Houthi fighters reach Mayyun Island as government forces withdraw from Yemen's Red Sea coast

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BAB AL-MANDAB, Yemen — Houthi fighters landed on Mayyun Island in the Bab al-Mandab strait early Friday after government forces withdrew, Yemeni government sources told AFP and Reuters.

The island, also known as Perim, sits in the middle of the strait and splits it into two shipping lanes. Government officials said boats carrying fighters reached it once the defending troops had gone.

“The Houthis have completed their takeover of the Bab al-Mandab area,” one source told AFP.

Government sources told Reuters that Houthi units had also reached Dhubab, a town on the strait’s Yemeni coast.

The landing followed the capture of Mocha. Houthi fighters entered the Red Sea port at dawn on Thursday and then moved offshore towards the islands, Al Jazeera correspondent Maha Ali reported from Taiz.

The Sanaa-based Yemen Press Agency, citing field sources, said Houthi forces took the al-Omari camp, which overlooks the strait.

Yemen Herald could not independently verify the movements on the island itself.

Yahya Saree, the Houthi military spokesman, said in a statement posted on X that an operation launched on Sept. 3 had driven Saudi-backed forces out of six districts in Taiz and Hodeidah provinces, covering 5,400 square kilometres.

Saree said the operation hit seven military formations made up of 38 brigades and left hundreds of opposing fighters killed, captured or wounded. Neither the Yemeni government nor Saudi Arabia has confirmed those figures, and no independent count has been published.

Al Jazeera correspondent Nabil al-Yousefi, reporting from Sanaa, said the Houthi authorities had issued no official announcement claiming control of Bab al-Mandab.

The strait links the Gulf of Aden to the Red Sea. It is the southern approach to the Suez Canal and to Saudi oil terminals, and offers a route for crude to Europe that avoids the Strait of Hormuz.

Hormuz carried roughly a fifth of global energy shipments before the war between the United States and Iran began this year.

A member of the Houthi politburo said on Friday that shipping was not at risk. “Freedom of navigation and international trade in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab are safe and orderly,” Hazem al-Assad told the news outlet Al-Araby al-Jadeed. “There is no cause for international concern, as they face no danger from the Yemeni side.”

Saree said later on Friday that navigation was safe for all companies except Saudi ships, which he said the group had already barred.

Oil prices were set to close above $100 a barrel on Friday for the first time since mid-May. The average price of diesel in the United States passed $6 a gallon, or $1.59 a litre.

The International Energy Agency said on Friday that it expected global oil supply and demand to fall further this year than it had previously assumed, and that the US-Iran war would delay normal Middle East flows into 2027.

Fighting resumed on several fronts this month. Houthi forces opened an offensive in Taiz province on Sept. 3, and government units mounted counterattacks in al-Jawf and al-Bayda. The clashes later spread to al-Dhalea and Marib.

The Houthis struck targets in southern Saudi Arabia on Sept. 8, hitting sites near Abha, Najran, Jizan and Khamis Mushait. Saudi and international news organisations reported 73 people wounded.

Rashad al-Alimi, chairman of Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council, has said Iran wants to strengthen the Houthis so the group can exert influence over Bab al-Mandab. Iranian officials reject that account and say the Houthis act on their own.

Ebrahim Azizi, who heads the national security commission of Iran’s parliament, wrote on X that Yemen “stands alone against imperial hegemony on behalf of the entire region.”

Mohammad Mokhber, an adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, congratulated the group on what he called a “resounding victory.”

Iran’s foreign ministry issued a statement on Friday calling for an end to the Saudi blockade of Yemen and for a return to negotiations. It was Tehran’s first statement on Yemen since the fall of Mocha.

Houthi, Saudi and international outlets later reported that Saudi air strikes had hit Mocha airport. There was no immediate report of casualties or damage, and Al Jazeera said it could not verify the reports.

Al Jazeera correspondent Yousef Mawry said from Sanaa that there were few signs of government forces preparing a counteroffensive.

Andreas Krieg, a senior lecturer at the School of Security Studies at King’s College London, said the anti-Houthi camp was divided. He told Al Jazeera that narratives promoted by the Emiratis, and in part by the Saudis, had described a cohesive front line that did not exist.

What is visible instead, Krieg said, is “a highly fragmented anti-Houthi front, where different patrons have bought their loyalties through money,” with militias assembled to compete over constituencies in southern Yemen rather than to fight in the north.

The Houthis hold most of western Yemen. The group resumed attacks on Red Sea shipping and on the Saudi-backed government earlier this year after the United States went to war with Iran.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi spoke by telephone on Thursday with Pakistan’s army chief, Asim Munir, and separately with the Saudi foreign minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud. Both calls were reported to have covered regional stability.

The Financial Times reported on Friday that Oman, which has been negotiating with Iran over reopening the Strait of Hormuz, is arranging a meeting of Gulf states to discuss that plan.