Houthis close on Mocha and Dhubab, the towns that sit on Bab el-Mandeb

Yemen's Houthis are close to taking the Red Sea towns that sit on the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, four military officers in the internationally recognised government told Reuters on Thursday. They named Mocha, the old coffee port, and Dhubab as the places now under pressure, and said the movement wants the whole Yemeni Red Sea coast.

Bab el-Mandeb, the Gate of Tears, is the southern door of the Red Sea. Yemen is on one bank. Djibouti and Eritrea are on the other. Crude and fuel from the Gulf bound for the Mediterranean through Suez or through the SUMED pipeline have to pass it. So do many cargoes heading the other way, including Russian oil going to Asia. The strait is already a shooting gallery. A second closed door behind the Strait of Hormuz would leave Gulf producers with no short sea road west.

The fighting that moved the line

A United Nations truce in 2022 froze most of the old Yemen war. That freeze has been cracking as the Iran war has run into its seventh month. In recent days Saudi-backed government forces and the Houthis have intensified clashes along the Red Sea and in the highlands of Taiz. The Houthis said on Wednesday that Saudi aircraft hit Jawf, Marib and Saada on the kingdom's border, plus Taiz in the south and Hodeidah on the coast, the port they have used as a base for attacks on shipping.

Those Saudi strikes followed Houthi attacks on southern Saudi cities and energy sites that wounded 73 people and paused some operations. The two theatres are now feeding each other. Riyadh is flying sorties into Yemen. The Houthis are pushing down the coast toward the waterway that, if held tightly, would let them meter traffic the way Iran has tried to meter Hormuz.

Yemen's ambassador, speaking to Al Jazeera, called the strait a chokepoint that belongs to the world and said a Houthi grip on it would create another Hormuz, with a wider shock to food and fuel. He recalled a line from former president Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi: if Iran holds both Bab el-Mandeb and Hormuz, it does not need a nuclear weapon.

What control of Mocha would mean

Mocha and Dhubab are not industrial ports on the scale of Jeddah or Jebel Ali. They are positions. From those roads and jetties a force can see, and fire on, the narrow traffic that has to hug the Yemeni shore. The Houthis already fire from Hodeidah and from inland launch points. Taking the southern towns would shorten the shot and complicate any attempt to escort ships through the gate.

China has already opened its own channel to the Houthis to keep tankers moving, sources told Reuters in July. Beijing is the largest buyer of Saudi crude. A fee system for other flags has been discussed around the same talks. None of that is a legal toll. It is a political price for not being hit. Full control of the Mocha-Dhubab stretch would make that price easier to enforce.

The map that oil desks will use

If Hormuz stays tight and Bab el-Mandeb tightens, the long way around Africa becomes the default for anyone who cannot get a pass. That adds weeks and dollars. Brent has already printed above $100 this week on the tanker war in the Gulf. A second strait in play is the next variable, not a second copy of the same story.

The four officers who spoke on Thursday are interested parties. They want Saudi air cover and more weapons. Their claim should be read as a warning from the losing side of a coastal fight, not as a finished occupation. The test is whether Mocha's harbour and the Dhubab road are still contested next week. If they are gone, the strait has a new landlord on its eastern bank.