A rapid offensive by the Yemeni Ansar Allah movement, also known as the Houthis, has put a powerful Iranian ally in control of the nation's Red Sea coast and, with it, another key maritime corridor at the mercy of the Axis of Resistance. The Bab el-Mandeb lies between Yemen's southwest and the East African nation of Djibouti, constituting a link between the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, which ties to the Mediterranean Sea via the Suez Canal. At its narrowest breadth, it's just 16 miles wide and Ansar Allah has a record of paralyzing global shipping from much farther away.
With Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces in retreat, a new blockade backed by the Ansar Allah's missiles and drones would interrupt the flow of roughly 8.1 million barrels per day of crude oil, condensate and petroleum products. That's around 10 percent of global maritime oil trade, a figure made all the more strategically valuable by the Bab el-Mandeb's role as an alternative route since Iran moved to restrict shipping through the Strait of Hormuz chokepoint in response to the war launched on February 28 by the United States and Israel. "If the Houthis consolidate control over Yemen's western coast and the approaches to the strait, this becomes much more than a Yemeni issue," Hisham al-Omeisy, a Yemeni analyst and former information resource center director at the U.S.
Mission to Yemen, told Newsweek. Omeisy emphasized that Ansar Allah's fighters do not necessarily even have to close the Bab el-Mandeb to make a difference. Rather, "they only need to make it dangerous enough that shipping companies decide the risk is too high," leading to "higher insurance costs, ships going around Africa, longer delivery times and ultimately higher prices." "And this becomes particularly dangerous when you look at what is happening in the Strait of Hormuz," Omeisy said.
"If Iran can put pressure on Hormuz while the Houthis threaten Bab el-Mandeb, you essentially have pressure on both sides of the Arabian Peninsula at the same time." In addition to hosting 10 percent of global oil and 8 percent of global gas trade by sea, the Bab el-Mandeb also served as a gateway for some 30 percent of the world's container traffic before the war, according to Nitya Labh, academy associate fellow at Chatham House's International Security Program. "Since the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, countries like Saudi Arabia have diverted some of their oil exports from the Gulf to the Red Sea via overland gas pipelines, increasing the importance of the Red Sea in global energy markets," Labh told Newsweek. But overland routes are not immune to the conflict, either.
Reports have emerged of Ansar Allah attacks causing damage to Saudi Arabia's east-west pipeline that runs from the eastern city of Abqaiq to the west coast port city of Yanbu. The Red Sea crisis also threatens to choke off the Suez Canal, which Labh described as "the last viable shipping pathway through the Middle East region." After Ansar Allah launched its initial campaign against Red Sea shipping in response to the October 2023 outbreak of the war in Gaza that precipitated the ongoing Middle East crisis, traffic through the vital waterway fell by more than two-thirds. Most vessels were forced to take the far longer and costlier route toward South Africa's Cape of Good hope in a situation reminiscent of an era before the Suez Canal's founding in 1869.
Transits slowly recovered upon a U.S.-backed ceasefire reached between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement in October 2025 and had hit their highest wartime level just last month. Now that revival appears ill-fated and the impact looms for companies and consumers. "Diverting trade through this longer route introduces a number of risks: traffic congestion around ports in the Mediterranean and the coast of Africa create major supply chain disruptions," Labh said.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
