Yemen's Tehran-backed Houthis captured more islands in the southern Red Sea, government and Houthi officials said Monday, strengthening their control of a major maritime shipping route. The capture of the islands of Greater and Lesser Hanish is the latest in the group's swift advance around the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a key passage for oil shipments that has become even more crucial during the Iran war as the Strait of Hormuz remains under US and Iranian blockades. Like Hormuz, located at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, the Bab el-Mandeb Strait — on the opposite side of the Arabian Peninsula — is a chokepoint that connects the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea, making it a key waterway for cargo traffic to the Mediterranean Sea.
For more than a month, the Houthis have been striking Saudi oil infrastructure and shipping in the Red Sea, stepping up pressure on global oil prices and boosting Iran's leverage in its war with the US. Forces of the internationally recognised Yemeni government have been attempting to rally and fight back, but the Houthi gains have seemingly come with little resistance. The Houthis deployed on the Hanish islands, 160 kilometres north of Bab el-Mandeb, after hundreds of government-allied forces withdrew from the archipelago, according to two government officials and a Houthi official.
The group officially known as Ansar Allah captured the archipelago after seizing the nearby mainland port city of Mokha and the island of Perim, inside the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. In parallel, they waged an offensive further inland, particularly in the longtime battleground province of Taiz. The Houthis also launched a fresh barrage of missile and drone attacks on Saudi military targets on Monday.
The Houthis said they fired dozens of drones and missiles at the kingdom — which backs the Yemeni government — prompting the Saudi Civil Defence to issue brief alerts in the neighbouring cities of Khamis Mushait and Abha. The Saudi Civil Defence overnight said a Houthi projectile fell in a different area near the border with Yemen along the Red Sea, injuring two people and damaging a mosque and several other buildings. Riyadh did not announce any new attacks targeting the Houthis.
The Houthis came to power in late 2014 after storming Sana'a and seizing the presidential palace and key military sites, forcing Yemen's government into exile. The group triggered a return to hostilities in Yemen's civil war in July after a UN truce that had largely maintained quiet since 2022, when they let an Iranian plane land in defiance of Saudi control of Yemeni airspace. Riyadh retaliated by striking the airport, prompting the Houthis to declare a blockade on the kingdom targeting its oil trade in July.
Some 150 civilians have been killed in fighting since 3 September, the government's Human Rights Ministry said. More than 200 civilians have been wounded, it said. Thousands of families have fled their homes in Taiz and nearby provinces in the past day alone, said Khanzad Shah, acting head of Islamic Relief, a charity that operates in the area.
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