New Delhi: OSINT handles Friday cited satellite imagery and fire-detection data, including from Sentinel-3 and the NASA’s FIRMS system, to suggest that Iran-backed Houthis may have attacked sections of Saudi Arabia’s crucial East-West oil pipeline, the country’s principal route for exporting crude without transiting the Strait of Hormuz.
Citing satellite imagery it verified showing smoke in the vicinity of the pipeline Thursday, Reuters said there was no confirmation from Saudi Arabia of any incident in the area.There is no independent confirmation as yet that the pipeline itself was struck.
This came a day after Houthi forces in Yemen seized the Red Sea port city of Mocha and pushed towards the Hanish Islands, bringing the militia closer to Bab el-Mandeb, the 18-mile-wide maritime chokepoint through which much of the traffic between Asia and Europe passes.The fighting was the group’s most serious with the Saudi-backed government in years, giving the Houthis almost full control of Bab el-Mandeb.The developments spell a strategic disaster for both the US and its ally Saudi Arabia, effectively bringing Iran and its proxies closer to gaining control of the two chokepoints for western shipping on opposite sides of the Arabian peninsula: Bab el-Mandeb at the southern end of the Red Sea and the Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf.Following the capture of Mocha, Saudi’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud called US President Donald Trump twice Thursday, asking him to launch strikes against the Houthis but Trump declined, said an Axios report.The Houthi offensive could further disrupt energy supplies amid the existing squeeze.According to data from maritime intelligence firm Kpler, around 6-7 million barrels per day of crude currently transits Bab el-Mandeb. Roughly half of this is Saudi crude loaded from Yanbu on the Red Sea coast, while most of the remainder comprises Russian cargoes bound for India, with smaller shipments heading to China. In June, exports from Yanbu reached 4.14 million barrels per day, effectively redirecting about 64 percent of the volume that had traditionally moved through Ras Tanura, Saudi Arabia’s main eastern oil terminal.According to reports, three brigades of Saudi-backed forces collapsed and surrendered across the Hays, Al-Mokha, Al-Khokha, Taiz and Al-Jawf fronts, in what the Houthis called the “largest mass-capture operation in the history of modern warfare”.Houthi spokesperson Mohammed Abdulsalam, however, wrote on X that freedom of navigation and international trade through the Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb Strait remained safe, and that Houthi military operations were limited to specific targets and would continue until what the group describes as “aggression” against Yemen comes to an end.However, Saudi-flagged or Saudi-linked ships remained subject to a previously announced ban.According to a Reuters report, Tehran instructed the Houthis last week to intensify attacks on Saudi Arabia while pledging additional funding, weapons and senior military personnel to support the campaign. Iran officially denies backing the Houthis, calling it an ally rather than a ‘proxy’. However, the report said Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) officials had travelled to Yemen last week to oversee military operations.
