Houthis seize Mokha and Perim in Bab el-Mandeb Strait, ending four-year truce

Iran-backed Houthi forces captured the Red Sea port city of Mokha and the island of Perim in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait on September 10-11, 2026, according to reporting by PBS NewsHour, NBC News, and the Wall Street Journal. The seizure marks the end of a four-year tentative cease-fire between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia and signals the resumption of full-scale conflict in Yemen.

The Bab el-Mandeb narrows to approximately 19 miles at its narrowest point and serves as a critical gateway connecting the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean. Per PBS NewsHour, the strait is one of the world's most vital shipping chokepoints, with control of it carrying outsized leverage over global energy and trade flows. By taking Mokha and Perim, the Houthis are able to project power further into the Red Sea, giving them expanded targets and reducing navigable space for commercial shipping, according to PBS NewsHour reporting.

The Houthi advance has already moved crude markets. Brent crude climbed above $105 per barrel over concerns about disruption to global supply routes, and global oil prices appeared set to end the week above $100 a barrel for the first time since mid-May, per NBC News. The price movement reflects investor concern that effective Houthi control of the strait could further imperil oil exports while granting Iran powerful leverage in its conflict with the United States, according to NBC News reporting.

The territorial gains follow months of escalating hostilities. The Houthis attacked Saudi Arabian energy and military facilities across the border, and Saudi officials say those attacks destroyed civilian homes and wounded more than 70 people, per PBS NewsHour. Tensions spiked in July when Saudi Arabia bombed a Houthi-controlled airport to prevent an aircraft landing that Riyadh said carried Iranian weapons, according to PBS NewsHour reporting.

U.N. special envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg warned, per PBS NewsHour: "This renewed war should alarm us all. It effectively marks the end of the relative calm that Yemen has experienced for over four years since the U.N.-brokered truce. It not only threatens to plunge Yemen into a prolonged and expanding war, but also risks yet again dragging the country into the wider and unresolved regional confrontation with global repercussions."

The Houthis have disputed the scale of the threat. When asked whether the group plans to seize full control of Bab el-Mandeb, Houthi spokesperson Mohamed A-Bukhai stated, per PBS NewsHour: "We don't need to actually take control over Bab al-Mandab or the island. Our missiles can reach any ships in the sea." Separately, Houthi spokesman Mohammed Abdulsalam said on X, per NBC News, that "freedom of navigation and international trade through the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab remain safe and uninterrupted," adding there is "no need for international concern" about the strait.

A-Bukhai denied Iranian involvement in Yemen, saying, per PBS NewsHour: "There are no Iranian forces in Yemen. We actually depend on ourselves to manufacture all kinds of weapons, whether they are an AK rifle or a drone or even a hypersonic ballistic missile." Andreas Krieg, a senior lecturer at King's College London's School of Security Studies, cautioned, per NBC News, that even with control of Mokha, Dhubab, and Perim, the Houthis would not have sovereign control of the entire strait because the western littoral remains outside Yemen. However, Krieg told NBC News, such control would "give them a dramatically stronger ability to contest, threaten and potentially deny commercial use of the waterway," constituting "an extraordinary shock to the global trading system."

The conflict has displaced tens of thousands of civilians. The United Nations' International Organization for Migration reported Friday that at least 46,000 people had been displaced in Yemen since fighting escalated the previous week, with numbers rising across the West Coast and Taiz governorates, per NBC News. The organization called on all conflict parties to "guarantee safe humanitarian access and to protect civilians, aid workers and assets on the ground."