The development comes as the wider US-Iran conflict continues to disrupt major oil routes across the region.
Iran-aligned Houthi forces have seized Yemen’s strategic port city of Mocha and advanced along the Red Sea coast toward islands near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, increasing the threat to Saudi Arabia’s oil exports and international shipping.
Yemeni government military sources told Reuters that the Houthis captured Mocha on Thursday and moved toward the Hanish Islands, giving the group greater leverage over the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a major shipping route linking the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden.
The development comes as the wider US-Iran conflict continues to disrupt major oil routes across the region.
The Houthis’ advance is significant because Saudi Arabia has increasingly relied on the Red Sea route to move oil to international markets after the conflict severely disrupted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. Saudi Arabia has been exporting about four million barrels of oil a day through its Red Sea port of Yanbu.
