Houthis take Perim Island and close a second choke on world oil

Four officials from Yemen's internationally recognised government told Reuters on 11 September that Houthi forces had reached Perim Island. A local official told AFP the group now had an effective grip on the Bab el-Mandeb Strait itself. Government troops had pulled off the island overnight. Houthi boats landed in the morning. There was no reported fight on the rock.

Perim, also called Mayun, is a volcanic island of about 13 square kilometres. It sits in the strait that joins the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and splits the passage into two shipping channels near its narrowest point. The waterway is roughly 20 kilometres across. The main channel is within about five kilometres of the island. Perim has its own airstrip. For years Saudi-backed forces treated it as a prize they could not afford to lose.

The landing completed a week-long coastal offensive. On 10 September the Houthis took the port city of Mocha, the historic coffee harbour on Yemen's Red Sea shore. They then took Dhubab, the last major town on the western coast that looks directly onto Perim. Yemeni security officials told The National that Zuqar, another Red Sea island, had also fallen. Houthi spokesman Yahya Sarea, speaking on al-Masirah television, said the operation launched on 3 September had taken about 5,400 square kilometres in western Yemen and pushed Saudi-backed forces out of six districts in Taiz and Hodeidah.

Sarea framed the campaign as a reply to Saudi "aggression". He said maritime traffic was safe for all companies except Saudi vessels. Riyadh answered the loss of Mocha with air raids on Houthi positions there on Friday. It has not issued a detailed public comment on Perim.

The timing is the point. The Strait of Hormuz, at the other end of the Arabian Peninsula, is already constrained by the war between Iran and the United States. Saudi Arabia shut its East-West pipeline after drones launched from Iraqi territory hit pumping stations. That pipeline was the kingdom's main overland route around Hormuz. With Perim in Houthi hands, the southern bypass through the Red Sea and Suez is no longer a quiet alternative.

About 12 percent of world goods typically move through Bab el-Mandeb. The International Energy Agency said Saudi crude supply fell 2.3 million barrels a day in August, to 6 million barrels a day, the lowest in more than three decades. Part of that drop came from attacks on ships using the strait. Oil has been trading above $100 a barrel in the same week.

Residents in Khor Omeira described disorder among retreating government units. Some soldiers sold weapons. Others discarded uniforms on the road toward Aden. That picture matters because holding Perim is different from seizing it. The island has no deep water, little cover and a short supply line across open sea. Saudi and American aircraft can still reach it. What the Houthis now have is a physical post inside the strait, not only batteries on the mainland. Sea mines, short-range weapons and boarding teams become easier to place on both channels.

Iran is the strategic beneficiary even if no Iranian unit landed on the island. Two chokepoints instead of one raises the cost of any campaign against Tehran and gives its allies a second tap on the oil price. Washington has so far limited its public response to intelligence and targeting support for Saudi forces rather than a new deployment to the island.

The question for insurers and skippers is narrower. If Houthi radio traffic treats Saudi-linked hulls as hostile and all others as safe, the market will test that distinction within days. If the distinction collapses, the Red Sea route that Europe uses when Hormuz is closed becomes another war zone with an island fortress in the middle of the channel.