Houthis seize Mokha port as Yemen war threatens Red Sea shipping

The Houthis have seized the Yemeni port city of Mokha in their biggest territorial gain since the 2022 truce — and the consequences could stretch far beyond Yemen.

The Iran-backed rebels now control an important position on Yemen's west coast, just 80 kilometres from the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

That narrow waterway connects the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden and normally carries around 12% of the world's goods.

With shipping through the nearby Strait of Hormuz already badly disrupted by the war involving Iran, the last thing the global economy needs is another major shipping chokepoint coming under threat.

Mokha falls

Houthi forces were reported throughout Mokha on Thursday, while markets were closed and roads leading into the city were shut.

Residents told the Associated Press they had seen Houthi military vehicles in the streets.

Three doctors said they fled a hospital after it was seized by the rebels, while other residents were heading south towards Aden.

Mokha had previously been controlled by forces aligned with Yemen's internationally recognised government.

Its capture therefore represents far more than another battlefield advance.

It changes the strategic map.

The Bab el-Mandeb problem

Mokha sits close to one of the world's most important maritime gateways.

The Bab el-Mandeb is the entrance between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden — the route used by ships travelling between Europe and Asia through the Suez Canal.

And the Houthis have already demonstrated that they are willing to attack commercial shipping.

Since their attacks began in late 2023, shipping through the waterway has fallen by around 60%, according to Lloyd's List Intelligence.

Now the Houthis are sitting in a strategically important coastal city even closer to the shipping route.

That raises an uncomfortable question.

What do they intend to do with it?

Iran gains another card

The Houthis have their own long-running war with Yemen's government.

But they are also backed by Iran.

And with Tehran currently trying to gain leverage against the United States, the Houthi advance provides Iran with another potential pressure point.

Analysts warn that the rebels could use their new position to increase threats against shipping in the Red Sea.

There is even concern that they could eventually attempt to lay mines.

That would be a nightmare for commercial shipping.

Mines don't need to sink dozens of ships to cause enormous disruption.

The mere possibility of mines can make shipping companies think twice about sending valuable vessels through a particular route.

Yemen's fragile peace is collapsing

The capture of Mokha also threatens to drag Yemen back into the full-scale civil war that devastated the country for years.

The Houthis seized much of northern and central Yemen in 2014.

Saudi Arabia intervened the following year on behalf of the internationally recognised government.

A U.N.-brokered truce in 2022 brought relative calm.

That fragile peace now appears to be disappearing.

The U.N. special envoy for Yemen, Hans Grundberg, told the Security Council that the renewed fighting marks the end of the period of relative calm and warned that Yemen has entered a “new and more dangerous phase.”

His warning was blunt: the consequences may not remain inside Yemen.

Saudi Arabia is watching

That is particularly important because Saudi Arabia is directly involved.

The Houthis have already escalated their confrontation with the kingdom and declared a blockade targeting Saudi Arabia.

Riyadh says it remains committed to a political solution but has warned that it will take whatever measures are necessary to deter Houthi attacks.

Saudi Arabia has another reason to be nervous.

With Hormuz disrupted, the Red Sea becomes even more important as an alternative route for moving oil and other goods.

A renewed Houthi campaign against shipping could therefore hit a region already struggling with the consequences of the wider Iran war.

The war is spreading sideways

This is what makes the Mokha takeover so interesting.

It isn't simply another episode in Yemen's miserable civil war.

Iran is fighting for leverage against the United States.

Hormuz is already under pressure.

The Houthis are backed by Tehran.

Saudi Arabia is supporting Yemen's government.

And the Bab el-Mandeb sits between them — carrying international shipping.

One conflict is beginning to overlap another.

Could the Red Sea become the next battlefield?

Yemen's government has already launched airstrikes against Houthi reinforcements in the region, while Houthi media has claimed dozens of Saudi-backed airstrikes elsewhere in Yemen.

Those claims have not been independently verified.

But the direction of travel is clear.

The Houthis are advancing.

The government is fighting back.

Saudi Arabia is warning it will respond.

Iran gains another potential source of leverage.

And commercial shipping is once again caught in the middle.

Mokha may be more important than it looks

For Yemenis, the immediate danger is another devastating civil war.

For the rest of the world, the danger is that Yemen becomes another front in the much wider confrontation involving Iran, America, Saudi Arabia and the vital shipping routes of the Middle East.

Mokha may be only one city.

But it sits beside one of the world's great maritime chokepoints.

And after what has happened in Hormuz, the world can no longer afford to ignore what happens at Bab el-Mandeb.

The question now isn't simply whether the Houthis can hold Mokha.

It's what they will do from there.

SOURCE AP

Some idiot started a war with an ancient nation, and set in motion the collapse of ‘nations’ that are the invention of 20th Century European cartographers.

This war has got legs.

It will all get real interesting when all the Arab countries decide Israel is the cause of it all.