Houthis advance on Bab el-Mandeb as Saudi pipeline shutdown raises oil risks

The Houthis have effectively opened a “new front in the U.S. war with Iran,” AP reported, making their largest territorial gains in years around the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, one of the world’s key shipping routes.

It is the scenario analysts had feared since the crisis around the Strait of Hormuz began — an advance on another major oil export route that could strengthen Iran’s strategy of putting pressure on global oil prices in its war with the United States.

“The situation in Yemen is what you would call in English an epic fail. That is, a very big, very public failure that can be compared […] to what happened in Afghanistan when U.S. forces withdrew. That is how disastrous it has been for Saudi Arabia, but also for the United States. It means losing thousands of square kilometers to the Houthis. And most importantly, it means establishing control over the world’s second, perhaps third, at most fourth most important transport corridor,” Serhiy Danylov, deputy director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, said in an interview with Radio NV.

The developments come as global petroleum product prices rise, driven primarily by the effects of the U.S. war with Iran in the Middle East. On Sept. 13, U.S. President Donald Trump, speaking to reporters, sought to shift blame to Ukraine and called on it to stop strikes on Russian energy facilities, arguing that they “hurt the world” and cause a global diesel shortage.

NV explains why the Houthi advance toward the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a key oil export route, has alarmed oil markets and what is happening there.

Why the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and Saudi East-West pipeline matter so much

The Bab el-Mandeb Strait lies between the Gulf of Aden, the Red Sea and the Suez Canal and is a key route for global oil supplies. Djibouti, Eritrea, Somalia and Yemen border the strait.

It is 100 kilometers long and about 30 kilometers wide.

About 5% of global crude oil and petroleum product volumes, or 4.1 billion barrels, and up to 15% of seaborne trade previously passed through Bab el-Mandeb. Container ships traveling from China, India and other Asian countries to Europe used the route. Simultaneous closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait would block up to a quarter of global oil and gas supplies, or 25%.

It is also a key route for container shipments to Europe, not only raw materials.

“Up to 30% of all container traffic in the world […] is quite a lot. Roughly speaking, for us Europeans — Ukrainians are Europeans, after all — this is very important because, roughly speaking, everything from Temu that people buy in Ukraine passes through this strait one way or another. All the cheap Chinese consumer goods. So this is an extremely important strait for us,” Danylov told Radio NV.

Before the start of the U.S. war with Iran, the main oil exporters through Bab el-Mandeb were:

• Saudi Arabia — 11.6 million barrels per day
• UAE — 3.2 million barrels per day
• Egypt — 2.5 million barrels per day

The Bab el-Mandeb Strait is part of the shortest route for oil tankers traveling from the Persian Gulf to Europe. Tankers previously could travel from Persian Gulf countries through the Strait of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb into the Red Sea, then through the Suez Canal into the Mediterranean, or use Egypt’s SUMED pipeline on the Red Sea coast, which carries oil to the Alexandria terminal on the Mediterranean.

Bab el-Mandeb is also a vital route in the opposite direction, with Saudi Arabia using it to ship oil to Asia.

Shipping through Bab el-Mandeb had already become significantly more difficult in recent years after Israel launched its operation in the Gaza Strip in 2023. The Houthis in Yemen, which borders the strait, began attacking ships they considered linked to Israel or the United States, partially paralyzing traffic through the waterway. In 2024 alone, Houthi attacks on vessels near Bab el-Mandeb sharply reduced container shipping through the Suez Canal and caused about $200 billion in losses. Shipping through the strait fell by about 60%.

In May 2025, the United States and Yemen’s Houthis agreed to a ceasefire, and shipping through Bab el-Mandeb has remained open since then.

The route became critically important after Iran blocked the Strait of Hormuz following the start of its war with the United States, cutting off Saudi Arabia’s ability to export oil from the Persian Gulf.

Saudi Arabia then brought its overland East-West pipeline, built in the 1980s, up to full capacity. The 1,200-kilometer pipeline crosses the Arabian Desert and carries oil from eastern to western Saudi Arabia. The oil is then exported from the port and refining hub of Yanbu on the Red Sea coast through Bab el-Mandeb, including to Asia.

At the beginning of 2026, the pipeline carried an average of 770,000 barrels per day to western Saudi Arabia. After the Strait of Hormuz was closed, the country raised its capacity to 5 million barrels per day — more than ever before.

What is happening now around these key oil export routes

The conflict in Yemen has continued since 2014, when the Houthis — the Iran-backed Shiite paramilitary movement Ansar Allah — seized the capital, Sanaa. A Saudi-led coalition subsequently launched a military campaign against the militants, leading to years of war. A U.N.-brokered truce reached in 2022 largely reduced the intensity of the fighting but did not produce a final settlement.

The war in Yemen is now escalating again amid the intensifying confrontation between Iran and the United States, which has already put global energy supplies at risk.

On Sept. 10, 2026, it emerged that Yemen’s Houthis had taken control of the strategic port city of Mocha on Yemen’s Red Sea coast near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. Sources told Reuters and The New York Times that Houthi fighters captured the city and its port after several days of fierce fighting with pro-government forces allied with Yemen’s internationally recognized, Saudi-backed government.

The port of Mocha then became the center of a large-scale Houthi ground offensive as the group simultaneously launched attacks on the strategic Hanish Islands archipelago in the Red Sea, north of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. AP also reported that the Houthis had seized another critically important island, Mayyun, also known as Perim, a small volcanic island in the middle of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

Control of these areas is crucial to exerting influence over the shipping route and could significantly strengthen the Houthis’ leverage over oil exports through Bab el-Mandeb, observers said. International analysts had previously warned that in such a scenario, the Houthis could attack commercial vessels passing through the strait and thereby block traffic altogether.

On Sept. 11, reports emerged of drone strikes on pumping stations near Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline, prompting Saudi Arabia to suspend pipeline operations. Satellite images showed significant fire damage at one facility, CNN reported.

Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Ministry said the pipeline had been attacked by drones arriving from the direction of Iraq. The kingdom said it would not respond in order to give the Iraqi government an “opportunity to take the necessary measures.” In July, Saudi Arabia and the United States had accused Iran-backed armed groups based in Iraq of drone attacks on Saudi oil facilities. Regional sources told AP that the Houthis had helped those Iraqi forces plan and carry out the attacks.

Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi, who is also commander in chief of the country’s armed forces, ordered the dismissal of the military commander in Maysan province in western Iraq, from where the launches were believed to have been carried out, and ordered an investigation.

Meanwhile, after a Houthi missile and drone attack on the Sharurah military base in southern Saudi Arabia, the country issued emergency alerts for four cities in the region — Khamis Mushait, Abha, Jizan and Najran.

On Sept. 14, following new Houthi strikes on Saudi Arabia, the group’s advances in Yemen and Iranian attacks on vessels in the Persian Gulf, oil prices jumped more than 3% and climbed back above $100 a barrel. The increase heightened concerns about supply disruptions following the shutdown of the key Saudi pipeline, Reuters reported.

Houthi armed forces currently claim that “maritime shipping is safe for all companies except Saudi vessels.” AP, however, reported that “markets are nervous, and experts call the Houthis very unpredictable.” The latest rise in oil prices gives Tehran greater leverage in any negotiations.

It remains unclear how extensive the damage to Saudi Arabia’s key pipeline may be or how long it will remain out of service.

Three industry sources told Reuters that because of the pipeline shutdown, oil inventories at the Saudi port of Yanbu, at the western end of the pipeline, would be sufficient for only five to seven days of exports.

An unnamed senior military official from Yemen’s internationally recognized government told AP that government forces were stunned that the Saudi air force had made no attempt to prevent the Houthis from capturing the port of Mocha. He suggested that Saudi Arabia had not received a “green light” from the United States to launch a large-scale air campaign against the Houthis.

Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi, meanwhile, said a meeting between Gulf states and Iran scheduled for Sept. 14 to discuss the situation around the Strait of Hormuz had been postponed.

In previous months of the war with the United States, Tehran, an ally of Yemen’s Houthis, had already threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb simultaneously.

On April 5, Ali Akbar Velayati, a former Iranian foreign minister and influential diplomat whom Tehran describes as an adviser to new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, said the Houthis could close Bab el-Mandeb. Velayati said Iran’s military command viewed the Bab el-Mandeb Strait “the same way as Hormuz.”

“If the White House dares to repeat its senseless mistakes, it will soon understand that global energy and trade flows can be disrupted with a single step,” Velayati wrote on X in the spring, as Trump was threatening at the time to strike Iranian power plants and bridges over the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

Elizabeth Kendall, a prominent Middle East scholar at the University of Cambridge, told Al Jazeera at the time that such a development would be a “nightmare scenario.”

“Because if there are restrictions in the Strait of Hormuz at the same time as an escalation of similar restrictions in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, then trade with Europe would really be undermined, if not paralyzed. So this really is a knife-edge situation, depending on what happens next,” Kendall said in April 2026.