Houthis take Perim Island and close the last gap in the Bab el-Mandeb

Houthi fighters landed on Perim Island on Friday after Saudi-backed government troops pulled out a day earlier, completing a week-long drive that has given the group positions on both banks of the Bab el-Mandeb and on the rock that sits in the middle of it.

A local official from Yemen's internationally recognised government told AFP that boats carrying armed men reached the island, also known as Mayyun, after the withdrawal. "The Houthis have completed their takeover of the Bab al-Mandab area and Mayyun Island, which is located in the middle of the strait," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Witnesses told the same agency that gunmen were moving along the mainland shore in military vehicles.

Four government sources gave Reuters the same sequence. CNN was told the island had fallen by two separate government sources. A Yemeni security official speaking to The National put it more bluntly: "They took it all. All of the west has fallen, and Perim Island too."

Why this island matters

Perim is about 13 square kilometres. It splits the Bab el-Mandeb into two channels at the strait's narrowest point, between Yemen and Djibouti, and has its own airstrip. For years that made it a prize the Saudi-backed coalition worked to keep out of Houthi hands. Holding it is different from holding the approaches. It puts a force inside the shipping lane itself.

The landing follows Thursday's capture of Mokha, the Red Sea port, and the fall of Dhubab, the last major town on the western coast that looks directly onto the island. Officials also reported Houthi control of Zuqar and the Hanish islands further north. Taken together, the group now sits on Yemen's entire western seaboard and on the islands that watch the exit from the Red Sea into the Gulf of Aden.

The statement from Sanaa

Houthi military spokesman Yahya Sarea said a "large-scale" operation launched on 3 September had expelled "Saudi enemy" forces from six districts in Taiz and Hodeidah and that the campaign was a success. He said maritime navigation was "safe for all companies except for Saudi vessels." The statement did not name Perim. Saudi Arabia has not issued a public comment on the island's fall. Houthi media said Saudi aircraft struck Mokha airport twice on Friday.

Ahmed Nagi, a senior Yemen analyst at the International Crisis Group, told CNN the group is now "in a good position to increase their influence around Bab al-Mandeb" and to protect itself from ground operations coming from that stretch of coast. Tariq Saleh, a commander on the government side, had warned earlier this month that taking Perim would require "a massive international force and the navies" to reverse.

Two straits, one price

The timing is not local. Iran has restricted traffic through the Strait of Hormuz since the war with the United States and Israel began in late February. A fifth of the world's seaborne oil used to move through that channel. With Hormuz constrained, Bab el-Mandeb became the remaining short route between Asia, the Gulf and Europe via Suez. The Houthis, trained and supplied by Iran's Revolutionary Guards, now sit on that second choke point.

Brent crude has already traded above $100 a barrel this week. Diesel in the United States printed a record national average of $6.06 a gallon on 11 September. Saudi Arabia shut its East-West pipeline, Petroline, on Friday after drones launched from Iraq hit pump stations in the Riyadh and Medina regions the day before. That line had been raised to a stated capacity of 7 million barrels a day precisely so crude could reach the Red Sea if Hormuz stayed closed.

The United States has limited its direct role in the Yemen fight. Sources told CNN that Washington is not taking part in strikes, is not refuelling Saudi aircraft and is not providing other operational support for the campaign along the Red Sea coast. That leaves the new island garrison in place unless a different set of navies decides to move it.

What follows

Sarea's exception for Saudi ships is the immediate operational fact. Insurers, owners and navies now have to price a strait whose two banks and central island are held by the same force that has spent two years attacking commercial traffic. Reversing the landing would mean an amphibious or airborne operation against an island with an airstrip, under fire from the mainland at Dhubab.

The Houthis have announced that the offensive is over. The map they leave behind is the one that matters. Mokha, Dhubab, Zuqar, Hanish and Perim are no longer contested ground. They are held ground on the only other waterway that can substitute for Hormuz.