Houthis Capture Key Red Sea Port as They March Toward Aden and Spike Oil Prices

Is Aden next? After capturing the key port city of Mocha and advancing their Iranian patrons’ goal of spiking global energy rates in the process, the Houthis could now march on toward southern Yemen’s historic capital, a regional expert warns.“The Houthis’ current progress could whet their appetite and they could move further south, beyond Hodeida and Mocha,” a Yemen researcher at Israel’s Open University, Inbal Nissim-Louvton, tells The New York Sun. “Capturing Aden would present a true victory for them. Beyond the symbolic win over the crown jewel of Southern Yemen, occupying Aden would further tighten the Houthis control over Bab el Mandeb.” Aden is where the widely recognized, Saudi-backed government has relocated after the capital Sana’a fell to the Houthis earlier in the war. On Thursday morning the Houthis moved south from their positions along the Red Sea, capturing Mocha and nearby Zuqar island. From the Mocha area, less than 50 miles away from the 12 mile-wide Bab el Mandeb, the Houthis can now use inexpensive missiles and small speedboats to disrupt shipping in the southern Red Sea tip even beyond Saudi oil tankers. Control over Bab el Mandeb is crucial as Tehran sees the rise in global energy prices as a weapon in the war against America. High prices at the pump put at risk President Trump’s hopes of Republican gains in November’s Midterm election.As the war between the Saudis and the Houthis is heating up, world oil prices are rising. Earlier this week crude reached $100 a barrel after a long time hovering around $90. On Thursday Brent clocked crude prices at $107 a barrel. Saudi Arabia is already rerouting tankers that used to sail south on the Red Sea through Bab el Mandeb. Instead they now travel north through the Suez Canal and around Africa to reach South Korea, Japan, and other destinations, making shipping more expensive. “This is a more dangerous, more risky world, where the new normal is that sea lanes that you depend on are not secure,” a Singapore-based senior shipping adviser at United Against Nuclear Iran, Charlie Brown, tells the Sun. “Costs will go up because in the long term, the assumption of an open sea lane, at the most efficient way, is just no longer valid.”The Yemeni Houthis are amassing wins this week over their rival, the widely-recognized, Saudi-backed Yemeni government. Riyadh’s losses expose its regional weakness, while its recent “Mecca Accord” partners in the defense alliance, Turkey and Pakistan, are yet to rush to its aid.Hostilities between the Saudi-backed government and the Houthis resumed when an Iranian plane, likely loaded with munition, arrived at the Houthi-controlled airport on July 13. Saudi fighter jets bombed and destroyed the landing field in response. This week the Saudis captured from the Houthis a desert area east of the Red Sea, but the Houthis gained the bigger prize on the coast, nearing Bab el Mandeb.“The Saudis can start a fight but they have no follow up and no strategy,” a Mideast watching diplomat at the United Nations tells the Sun. “The Mecca Accord is a paper tiger,” he adds. Saudi losses advances, he said, benefit Iran. Following losses for Hezbollah and Hamas since October 7, 2023, the Islamic Republic now increasingly relies on the Houthis and Iraqi militias as its top proxies.The Houthis threats to freedom of navigation fits neatly with Tehran’s war goals, and Iranian-backed Shiite militias in Iraq are aiding that goal as well. “Iran fully supports the Yemeni militia, but the Houthis are semi independent,” a veteran Mideast watcher at Haifa University and former adviser to several American presidents, Amatzia Bar’am, tells the Sun. “The Iranians instructed the Houthis to shut down Bab el-Mandeb immediately after the launch of the war on February 28, but the Houthis only started doing so in July.”Despite Baghdad’s opposition, Mr Bar’am adds, three Iraqi militias affiliated with Tehran are providing military support for the Houthis, including by bombing Saudi oil installations and military bases with Iranian-made drones and missiles.

Houthis Capture Key Red Sea Port as They March Toward Aden and Spike Oil Prices

Houthis Capture Key Red Sea Port as They March Toward Aden and Spike Oil Prices

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