Houthis take Greater and Lesser Hanish, tightening the Red Sea oil lane

Yemeni government officials and a Houthi official told the Associated Press on Monday that Ansar Allah now holds Greater Hanish and Lesser Hanish in the southern Red Sea. Fighters moved onto the islands after hundreds of government-allied troops left the archipelago. Yemen Shabab TV said nearly 1,000 soldiers who had been stationed on the Hanish group and on nearby Zuqar arrived in Djibouti after a Houthi attack.

The two islands sit about 160 kilometres, or 100 miles, north of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, between Yemen and Eritrea. They had been held by UAE-backed units allied with the internationally recognised government. Their loss extends Houthi reach deeper into the southern Red Sea after last week's capture of the mainland port of Mokha and of Mayun, also called Perim, which splits the strait into two shipping lanes.

That sequence matters because the Iran war has already shut the normal Gulf export path. In peacetime about a fifth of the world's traded oil and gas moves through the Strait of Hormuz. With that waterway under US and Iranian blockades, Saudi Arabia has sent crude south through the Red Sea and out Bab el-Mandeb toward Asian and European buyers. Each new island Ansar Allah takes sits closer to those tankers.

How the islands sit on the map

Bab el-Mandeb is a narrow gate between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. Ships that leave Suez for the Indian Ocean, or that leave Yanbu and other Red Sea terminals for Asia, have to pass it. Mayun Island sits inside the gate. The Hanish group sits farther north, still in Yemeni waters, with line of sight over the main north-south channel.

Control of those positions does not by itself close the strait. It does give a force that already fires missiles and drones from the mainland more places to watch, hide and launch. The Houthis spent 2023 and 2024 attacking commercial ships in these waters. In 2026 they are fighting a wider war in which Iran is a principal party and Saudi energy sites are repeated targets.

On Sunday, government forces launched attacks along the Red Sea coast while Houthis fired into Saudi Arabia. A Yemeni official called the loss of Mokha and Mayun a painful defeat and said more troops would be sent to the coast. China said on Monday it was deeply concerned about further Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia and called strikes on Saudi energy infrastructure unacceptable.

Oil, leverage and a postponed meeting

Repairs to a Saudi pipeline struck last week could take three to five weeks, two regional officials told AP. That line is the East-West system that feeds the Red Sea export hub at Yanbu, the route Riyadh has used as a Hormuz bypass. Brent futures jumped when markets opened after the shutdown. The Hanish seizure adds a second source of risk on the same corridor.

Iran said Saudi Arabia stood behind Oman's decision to postpone a meeting that was meant to bring Iran and other Gulf states together to talk about Hormuz. Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi wrote that the meeting was delayed in the interests of consensus. Bahrain had already said it would not sit with Tehran until diplomatic ties were restored.

The military facts on the Yemeni coast now run ahead of that diplomacy. Ansar Allah holds Mokha, Mayun and the Hanish pair. The recognised government still holds Aden and much of the south and east. The UAE-backed forces that left the islands are part of a loose coalition that has not always moved as one. That split is visible in the withdrawal to Djibouti rather than a fighting retreat along the coast.

What is still unknown

Officials who described the Hanish takeover spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to talk to the press. They did not give a precise hour for the handover. It is not clear how many Houthi fighters are on the islands, what weapons they brought, or whether Eritrea or Djibouti will treat the displaced units as a long-term presence.

It is also not clear how long Saudi Arabia can keep using the Red Sea route at the volumes needed to replace Hormuz barrels. Yanbu stocks were earlier described as covering five to seven days of exports. A multi-week pipeline outage plus a hostile force on the islands that watch the exit lane is a tighter constraint than either fact alone.

For shipowners the immediate question is insurance and routing. Some operators already divert around the Cape of Good Hope rather than risk the Red Sea. Each extra day at sea raises freight and burns more fuel. That cost shows up in landed crude prices in India, China and Europe even when no tanker is hit.

The next test is whether government-allied forces try to retake Mokha or Mayun, and whether the Houthis use the Hanish group only as an observation post or as a launch site. Until that is visible in firing data or satellite imagery, the durable fact is simpler. The force that now sits on Greater and Lesser Hanish sits on the remaining Saudi export path out of the Red Sea.