Tensions across the Arabian Peninsula have reignited sharply in recent weeks, after a series of tit-for-tat attacks between Yemen’s Houthi movement and Saudi Arabia pushed a key global energy shipping chokepoint to the brink of disruption. The current crisis traces its roots back to a decision by the Houthis, formally known as Ansar Allah, to restart direct commercial flights between Yemen’s capital Sanaa and Tehran — a move that would have marked the first such connection since a Saudi-led military coalition intervened in Yemen’s civil war in 2015.
For Riyadh, the resumption of these flights crossed a critical red line. Saudi officials and analysts view expanded direct air links between the Houthis and Iran as evidence of growing Iranian influence in northern Yemen, including the potential for unimpeded weapons transfers to the Houthi movement. Two weeks ago, Saudi warplanes launched strikes on Sanaa International Airport in response to the announcement, triggering a rapid escalation that has now pulled the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, a narrow waterway connecting the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, into the expanding regional conflict tied to the U.S.-Israeli campaign against Iran.
“Just as direct Sanaa-Iran flights were a red line for the Saudis and its allied Yemeni government, the attack on Sanaa international airport was a red line for the Houthis,” explained Hamish Kinnear, principal Middle East and North Africa analyst at global risk consulting firm Maplecroft, in an interview with Middle East Eye.
In the days following the airport strike, the Houthis followed through on their threats of retaliation: the group launched missile attacks against two Saudi cities, Jazan and Yanbu, and claimed responsibility for strikes on two Saudi oil vessels operating in the Red Sea. Saudi officials have confirmed one of the vessel attacks took place in the region.
The timing of this escalation could not be more consequential for global energy markets. Following Iranian restrictions on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz after the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran, Saudi Arabia has redirected more than 70 percent of its crude oil exports through the Red Sea to the Red Sea port of Yanbu, making the Bab al-Mandeb route the kingdom’s primary outlet for global oil sales. Houthi threats of a “maritime embargo” on Saudi ports have now put this alternative export corridor directly at risk.
Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree has made clear the group is prepared to ramp up actions in the coming days, saying: “We will not hesitate to expand our movements and escalate our steps based on the developments of the situation in the coming hours and days.”
The Bab al-Mandeb currently handles roughly 12 percent of the world’s seaborne oil trade and 8 percent of global liquefied natural gas shipments, though shipping has not yet come to a complete stop. Many crude tankers bound for Asia continue to transit the waterway, a sign Kinnear says indicates both sides remain open to de-escalation. “This indicates that the Houthis are open to negotiations with the Saudis and the Saudi-backed Yemeni government, which has also suggested that it does not want to expand the confrontation,” he noted.
Even so, any prolonged disruption to Bab al-Mandeb would leave global energy markets facing two major blocked oil chokepoints at once, a scenario that would send shockwaves through crude prices and force costly reroutes for Asian refiners. If the Bab al-Mandeb is closed to shipping, tankers carrying Saudi crude from Yanbu would need to sail through the Suez Canal into the Mediterranean, around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope, and then back to Asia — a detour that adds weeks of transit time and millions of dollars in extra costs per voyage.
Saudi political analyst Khaled Almaeena, former editor-in-chief of Arab News, described the sudden escalation as “totally unexpected,” noting the Yemeni front had remained quiet for months and Riyadh had exercised significant restraint in the face of Iranian provocations. The 60-day ceasefire agreed under the June 17 Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding was fragile from its start, and ultimately collapsed after the U.S. violated a core provision of the deal: the agreement required all new shipping arrangements through the Strait of Hormuz during the ceasefire to be negotiated with Iran and Oman, but Washington unilaterally created a new route through Omani waters without consulting Tehran.
That U.S. breach of the agreement reshaped the Houthis’ strategic position. With the Strait of Hormuz already a contested flashpoint, controlling pressure on the Bab al-Mandeb gives the Houthi movement far greater leverage over both the U.S. and Saudi Arabia. To date, Riyadh has avoided direct participation in the war against Iran, but continued Houthi attacks could make that restraint politically unsustainable.
“To be quiet might be misconstrued as a sign of weakness, which the Saudis are not — they have the firepower and the will to use it,” Almaeena said, though he added that the kingdom still prefers to avoid full-scale conflict: “If the Houthis would like to negotiate peace its up to them because the kingdom would like to avoid unnecessary bloodshed.”
The Houthis have repeatedly proven they are a resilient opponent that cannot be defeated through air power alone. In 2025, former U.S. President Donald Trump ramped up U.S. bombing campaigns against the group, then announced a withdrawal from the campaign two months later claiming the Houthis had “capitulated” — a claim that proved entirely unfounded. Like Saudi Arabia before it, the U.S. learned that sustained bombing does not force the Houthis into submission or cut off their popular support.
Kinnear argues that the Houthi threat to Bab al-Mandeb is closely aligned with broader Iranian goals to disrupt global energy markets and keep pressure on the U.S., though it is not a case of the Houthis simply acting on Tehran’s orders. Rather than seeking to close the strait entirely, the current escalation is a deliberate demonstration of power: the Houthis can raise the economic cost for Saudi Arabia at any time they choose.
For the Houthis, a limited, controlled escalation carries significant strategic benefits. Iran has already used its control over the Strait of Hormuz to extract concessions to fund its postwar reconstruction, and the Houthis now hold a similarly valuable leverage point: the ability to threaten Saudi Arabia’s only remaining major oil export route to global markets.