis and government forces around Hodeidah.

Hundreds of thousands of people have died in Yemen since war broke out in ۲۰۱۴, when the Houthis seized the capital, Sanaa, and then-President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi eventually fled to Riyadh.

Saudi Arabia led an Arab coalition in a campaign to dislodge the Houthis from ۲۰۱۵ up to the ۲۰۲۲ truce.

As of ۲۰۲۶, the Houthis remain in power in the capital and other parts of Yemen. Meanwhile, tensions between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which Riyadh accuses of backing a southern separatist group in Yemen, have affected developments on the ground.

Yemeni civilians have paid the heaviest price, with an estimated ۳۷۷,۰۰۰ dying between ۲۰۱۵ and the beginning of ۲۰۲۲, most of them from war’s knock-on impacts, such as famine and disease.