Houthi Coastal Grab Leaves Saudi Oil With No Clean Exit

Houthi forces took the Red Sea port of Mokha on Sept. 10 after Yemen’s west-coast garrison collapsed in two days. The Iran-aligned group then pushed onto Perim Island in the Bab el-Mandeb, the strait that in peacetime carries about 12 percent of world trade and, since late February, a growing share of Saudi crude that can no longer move cleanly through Hormuz.

The obvious scare is shipping. The harder fact is that the force built to hold that coast folded from a command failure, and Saudi Arabia’s remaining oil workaround now sits under the same guns.

Mokha Was Handed Over in a Panic

Mokha was the base of the National Resistance, the west-coast force led by Tareq Saleh, a vice president on Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council and the nephew of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh. The city had been in government-aligned hands since 2017. It did not fall after a long siege.

Yemen analyst Ibrahim Jalal wrote that the loss “was not a result of combat defeat.” Houthi intelligence penetration, weak coordination across allied units, a messy withdrawal order, and thin air cover hit a command post at Jabal al-Nar, 18 kilometres from the fighting. The port was given up in panic, and the Houthis moved 120 kilometres in two days, taking about 5,400 square kilometres in 48 hours.

The fall of Mocha and forces led by Tareq Saleh was not a result of combat defeat.

Ibrahim Jalal, Yemen analyst

Saleh said Houthi units had broken through “under intense fire pressure” and ordered the National Resistance, the Giants Brigades, Nation’s Shield forces, and Taiz axis units to “reorganise their ranks” and set up a new command post south of the city. He said those formations had “paid a heavy price, in martyrs and wounded.” By mid-September he had gone to Jeddah after meetings in Riyadh. The UK-trained coastguard that had worked under his naval arm fled across the water to Djibouti.

THE WEEK THE WEST COAST FELL

1. August 9, 2026: The Houthi campaign on the west-coast front starts, months into a wider war with Saudi-backed units.
2. September 3, 2026: Ground operations begin toward Mokha and the southern Hodeidah districts.
3. September 5, 2026: National Resistance and allied units push into Hays on the coastal plain and open a salient that is hard to hold.
4. September 9, 2026: Houthi fighters take Jabal al-Nar and Khalid ibn al-Walid camp, threatening to encircle the government pocket.
5. September 10, 2026: Mokha and its port are seized after a tactical retreat toward Dhubab.
6. September 11, 2026: Dhubab falls and boats reach Perim Island, also called Mayyun, in the Bab el-Mandeb.
7. September 14, 2026: Greater and Lesser Hanish are occupied after government-allied units withdraw from the archipelago.

The Institute for the Study of War said the Houthis exploited that Sept. 5 counteroffensive. Government-aligned troops had pushed north from lines they had held for years into open flatland, took Hays, and moved toward al-Jarrahi, a crossroads on a Houthi supply road between Hodeidah and Taiz. The salient threatened Houthi ground lines for a moment. It also put the attackers on ground they could not defend once the counterpunch came.

NEW: The Houthi offensive to capture territory near the Bab al Mandeb advances Iranian objectives under the current regional campaign that Iran is waging against the United States and its allies. Iran has recently pursued the following lines of effort under this regional… pic.twitter.com/TcLQriTIuL

— Institute for the Study of War (@TheStudyofWar) September 11, 2026

Video from Mokha after the withdrawal showed U.S.-made M-ATVs and MRAP vehicles in Houthi hands. The west-coast arsenal had been built with partner kit, paid first from Abu Dhabi and later from Riyadh. When the garrison ran, the kit changed sides.

The January War Inside the Anti-Houthi Camp

The men who were supposed to stop a Houthi run at the oil east had already spent the winter fighting one another. In December 2025, UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council forces swept through Hadramawt and al-Mahra, then into Shabwa and Abyan. Islah’s footprint shrank toward Marib, where Yemen’s largest oil fields sit.

From Jan. 2, 2026, Saudi-backed Homeland Shield units, with Saudi airpower, reversed those gains. Seiyun fell on Jan. 3 and Mukalla on Jan. 4. Aden was entered on Jan. 7. STC leader Aidarus al-Zoubaidi was removed from the council, charged with treason, and later fled. On Jan. 9 the STC announced it had dissolved. ACLED, a conflict monitor, described two sudden reversals in southern Yemen inside a month.

Rashad al-Alimi, the council chairman, then set up a Supreme Military Committee to pull anti-Houthi units under one command. On paper, Riyadh had clearer sway in the south than at any point since 2015. On the Red Sea coast the map still ran through Tareq Saleh’s National Resistance, the Giants, Nation’s Shield, and the Taiz axis. Those are the formations Jalal said failed to authenticate a withdrawal order when Jabal al-Nar went.

Al-Alimi told France’s outgoing ambassador on Sept. 17 that the Houthi advances were “temporary” and that government forces had, in an earlier phase of the war, taken back Aden and around 70 percent of Yemen’s land. That is his tally, not a new census. The west-coast collapse is the fact that has to be reversed first.

Perim Island Sits in the Middle of the Strait

The Bab el-Mandeb narrows to about 20 kilometres. Perim Island sits in that gap. Houthi boats reached it on Sept. 11 after government troops pulled off. Zuqar, about 80 kilometres north-west of Mokha, went in the same burst. Greater and Lesser Hanish, 160 kilometres north of the strait, were occupied on Sept. 14 when hundreds of government-allied fighters left the islands.

ISLANDS NOW UNDER HOUTHI CONTROL

• Perim (Mayyun): A rock in the shipping lane, taken on Sept. 11 after a government withdrawal.
• Zuqar: Seized by boat assault during the Mokha week, tightening the northern approach.
• Greater Hanish: Occupied on Sept. 14 after allied units left the archipelago.
• Lesser Hanish: Taken with its neighbour, 160 kilometres north of the strait.

The new shoreline is 32 kilometres, or 20 miles, from Djibouti, which hosts U.S. and other foreign bases. Closer range means cheaper munitions against ships, shorter warning times, and the option of mines, boats, and direct fire rather than only long-range drones. The Institute for the Study of War said the coastal grab also lets the Houthis pose as a guarantor of passage, the role Iran has tried to claim at Hormuz.

They do not yet hold the high ground that looks down on the lane. On Sept. 17, a government official on the coast said fighting around Kahbub in Al-Madaribah Wa Al-Aarah was in its fourth day and that Houthi units “had not been able to advance even an inch.” Local fighters who know the ridges are still on those slopes. The official said the Houthis might still try to push toward Aden, the government’s seat.

Yemeni warplanes have been hitting reinforcements on the Al-Bareh-Mokha road and in Jabal Habashi, west of Taiz. Holding a port and an island is not the same as locking the strait. It is close enough to change how captains, insurers, and oil traders price the next voyage.

Saudi Oil Now Has No Clean Way Out

The Iran war that began on Feb. 28 already squeezed the Strait of Hormuz, the route that used to carry the bulk of Gulf crude. Saudi Arabia’s workaround was to push oil west through the East-West pipeline, known as Petroline, to Yanbu on the Red Sea, then out through Bab el-Mandeb. That workaround is now under fire from both ends.

On Sept. 10, the same day Mokha fell, a Petroline pumping station was attacked and the line was shut. Windward, a shipping-risk firm, said the pipeline had carried 92 percent of seaborne crude through Yanbu by June. An earlier strike on the same east-west system was blamed on Iran-backed militias in Iraq. Houthi drones and missiles have also been aimed at Saudi plants and tankers.

After Mokha fell, West Texas Intermediate traded at $100.90 a barrel and Brent at $105.71. Freight moved even faster than the barrel. Windward assessed VLCC spot rates to transit Hormuz and load in the Gulf at just over $1 million a day, about $26 a barrel, or 25 percent of a $100 barrel, against a normal freight share of 1 to 3 percent.

THE SECOND CHOKEPOINT, IN FIGURES

Inbound AIS traffic through Bab el-Mandeb did not drop in the same way, Windward said. Ships are still moving. Captains are changing how they identify themselves, adding Russian affiliation, Turkish armed-guard status, and crew religion to destination fields that once leaned on Chinese-linked messaging. Fourteen Saudi-flagged tankers tracked between July 20 and Sept. 14 went the long way around the Cape of Good Hope.

Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, a member of the Houthis’ political bureau, put the demand in the open. The group wants Riyadh to lift a blockade on Houthi-held land. It also says, for now, that it is only hitting Saudi-linked ships, a line meant to keep Washington out.

It is Saudi Arabia that closed the Bab el-Mandeb strait to shipping traffic to and from Yemen and imposed an unjust blockade on the country.

Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, Houthi political bureau member

Valentin d’Hauthuille, a Middle East analyst at ACLED, said the present focus is Saudi-linked shipping, but the group could “extend the criteria according to which vessels are assessed to be ‘Saudi-linked’” if it wants more pressure on Riyadh and on oil prices. During the Gaza war the Houthis already hit ships with no clear tie to that fight. The limited-target line is a choice, not a physical limit.

Why Marib Is the Next Prize

Marib is the oil-and-gas province the Houthis have wanted since a failed campaign in 2020 and 2021. It is also a military hub for Saudi-backed units and the seat of Sultan al-Arada, a council member and the provincial governor. Heavy fighting has already returned around Harib, al-Jubah, al-Balaq, and Raghwan.

Jalal said the near-term pattern looks like probing and spreading government troops, with special watch on the Harib-Jawbah axis toward the SAFER oil and gas complex. A move on SAFER would be a bid to wrap the city without a house-to-house fight and to cut the revenue that still funds the Aden government. Al-Arada called the west-coast collapse “painful and regrettable.”

A Houthi political official, Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, said tribal elders in Marib had asked the group to “liberate” the province. That is a political claim, not proof of a tribal green light. The military fact is simpler. The same command culture that lost Mokha is what Riyadh is now asking to hold Marib, Taiz’s supply roads, and the Kahbub ridge at the same time.

Government units have made small pushes of their own in al-Jawf, al-Bayda, Hajjah, and al-Dhale, trying to tug Houthi reserves off the coast. Air strikes can burn trucks and dumps. They cannot take back a port without a ground force that answers one order. Jalal’s warning was that a government which “disperses itself faster than its adversary” will spend its remaining brigades on secondary fronts while the coast is wired with mines and trenches.

Turkey and Pakistan Are Waiting for a Request

On Aug. 7 in Mecca, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif signed a pact that would treat an attack on one as an attack on all. The public language is collective defense. The operating rule, spelled out later by Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, is that a member has to ask, and the help can be intelligence, logistics, or troops, depending on the threat.

Pakistan’s defence minister, Khawaja Asif, said an unprovoked attack on Saudi Arabia, or a spillover from Yemen into the kingdom, would make the pact “operational.” He gave no shape for that response. On Sept. 10, foreign ministry spokesperson Sajjad Haider Khan said a military reply under the agreement was “no such thing under discussion right now,” adding that Islamabad would act “when time comes.”

Turkey has condemned the Houthi strikes and backed Saudi territorial integrity. It has not sent a combat force into Yemen. Officials in Ankara and Islamabad said they had not received a Saudi request. The United States, which bombed the Houthis under both the Biden and Trump administrations, has shown no appetite to reopen that campaign, and the Houthis are trying to keep it that way by talking only about Saudi ships.

Oman hosted a meeting of U.S. and Houthi representatives in mid-September. A durable deal still runs through the wider Iran war: Tehran wants sanctions and a blockade lifted, Washington wants Hormuz fully open and a nuclear rollback, and neither side has moved since a short summer understanding fell apart. Saudi Arabia’s bill, if it arrives as diplomacy, will be paid in that larger room.

125,000 People Left Home This Month

The UN humanitarian office said at least 18,000 families, about 125,000 people, had fled since the start of September. The UN Human Rights Office verified 8 civilians killed and 32 injured between Sept. 1 and 14, with women and children half of the dead and more than half of the wounded. The Health Ministry in the Saudi-backed government gave a higher figure, saying the Houthis had killed around 150 civilians since Sept. 3. Those are different ledgers, not a single count.

Saudi Arabia said debris from an intercepted Houthi drone killed one person and wounded two inside the kingdom. Yemen’s civil war, now in its twelfth year, has already killed more than 150,000 people. The new displacement is landing on a response that is broke.

THE AID MATH BEHIND THE NEW FLIGHT

• People moved: About 125,000 since Sept. 1, the UN humanitarian office said, or 18,000 families.
• Verified civilian toll: 8 killed and 32 injured from Sept. 1 to 14, per the UN Human Rights Office.
• Appeal coverage: Donors have met 20.6 percent of the 2026 plan, or $444.7 million of $2.16 billion, the UN financial tracker showed by mid-September.
• Food pipeline: The food-security cluster had $119.6 million of $900 million, or 13.3 percent.

Sara Ahmed, a Doctors Without Borders supervisor in Mokha, said “the needs are extremely high right now” and that clinics were trying to keep basic care going through airstrikes. Mahida Ahmed fled Mokha for a camp in Aden with her children and no belongings; her husband was still stuck in the port city. “This war has been completely devastating for us,” she said.

Houthi detention of UN and aid staff has already throttled work in the north. Access to stretches of the west coast is now cut as well. The Houthis have struggled to pay civil servants and have pushed tax take toward the military, which is one reason the blockade, and the demand to lift it, sits at the centre of their politics.

On Sept. 17 the Kahbub ridge still held. Al-Alimi called the coastal losses temporary and promised to take the land back. Until a ground force that answers one order exists, Perim remains in Houthi hands, Petroline’s workaround is exposed, and the pact signed in Mecca has not been asked to move.