Houthis take Perim Island and close a second oil gate

Yemeni government sources told Reuters on Friday that Houthi fighters reached Perim Island, also called Mayyun, after Saudi-backed troops pulled off the rock the day before. A local official speaking to AFP said the landing completed a takeover of the Bab el-Mandeb area. Witnesses described gunmen driving military vehicles along the shore that faces the island.

Perim is 13 square kilometres. It sits in the narrowest stretch of the strait that joins the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and splits the waterway into two shipping channels. The island has an airstrip. For years the internationally recognised government treated it as a prize that had to stay out of Houthi hands. That calculation is now obsolete.

The landing followed a week-long push that began on 3 September. Houthi spokesman Yahya Sarea said the campaign expelled Saudi-backed forces from six districts in Taiz and Hodeidah and took about 5,400 square kilometres. Mocha, the Red Sea port, fell on Thursday. Dhubab, the last major town on the western coast and the one that looks straight at Perim, fell soon after. Military officials in the recognised government later told AFP that Greater and Lesser Hanish, the last two islands in the strait that were still outside Houthi control, had also been taken. Zuqar was reported in their hands as well.

Sarea said maritime navigation would stay safe for every company except Saudi vessels. He framed the offensive as a reply to Saudi air strikes and to what he called a blockade of Houthi-held areas. The group has been hitting ships linked to Saudi crude since July. The International Energy Agency said on Friday that Saudi supply fell 2.3 million barrels a day in August to 6 million barrels a day, the lowest monthly figure in more than thirty years, in part because of those attacks.

The strait already mattered before this week. After the United States and Israel opened a war with Iran in late February, Tehran restricted the Strait of Hormuz on the other side of the Arabian Peninsula. Traffic that once moved out of the Gulf had to find other routes or stop. Bab el-Mandeb then became the remaining choke point for oil leaving the Red Sea and for goods moving between Asia and Europe via Suez. Control of Perim puts Houthi forces inside that gate rather than on its approaches.

Residents in Khor Omeira described government soldiers selling weapons cheaply and discarding uniforms as they headed toward Aden. The recognised government said it would try to retake the lost ground. Saudi aircraft hit Mocha airport after the port fell. Riyadh has not issued a detailed public comment on the island itself.

Iran-aligned officials treated the week as a gain in the wider war. If both Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb are under pressure at once, cargoes that used to have two exits from the region now have none that is reliable. Brent has already traded above $100 a barrel in recent sessions. The East-West pipeline that Saudi Arabia shut after drones launched from Iraqi territory hit pump stations was one of the few overland options left for crude that can no longer use Hormuz.

The number of fighters on Perim is small, according to the local official who spoke to AFP. The likely next step is a position on the hills that look down on the two channels. That is enough. A battery or a drone team on a 13-square-kilometre island does not need to occupy the whole strait. It only needs a clear shot at the ships that have to pass it.

What remains unsettled is whether the United States will treat the island as a shipping problem or as a second front. Washington has limited its public response so far to intelligence and targeting support for partners. The Houthi statement that only Saudi ships are now unsafe is a test of that restraint. Insurers and owners will decide the practical effect before any government does.