Houthis take Greater and Lesser Hanish after government forces withdraw

Yemeni government officials and a Houthi official said on Monday that Iran-aligned Houthi fighters had taken Greater Hanish and Lesser Hanish in the southern Red Sea. The islands sit about 160 kilometres north of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. The officials said the rebels moved in after hundreds of government-allied troops withdrew from the archipelago.

The three officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to talk to journalists. Their account was carried by the Associated Press from Cairo and later by The Hindu, ABC News and other wires. No independent photographs from the islands themselves were released on Monday.

The Hanish pair had been held by the United Arab Emirates and its southern Yemeni allies. The UAE later dismantled military infrastructure there after it fell out with Saudi Arabia and the internationally recognised Yemeni government earlier this year. That left a thin garrison. When those units pulled back, the Houthis walked onto ground that now sits on the main remaining export path for Saudi crude.

Mokha and Mayun came first

Last week the same force took the mainland port of Mokha and Mayun Island, also called Perim, which sits inside Bab el-Mandeb itself. A Yemeni official described the loss of Mokha as a painful defeat. The government said it would send more troops to the Red Sea coast. Saudi-backed units have tried to rally, but the Houthi gains met little organised resistance.

Fighting intensified on Sunday. Government forces attacked along the Red Sea littoral. The Houthis fired into Saudi Arabia, which backs the Yemeni government. Houthi media claimed a drone and missile strike on a military base in the south of the kingdom. Riyadh has not confirmed the claim in detail. China said on Monday it was deeply concerned about further Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia and called strikes on Saudi energy infrastructure unacceptable.

Yemen's internationally recognised government, through the state-run Saba agency, also said a national imports committee chaired by Central Bank governor Ahmed Ghaleb had banned the entry and circulation of all Iranian goods. The committee framed the ban as a national-interest measure. It does not change the military facts on the islands.

Why the waterway matters this month

Bab el-Mandeb connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. In peacetime it is one of several routes for oil and container traffic. This year it has become the main alternative to the Strait of Hormuz after Iran disrupted that channel in the war with the United States. Saudi Arabia has been sending more crude west to Yanbu on the Red Sea rather than east through Hormuz.

That workaround is now under pressure from two directions. Drone strikes last Thursday hit Saudi Arabia's East-West pipeline in the Riyadh and Medina regions. The Energy Ministry shut the line as a precaution. Industry sources told Reuters that Yanbu stockpiles can support exports for five to seven days if the pipeline stays closed, and that full repairs could take five to six weeks. Brent traded near $108 a barrel on Monday morning in the Gulf.

Houthi control of Mayun and the Hanish group gives the movement observation posts and firing positions along the lane that tankers must use if they want to leave the Red Sea southbound. Shipping companies already reroute around the Cape of Good Hope when the risk premium rises. Each extra day at sea raises freight and insurance costs. Those costs feed into diesel and jet-fuel prices in Asia and Europe.

What is still unknown

The officials did not say how many fighters landed on Greater and Lesser Hanish, what weapons they brought, or whether any government troops remained. There was no public satellite confirmation of new fortifications on Monday. The UAE's earlier withdrawal is a matter of record. The current chain of command on the islands is not.

Oman had planned a meeting in Salalah on Monday between Gulf states and Iran on Hormuz routing. Foreign minister Sayyid Badr Albusaidi postponed it in the interests of consensus. Iran said Saudi Arabia asked for the delay. Bahrain had already refused to sit with Iranian officials. That meeting is now separate from the island seizures, but both events sit on the same map: energy flows out of the Gulf and the Red Sea.

The next hard test is whether Saudi-backed units can hold the remaining coastal strip between Mokha and the Saudi border, and whether commercial traffic through Bab el-Mandeb slows further this week. Until a government or Houthi statement gives troop numbers and a date for any counter-attack, the verified fact is the one the officials gave on Monday: Greater and Lesser Hanish changed hands after the garrison left.