A stunning, rapid military push by Yemen’s Houthi movement along the country’s Red Sea coastline has placed the strategically vital Bab el-Mandeb Strait within the group’s full control, shifting regional power dynamics and strengthening Iran’s strategic leverage against the United States, regional and security experts told Middle East Eye in a new analysis of the battlefield shifts.
“The Houthis have pulled off a decisive military victory that brings them within one major step of controlling the entire Bab el-Mandeb waterway,” Corey Ranslem, chief executive officer of maritime security firm Dryad Global, explained to Middle East Eye. Ranslem added that the Houthis will face far fewer barriers to exerting influence over Bab el-Mandeb than Iran does in the Strait of Hormuz, because the U.S. maintains no substantial, permanent military presence in the Bab el-Mandeb area to counter their moves.
The breakthrough came after days of intense combat across the narrow Tihama coastal plain, where Houthi forces defeated Saudi-aligned Yemeni troops on Thursday and seized the historic, strategically critical Red Sea port of Mocha. Regional Arab media outlets confirmed that Houthi gains expanded across the region through the rest of the day: the group has already deployed military personnel to the Hanish Islands, located in the central Red Sea opposite Eritrea, and continues to push south toward the Bab el-Mandeb Strait itself and the key island of Perim.
The sweeping Houthi advance has also exposed deep coordination rifts within the Saudi-backed anti-Houthi coalition operating in Yemen. In a surprising development, Houthi troops moving across open, exposed coastal terrain encountered almost no significant air resistance from Saudi Arabia or its Yemeni allied factions.
Mocha was previously held by the National Resistance Forces (NRF), a well-armed anti-Houthi faction led by Tarek Saleh, nephew of former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Ali Abdullah Saleh was killed by the Houthis a decade ago, just months after he split from a short-lived alliance with the movement. The NRF was long backed by the United Arab Emirates, but the group shifted its formal allegiance to Saudi Arabia earlier this year, after the UAE announced its full military withdrawal from Yemen. Saudi Arabia subsequently took over responsibility for funding and supporting UAE-aligned armed groups in the country.
Rifts between the two leading Gulf coalition partners have widened in recent months, with disagreements over the war in Sudan, the Israel-Hamas conflict, and Yemeni separatist movements stalling cooperation. The Houthi offensive is unfolding against ongoing, stalled talks between Saudi Arabia and the UAE over a potential UAE return to Yemen to cover military operational costs, a Western diplomat confirmed to Middle East Eye, noting the negotiations remain at an impasse.
The latest Houthi gains build on months of escalating tensions between the movement and Saudi Arabia. Over the past year, the Houthis have launched repeated drone and missile strikes on Saudi energy infrastructure and commercial shipping, while Saudi-led coalition forces have carried out retaliatory air strikes on Houthi positions. Saudi-backed Yemeni forces also attempted their own counter-offensive to retake the Houthi-held major port of Hodeida earlier this year, which failed to gain meaningful ground.
Arab and Western officials tracking the resurgence of fighting told Middle East Eye the Houthi offensive—the largest large-scale military operation launched since a 2022 ceasefire collapsed—stems from two core strategic motivations. First, establishing full military control along the Bab el-Mandeb coastline will allow the Houthis to enforce a blockade against Saudi Arabia with far greater accuracy, while also asserting authority over all international shipping passing through the chokepoint.
Before the current Yemeni civil war, roughly 12% of global seaborne oil trade already transited the Red Sea. The waterway’s strategic importance grew dramatically after Iran increased its control over shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, pushing Saudi Arabia to shift a larger share of its oil exports through the Red Sea route. Diplomats note the Houthis have directly drawn inspiration from Iran’s model of charging tolls for commercial shipping passing through the Strait of Hormuz, and aim to replicate that system in Bab el-Mandeb.
“The Houthis essentially want to collect their own tolls on Red Sea shipping, and Saudi Arabia has been completely firm that it will never accept paying a Houthi toll,” a diplomat based in Riyadh explained.
The Houthi movement has also spent months rebuilding its military capacity after sustaining heavy losses during extensive U.S. air strikes carried out between January and May 2025. As Middle East Eye exclusively reported in July, military experts specializing in drone and missile technology from Lebanon, Iran, Syria and Iraq have already been deployed to Yemen to support the Houthis, and Iran has continued to supply the group with advanced military equipment.
Beyond the Houthis’ own strategic goals, the capture of the Red Sea coastline also advances Iran’s regional agenda amid escalating tensions in the Strait of Hormuz, where both U.S. and Iranian forces have targeted commercial shipping in recent months.
“This move aligns completely with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ long-term goal of controlling both major maritime trade chokepoints surrounding the Arabian Peninsula,” said Ibrahim Jalal, a Yemeni researcher and regional policy adviser. Jalal added that the advance also serves the Houthis’ own core priority of extracting economic concessions from Saudi Arabia.
“The Houthis now control the highest mountain peaks overlooking the entire Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which makes targeting and surveillance of passing shipping far easier,” Jalal noted. “They will also be able to strike targets in the Gulf of Aden with much greater ease than before.”