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In a September 2026 territorial advance that has upended regional geopolitics, the Iran-aligned Houthi armed movement has seized key Red Sea territory previously held by Yemen’s internationally recognized government, bringing new strategic risks to global trade and coastal African nations. The group now controls the port of Mocha, Mayyun Island, and the Zuqar and Hanish archipelagos, all located roughly 160 kilometers north of the strategically critical Bab al-Mandeb Strait.

The Bab al-Mandeb Strait, a just 32-kilometer-wide maritime chokepoint sitting between the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa, forms the only direct connection between the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, and the Indian Ocean. The waterway, divided by Houthi-held Mayyun Island, carries roughly 12% of all global trade annually, making its security foundational to international commercial activity. While the Houthi advance has not seized control of the strait’s African shoreline, the group’s expanded territorial footprint carries profound economic and security consequences for all Red Sea-adjacent African states, and carries the potential to exacerbate already simmering conflicts in Somalia and Sudan.

As a scholar with more than 20 years of research focused on global maritime geopolitics and Red Sea security, I argue that the Houthi threat extends far beyond minor logistical disruptions to shipping. It poses a fundamental strategic risk to all African states bordering the Red Sea. Houthi armed outposts now ring the northern stretches of the strait, placing the group’s offensive capabilities within striking distance of the world’s busiest commercial shipping corridor. The Iran-aligned non-state actor can now plausibly deploy missiles, naval mines, and fast-attack craft across a large stretch of the eastern Red Sea coastline. This development comes alongside Iran’s longstanding ability to disrupt traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, another critical global energy chokepoint, creating the very real risk of simultaneous disruptions at two key maritime bottlenecks that could leave commercial shipping with no safe passage through the Red Sea.

### The Economic and Security Risks for African Nations
Disruptions to Red Sea shipping undermine African economies through four key channels: rising shipping and insurance premiums, lost port revenue, increased energy and food commodity prices, and growing maritime security threats.

Egypt faces the largest immediate financial exposure. In 2024, Houthi attacks on commercial shipping already cut Red Sea traffic, costing the Egyptian government an estimated $7 billion in lost Suez Canal revenue. While fiscal 2025-26 saw canal revenue rise 23% to $4.67 billion, a sustained trend of shipping diversion away from the Red Sea would quickly erase this recovery.

For Djibouti, the crisis has brought both a growing humanitarian displacement crisis and economic vulnerability. Since the Houthi escalation in early September 2026, nearly 142,000 people have been displaced by renewed fighting, more than 3,700 of whom have fled across the Red Sea to northern Djibouti. Djibouti also serves as the primary trade gateway for landlocked Ethiopia, which handles 95% of all its international trade through Djibouti’s ports, leaving Ethiopia’s economy heavily exposed to any Red Sea disruptions. Eritrea, meanwhile, faces its own security risks: its strategic Red Sea coastline has made it a focal point for Saudi Arabia and Egypt, which are keen to prevent expanded Iranian and Houthi influence on the strait’s African shore.

The Houthi crisis has also compounded existing instability in Somalia and Sudan. The Houthi movement has exchanged weapons, drone technology, and tactical training with al-Shabaab, the al-Qaeda-aligned terrorist group operating in Somalia, in exchange for support for pirate operations off Somalia’s coast. Even as the African Union’s counter-terrorism mission works to contain al-Shabaab, pirate attacks off Somalia’s coast have already jumped to a 10-year high in 2026, prompting the Somali government to approve a new anti-piracy law in September 2026 to curb maritime kidnappings.

In Sudan, which remains mired in a civil war between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the United Arab Emirates-backed Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the Houthi advance has deepened foreign entanglement. Iran has provided military support to factions of the SAF, and by mid-2024, the Houthis were assisting Iran in funneling weapons to Sudanese government forces. This connection has already led to U.S. Treasury sanctions targeting key Sudanese figures with ties to Iranian military networks. The uncomfortable reality that emerges is that the African shoreline of the Red Sea is not only exposed to Houthi influence, but has already begun to act as a supporting base for the group’s operations.

### Broader Geopolitical Competition Over the Red Sea
Current shifts in Red Sea geopolitics did not begin with the 2026 Houthi advance. Tensions have been building for years, with competing regional blocs vying for influence over the strategic waterway.

In January 2024, Ethiopia signed a memorandum of understanding with the breakaway Somali region of Somaliland, securing access to the region’s Red Sea coastline and permission to build a naval base in exchange for recognizing Somaliland’s independence. The deal drew immediate opposition from Somalia, Eritrea, and Egypt, which formed a joint security mechanism to coordinate their response within a year. Regional security cooperation accelerated after that, with Saudi Arabia hosting talks in July 2026 that brought 14 countries including Egypt, Djibouti, Sudan, and Somalia together to launch the Multinational Maritime Defence Alliance. Notably, the UAE and Ethiopia were excluded from the alliance following December 2025 clashes between UAE-aligned and Saudi-backed forces in Yemen.

A competing alignment has since emerged, bringing together the UAE, Israel, and Ethiopia, a bloc strengthened by Israel’s formal recognition of Somaliland in December 2025. This bloc stands opposed to the coalition of Somalia, Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. Iran, for its part, has actively sought a permanent military foothold along the Red Sea corridor, including in Sudan, while Eritrea has leveraged its control of strategic coastline to boost its regional influence and counterbalance Ethiopia. The end result is an increasingly sharp contest for regional influence, with Middle Eastern powers increasingly leveraging Africa’s strategic geographic position to advance their own geopolitical goals.

### Pathways to Mitigating Risk
No single African state has the capacity to secure the entire Bab al-Mandeb Strait on its own, but governments can reduce their exposure by diversifying port access and developing alternative inland trade routes. The most impactful step, however, is expanding collective maritime security capacity at the regional level. In August 2026, signatory states to the Djibouti Code of Conduct and its expanded Jeddah Amendment committed to forming a combined regional task force to counter piracy and maritime insecurity. The success of this initiative will depend on member states’ ability to commit the necessary ships, intelligence, personnel, and legal frameworks to build a fully functional security mechanism.

While African states are not currently setting the broader strategic agenda for the Red Sea, their control of the region’s chokepoints gives them significant new diplomatic leverage. The core challenge for these nations is to use that leverage to advance their own national interests, without becoming drawn in as proxies in a wider Middle Eastern confrontation.

*This analysis is by Burak Şakir Şeker, associate professor in the Department of International Relations at Ankara Hacı Bayram Veli University, republished with permission from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.*

A bipartisan attempt to force a formal inquiry into the killings of nine U.S. citizens by Israeli actors in the Israeli-occupied West Bank fell short of U.S. Senate approval late Tuesday, winning just 47 votes in the 100-member upper chamber amid near-unified Republican opposition. The failed proposal highlighted growing partisan and generational rifts in Washington over U.S. policy toward Israel amid a years-long surge of violence against Palestinians and American nationals in the occupied territory.

Introduced earlier this month by Maryland Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen, a longstanding advocate for Palestinian human rights and greater oversight of U.S. military assistance to Israel, Senate Resolution 852 leveraged a little-used provision of the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act — Section 502(b) — which grants congressional lawmakers the authority to compel the State Department to release mandatory human rights reports covering all nations that receive American foreign aid. Israel currently stands as the single largest recipient of U.S. foreign assistance, set to receive $3.3 billion in funding from American taxpayers in 2025 alone.

Since 2022, nine U.S. citizens have been killed by Israeli military forces or extremist settlers in the occupied West Bank, and three additional American nationals have been imprisoned by Israeli authorities without full public accountability for their detention. High-profile cases include veteran Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was shot in the head by Israeli forces while covering an operation in Jenin in 2022; 26-year-old activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, killed by Israeli sniper fire during a 2024 demonstration against illegal Israeli settlement expansion near Nablus; and Sayfollah Musallet, a local ice cream shop worker beaten to death by Israeli settlers in 2025. Over the same three-year period, Israeli military and settler violence has killed more than 1,100 Palestinians across the occupied West Bank, according to aggregated casualty data.

Only one Republican senator — Kentucky’s Rand Paul — broke with his party to support the resolution. One Senate Democrat, Pennsylvania’s John Fetterman, joined 50 Republican lawmakers in voting against the measure. Two Republican senators, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Dan Sullivan of Alaska, did not cast votes on the proposal.

Following the late-night vote, Van Hollen released a statement criticizing Republican lawmakers for blocking transparency and accountability for the families of the deceased U.S. citizens. “They have received no justice and no accountability. Their families – and the American people – deserve answers on their deaths,” Van Hollen said. “But today Republicans denied them that. Meanwhile, the Palestinian people have also borne the toll of this violence day in and day out. They, too, deserve justice and accountability. But again, Republicans blocked that today. It is our responsibility to ensure recipients of U.S. taxpayer dollars act in line with our laws and our values – this resolution was an opportunity to shed light on a reality that flies in the face of that principle.”

The outcome of the vote, while a defeat for proponents of greater oversight, marks a notable shift in positioning among Democratic lawmakers compared to just two years ago. A similar inquiry measure brought to the Senate floor in 2023 by Vermont independent Senator Bernie Sanders, a longtime critic of Israeli settlement expansion, won only 11 votes in total. Political analysts note the 47-vote total this year reflects a gradual shift in elite opinion that tracks with rapidly changing views among the U.S. electorate, particularly within the Democratic base, which has grown increasingly critical of unconditioned U.S. military support for Israel amid rising violence in the occupied territories.

In a pre-vote virtual discussion with the IMEU Policy Project, Van Hollen framed the resolution as part of a broader push to draw attention to ongoing human rights abuses in the West Bank. “We’re at a moment where we see growing recognition throughout the public that is slowly filtering up and slowly having an impact on the bubble that is the United States Congress, and so I think that this is a moment where we can use the fact that American citizens are not getting accountability and justice to shine the light on the fact that Palestinian children and others in the West Bank are subjected to these kinds of abuses every single day,” he said.

The vote comes one month after 45 sitting Senate Democrats signed an open letter addressed to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, calling for his direct intervention to protect U.S. citizens operating in the occupied West Bank and pressing for credible investigations into the deaths of the nine American nationals. In the letter, lawmakers noted a dramatic recent surge in cross-violence in the region that has prompted large-scale Israeli military incursions, mass arrests of Palestinian civilians, and repeated extremist settler attacks on Palestinian religious sites including mosques. “We urge you to take measures to prevent and intercede in this violence, establish a credible mechanism to investigate violations of law, and to make clear that the Government of Israel will not tolerate violence by its people, just as it does not tolerate violence against its people,” the letter read. To date, the U.S. government has never demanded an independent investigation into these killings outside of the internal Israeli military investigative process, which critics have repeatedly labeled biased and lacking in transparency.

Japan has enacted sweeping changes to its immigration system this week, rolling out dramatic fee increases and tightened eligibility criteria for foreign residents seeking to live and stay permanently in the country, as the government grapples with a rapidly expanding foreign population amid ongoing labor shortages driven by demographic aging.

The most significant adjustment is a 20-fold jump in permanent residency application fees, which now stand at 200,000 yen, equal to roughly $1,270 or £955. For non-permanent residents applying to extend their stay or update their residency status, the new fee structure that took effect October 1 scales costs based on the duration of requested stay: fees start at 10,000 yen for stays of three months or less, and climb to 75,000 yen for stays of five years or more. That marks a major increase from the previous flat 6,000 yen fee charged for all such applications. Reduced rates are available for refugees and foreign residents facing documented financial hardship.

Alongside the fee hikes, new eligibility rules have been introduced for permanent residency applicants. All candidates must now prove they earn a stable income at or above Japan’s national average household income, which was recorded at 5.75 million yen in 2024 government data. Starting in April 2026, applicants will also be required to demonstrate basic Japanese language proficiency, a change that has already triggered a sharp uptick in enrollments at Japanese language schools and a surge in sign-ups for the official Japanese-Language Proficiency Test, according to local Japanese media. Permanent residency candidates must also show they will have pension benefits equivalent to what a worker enrolled in Japan’s employee pension system for 30 years would receive, though personal financial assets may be considered for applicants who do not meet this pension threshold.

The changes are the latest in a series of immigration policy overhauls rolled out by Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s administration, which has made managing Japan’s growing foreign community a top priority since Takaichi took office in October 2024. In July 2025, the government implemented a five-fold increase in general visa fees – the first hike to visa charges in more than 50 years – with officials justifying the move as a necessary adjustment to account for inflation and global exchange rate shifts.

In a social media post on X published days before the new residency rules took effect, Takaichi acknowledged public unease over the country’s shifting demographic landscape. “We recognize that some members of the public may feel a sense of concern or unfairness” as Japan’s foreign resident population grows, she wrote, adding that the government’s goal is to ensure immigration policies remain orderly, so that “both Japanese citizens and foreign residents can live safely and securely.”

Longer term, Japan’s demographic reality has forced incremental openings to immigration even as the issue remains politically sensitive. The country’s rapidly aging population has created acute labor shortages across multiple sectors, leaving the economy increasingly dependent on foreign workers to fill gaps. At the end of 2025, Japan’s total foreign resident population surpassed 4.12 million, hitting an all-time high and marking a 9.5% year-over-year increase. This rapid growth has stoked public anxieties about social change, putting pressure on the government to implement stricter, more structured immigration management.

The announcement of the new fee hikes triggered a last-minute rush of applications earlier this week, with long queues forming at immigration offices across the country. Tokyo’s main immigration bureau reported wait times exceeding seven hours for applicants hoping to submit their paperwork before the higher fees took effect.

On Wednesday, a U.S. immigration judge upheld a deportation order first sought by the Trump administration against Salah Sarsour, a prominent Palestinian and Muslim community leader based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The ruling marks a major escalation in a years-long legal battle that has drawn widespread attention to how U.S. immigration policy targets Palestinian rights advocates.

Twenty-two years after the United States launched a full-scale invasion of Iraq to overthrow then-president Saddam Hussein, Washington has finalized the withdrawal of its last remaining military forces from the country, closing out a two-decade-long intervention that has reshaped the Middle East at staggering human and financial cost. The exit brings an official end to America’s decades-long military combat mission in Iraq, a milestone that Baghdad has framed as a core step toward restoring full national sovereignty after years of foreign occupation.

In an official statement released Wednesday, the Pentagon confirmed that the United States and its coalition partners have formally concluded Operation Inherent Resolve in Iraq, aligning the withdrawal with the terms of a joint US-Iraq agreement reached in September 2024 and advancing core US national interests. The US military footprint in Iraq has shifted repeatedly over the past two decades: Washington first ousted Hussein and occupied the country in 2003, initially pulled all combat forces out in 2011, then redeployed troops three years later at the invitation of the Iraqi government to combat the rapid expansion of the Islamic State (IS) militant group, which had seized nearly a third of Iraqi territory at its peak.

The drawdown process began in 2025, with US forces relocating from key bases including Ain al-Asad in Anbar Province and the Victory Base Complex adjacent to Baghdad International Airport, before completing the full exit from all Iraqi territory including the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region in northern Iraq. Established as a semi-autonomous entity within Iraq under the country’s 2005 constitution, Iraqi Kurdistan operates its own independent governing institutions, including a local prime minister, president, and dedicated security force known as the Peshmerga.

Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell emphasized that the full withdrawal marks a strategic transition, shifting from a US-led wartime coalition mission to an Iraqi-led security framework backed by a normalized bilateral security partnership between the two countries. For years, successive Iraqi governments have prioritized a full US troop withdrawal as a non-negotiable demand tied to national sovereignty, particularly as Baghdad works to cement post-IS recovery and rebuild state authority across the country.

Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi praised the conclusion of the US mission at a formal ceremony Wednesday, framing the withdrawal as the start of a new era for the country. “A new phase has begun, defined by Iraq’s sovereignty, the strength of its institutions, the readiness of its forces, unity of decision-making, and balanced partnerships with its friends,” Zaidi said. He also announced that October 1 will be designated as a new national holiday, “Sovereignty Day”, to mark the milestone. Earlier this week, leaders of Iraq’s executive, legislative, and judicial branches jointly described the occasion as a moment that “affirms the completion of Iraq’s path toward sovereignty and consolidates the presence of the state and its institutions.”

Beyond security, Zaidi has prioritized expanding economic cooperation with the United States. In July, during an official visit to Washington, the two governments formally announced a joint plan to revive a historic oil pipeline connecting Iraq to Syria, a project first reported exclusively by Middle East Eye.

The full withdrawal fulfills a longstanding campaign promise by former president and current US leader Donald Trump, who has made ending America’s so-called “forever wars” in the Middle East a central plank of his political agenda. Notably, however, Trump oversaw the largest Middle East conflict in decades earlier this year, launching joint military strikes against Iran alongside Israel in February that reshaped security dynamics across the Gulf region.

The strikes triggered retaliatory attacks from Iran that targeted US military bases across six Gulf nations and neighboring Jordan, raising new questions about the long-term future of America’s military footprint in the Gulf, where Washington has maintained decades-long security alliances with major oil-producing states including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Bahrain. Earlier this month, the US Department of Defense’s inspector general released a report confirming that Iranian attacks destroyed hundreds of structures at US bases across the region. The report noted that it remains unclear whether all damaged infrastructure will be rebuilt, or which party will cover the reconstruction costs, and estimated that the 2025 Iran conflict has cost US taxpayers a total of $33.4 billion to date.

As the US exits, Zaidi’s government is moving forward with a contentious domestic plan to disarm unregulated paramilitary militias that hold significant influence across Iraq. The initiative originally set a September 30, 2025 deadline for all non-state armed factions to hand over weapons, but the deadline was recently extended to June 30, 2027 amid ongoing negotiations to “regulate” weapons held outside of formal state control.

The Popular Mobilisation Forces, a coalition of paramilitary groups that originally formed a decade ago to fight the Islamic State, have since become deeply integrated into Iraq’s political system, drawing formal salaries from the Iraqi state budget. Most factions within the alliance are aligned with Iran’s “Axis of Resistance”, and US and regional officials have linked the groups to drone strikes carried out earlier this year during the height of US-Iran tensions. Kuwait blamed Iraqi militias for multiple drone attacks on its territory, while Saudi Arabia held the groups responsible for a strike that temporarily shut down its critical East-West oil pipeline.

This report is based on original independent coverage from Middle East Eye, a media outlet focused on unrivaled independent reporting and analysis of the Middle East, North Africa, and global affairs related to the region.