Can Iran-Backed Houthis Really Shut Down the Red Sea Gateway?

Iran has told Yemen’s Houthi terrorists to get ready to close a key Red Sea chokepoint if the United States targets Iranian power infrastructure, Reuters reported. Analysts cautioned that even if the Houthis are unable to fully block the route, any major escalation could severely disrupt international shipping.

“This threat should be taken seriously,” Nadwa Al-Dawsari of the Middle East Institute told INC News. “With recent escalation and U.S. strikes on Iran, Tehran has already signaled that the Bab al-Mandab could become part of its response.”

According to Reuters, three sources said Thursday that Iranian leaders had discussed pressing the Houthis to close the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and had recently passed that request to the group. One source close to the Houthis said missiles and drones had been positioned near the waterway, with the group waiting for an order to begin striking ships.

Edmund Fitton-Brown, a former British ambassador to Yemen and senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told INC News in a recent report that a renewed full-scale Houthi campaign against maritime traffic could pull the region into broader conflict.

“It will be interesting if the Houthis do go all in, and resume their campaign against Red Sea shipping with full intensity,” Fitton-Brown said. “This will draw international anger and likely result in Israeli and U.S. strikes on Sana’a and Hodeida.”

“There is potential for a general escalation if this happens, albeit one in which the allies have a clear military advantage,” he added.

Al-Dawsari said the Houthis have continued developing the weapons needed to threaten the narrow shipping corridor despite largely refraining from maritime attacks over the past year.

“While the Houthis have largely refrained from attacking shipping for about a year, they have continued to advance their maritime capabilities, including missiles, drones and sea mines,” she said. “They may not be able to fully close the strait, but they could significantly disrupt shipping and raise costs and risks for commercial traffic.”

The State Department said it was closely monitoring the situation. “The Administration’s National Security Strategy states that our core interests in the Middle East include ensuring freedom of navigation in the Red Sea and the region as well as preventing the export of terrorism,” a State Department spokesperson told INC News. “In line with this strategy, the Administration has clearly demonstrated its commitment to defending these interests against Houthi and Iranian aggression.”

The spokesperson said the U.S. “continues to actively enforce the Trump Administration’s designation of the Houthis as a Foreign Terrorist Organization and disrupt Iranian funding and arms transfers,” while condemning “Iran’s flagrant violation of Yemen’s sovereignty and international law in threatening freedom of navigation and supporting their Houthi proxies.”

The State department added that Washington has “worked to cut off the Houthis’ access to financing and weapons at every opportunity,” including sanctioning “more than 200 entities associated with the organization to limit their ability to carry out their terrorist actions.”

Despite years of sanctions and military operations, experts say the Houthis remain capable of significantly disrupting shipping through the Bab el-Mandeb, even if they cannot completely close the strait. Its previous missile and drone campaign demonstrated that repeated attacks — or even a credible threat of them — can push major shipping companies to reroute vessels around Africa, driving up insurance, fuel and freight costs.

The Bab el-Mandeb connects the Gulf of Aden to the Red Sea and Suez Canal, making it one of the world’s most important maritime choke points. The consequences of renewed attacks would be especially severe because Iran has already disrupted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, historically the principal route for roughly one-fifth of global energy supplies.

A substantial volume of Gulf oil has consequently been redirected through Saudi Arabia to the Red Sea port of Yanbu. Reuters reported that the Bab el-Mandeb route now carries approximately 7% of global energy supplies and that Saudi Arabia has shifted about 70% of its energy exports through Yanbu.

The reported instructions also raise new questions about how much control Tehran exercises over major Houthi military decisions. 

“Any decision to escalate in the Bab al-Mandab would be strategic and tied more to the interests of Iran and the Axis of Resistance than to Houthi interests alone,” Al-Dawsari said. “Decisions of this magnitude are likely coordinated through the Axis’ joint operations room under IRGC oversight.”

A source close to the Houthis claimed representatives of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Yemen would control the timing of any move against the strait, Reuters reported.

The latest warning follows earlier Houthi threats against maritime traffic. In the June 12 report, INC News reported that the group had announced a complete ban on Israeli-owned ships in the Red Sea and declared them “legitimate targets.”

A State Department spokesperson told INC News at the time that the actions of Iran and the Houthis were “unacceptable” and “dangerous,” warning that they could inflame regional tensions and further disrupt global supply chains.

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres has “repeatedly condemned” Houthis attacks against ships in the Red Sea and called on all parties Thursday to avoid further escalation, his spokesperson, Stéphane Dujarric, told INC News.

“Any disruptions or attacks would endanger the safety and security of seafarers, freedom of navigation and the stability of global supply chains and have a negative impact on the economic and humanitarian situation in Yemen and beyond,” Dujarric said. “The Secretary-General underscores that U.N. Security Council Resolution 2722 (2024) must be fully respected in its entirety,” he said on the resolution condemning at least two dozen Houthis attacks on commercial vessels since November 2023 and demanding an immediate end to the attacks. 

The emerging threat has also renewed scrutiny of the Iranian weapons networks that helped build the Houthis’ missile and drone arsenal.

Amr Al-Bidh, foreign affairs chief of the Southern Arabian Transitional Council, said that the reported threat also exposed broader failures in the handling of Yemen’s security crisis. “The fact that individuals convicted of trafficking Iranian weapons to the Houthis and leading terrorist operations are now being released under a U.N.-brokered deal only underscores how poorly the Yemen crisis is being managed,” he said, “the main beneficiary of this vacuum is Iran, as seen in its credible threat to close the Bab al-Mandab Strait.”

In a July 15 letter obtained by INC News, the Southern Arabian Transitional Council formerly known as the Southern Transitional Council, a southern Yemeni separatist movement that seeks greater autonomy or independence for the territory of the former South Yemen, warned U.N. Special Envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg that a U.N.-facilitated detainee agreement may include people the council says were convicted of assisting Iranian weapons transfers to the Houthis.

An annex identifies individuals the council alleges were members of a cell that smuggled drones, aviation fuel and heavy and medium weapons from Iran to Sanaa.

The Office of the U.N. Special Envoy for Yemen said it received the letter only after the agreement had already been signed and stressed that it does not determine which detainees are released.

“We have received the letter after the agreement was signed,” spokesperson Ismini Palla told INC News. “The United Nations – as well as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) – do not decide who is released and who remains in detention. Our role is limited to mediating the negotiations and ICRC leads on the implementation of the release operation.”

Palla added that “the names of those released are proposed and agreed between the parties under the framework of the Stockholm Agreement on prisoners’ exchange of 2018.”

INC News reached out to the State Department and the Iranian Mission to the United Nations on the latest developments.