Yemen’s National Resistance says it destroyed a Houthi explosive boat in Bab al-Mandab
Yemen Herald News 
MOKHA, Yemen — Yemen’s National Resistance Forces said its naval units destroyed a Houthi explosive boat in the Bab al-Mandab Strait.
The force described the vessel as an unmanned boat rigged with explosives and said its naval division intercepted it before it reached a target.
The statement was brief and did not give the date or the precise location of the interception.
It did not say whether any vessel was nearby at the time.
No casualties were reported on either side.
The force said the boat was destroyed at sea and gave no account of wreckage or recovery.
The account rests on the National Resistance’s own statement about its own operation. No independent confirmation of the interception has been published.
The description of the boat as Houthi-operated is the force’s characterisation. The Houthi authorities did not comment on it.
The National Resistance Forces operate along Yemen’s Red Sea coast and are commanded by Tariq Saleh, a member of the Presidential Leadership Council.
They hold Mokha and stretches of the coastline facing the strait.
Mokha is a port city in Taiz governorate on Yemen’s Red Sea coast.
The force was built around units led by Tariq Saleh, a nephew of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh.
He joined the Presidential Leadership Council when it was formed in April 2022.
Mokha port was struck this month in an attack that killed at least eight people, according to a Yemeni government military official.
Bab al-Mandab is the passage between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.
It is one of the world’s shipping chokepoints, carrying traffic between Europe and Asia through the Suez Canal.
Yemen lies on its eastern shore and Djibouti and Eritrea on its western side.
The strait narrows to about 30 kilometres at its tightest point.
Perim Island, known in Yemen as Mayyun, sits within the passage and is Yemeni territory.
The strait has been a focus of attacks since the Houthis began targeting commercial shipping in late 2023.
The group described that campaign as support for Palestinians during the war in Gaza.
Traffic through the strait fell sharply during the campaign as operators rerouted vessels around southern Africa.
Routing a vessel around the Cape of Good Hope instead of through the Suez Canal adds roughly 10 days to an Asia-to-Europe voyage, according to shipping industry estimates.
Egypt reported a fall in Suez Canal revenue over the same period.
A cargo vessel was struck in the strait on Aug. 11, and six people were killed.
Four Pakistani crew members and one Indonesian were among the dead, according to reports by The National, the Times of Israel and NBC News.
The attackers struck again after rescue crews reached the vessel, killing two rescuers from the National Resistance Forces, NBC News reported.
Yemen’s government attributed that attack to the Houthis. The group did not confirm it.
Yemeni officials have warned that the Houthis intend to seize territory along the strait.
Three Houthi military sources and a spokesman for government forces near the waterway told Agence France-Presse that the group was preparing to advance.
The government has said it would treat any move on the coastline as an attempt to control the passage.
Explosive boats have been used in the waterway before.
The Saudi-led coalition said in 2019 that it had intercepted a boat loaded with explosives that it attributed to the Houthis.
Emirati forces reported destroying a similar craft off Yemen’s western coast in a separate incident.
Those accounts came from the forces that carried out the interceptions and were not independently verified at the time.
Unmanned surface craft packed with explosives are cheap to assemble and hard to detect against a busy shipping background.
Navies operating in the corridor have described them as a persistent hazard to merchant traffic.
The National Resistance did not say how its units identified or disabled the boat it reported destroying.
Naval missions from outside the region also patrol the corridor.
The European Union’s Operation Aspides began escorting merchant vessels in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden in February 2024.
The mission passed 30 months of operations this month and its mandate has been extended.
It reported escorting a further convoy through the corridor in August.
Aspides escorts vessels and does not carry a mandate for strikes on land.
Other navies operate in the Gulf of Aden under separate arrangements.
Yemen has been divided since 2014, when the Houthis took Sanaa.
The internationally recognised government operates from Aden.
A Presidential Leadership Council chaired by Rashad al-Alimi has held executive authority since April 2022.
A UN-brokered truce that began in April 2022 lapsed that October and has not been formally renewed.
Fighting has spread across several fronts this month, with clashes reported in Marib, al-Jawf, Hadramout, Hodeidah, Taiz, al-Dhale and Lahj.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, said on Aug. 17 that he was alarmed by the rising civilian toll and urged restraint.
The March 2026 Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan recorded more than 22 million people in Yemen as needing humanitarian assistance.
It listed 18.3 million people as acutely food insecure and 5.2 million as internally displaced.
The plan seeks $2.16 billion to reach 12 million people.
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