Yemeni forces say they have taken Mokha and cut the road to Bab al-Mandab

Saudi-backed Yemeni forces said on Monday, 5 October, that they had captured the Red Sea city of Mokha and secured the Bab al-Mandab Strait, the narrow mouth of the Red Sea. The Yemeni military named three formations in the advance: National Shield, the Giants Brigades and the Tihama Resistance, and said Saudi air strikes had supported them. A day earlier the internationally recognised government had declared a full offensive aimed at taking back territory held by the Houthis.

The claim is disputed in the first 24 hours, which is the fact a reader needs before the map changes. Four government sources told Reuters that the units had reached the outskirts of Mokha by late Monday and that Houthi fighters were retreating, not that the city had fallen. Sources who spoke to AFP would not confirm the capture. They said government forces had taken Dhubab military airfield and cut the road linking Dhubab district to the Bab al-Mandab area. The military's own earlier line was that Dhubab airport, about 45 kilometres south of Mokha, had been seized and that Houthi fighters in the nearby town were under siege. Houthi-run media denied advances in Dhubab.

Why this strip of coast is the objective

Bab al-Mandab is the choke point between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, about 26 kilometres across at its narrowest useful channel. Oil, container traffic and the Suez route depend on it. The Houthis have used the Red Sea coast and missiles fired from inland Yemen to hit shipping since late 2023, which pulled US and European navies into convoy duty and pushed some lines around the Cape. A government force on the strait does not by itself stop inland launch sites. It does change who holds the harbours and the coastal road.

Mokha is the port that anchors that road. Dhubab is the district south of it, closer to the strait. If the Reuters version is right, the advance has cut a road and taken an airfield but has not yet held the town. If the military statement is right, Mokha fell on Monday afternoon. Both can be true a few hours apart. Neither has been settled by independent observation. The New York Times reported video, which it had verified, of government forces near the strait, and statements from allied militia channels that they had pushed into Dhubab and severed its road to Mokha.

Riyadh's role, and the Houthi reply

The offensive is not a purely Yemeni decision. The recognised government depends on Saudi money and air power. Major General Turki al-Maliki, spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition, said the coalition had destroyed Houthi weapons depots, stores of maritime explosives, and naval mines. Residents in Riyadh reported explosions on Monday. Saudi authorities had not confirmed strikes on the capital. The New York Times noted the sound of multiple blasts without an official Saudi account of what was hit.

The Houthi reply was aimed at aviation as much as at the coast. A statement warned international airlines using Saudi airspace to stop flights, and called the kingdom an operations zone, with an exception for the airspace over Mecca and Medina. That is a threat, not a demonstrated closure. It is also the kind of statement that moves insurance and routing decisions before any missile is fired. Airlines and their underwriters have spent two years pricing Houthi risk. A fresh warning, on the first day of a coastal offensive, is part of the economic effect even if no aircraft is diverted.

What would count as confirmation

The useful test over the next two days is physical. A government unit inside Mokha port, a reopened coastal road under one flag, or a Houthi admission of a withdrawal would settle the contradiction between the military statement and the Reuters sources. Until then the durable facts are these: an offensive was declared on Sunday, Saudi aircraft struck Houthi stores on Monday, Dhubab airfield is claimed by the advancing side, and Bab al-Mandab is the stated objective. The Houthis still hold Sanaa and the highland road network. A coastal gain, even if Mokha is confirmed, does not reverse twelve years of territorial loss by itself. It does put a Saudi-backed force on the waterway that global shipping has been avoiding.