Just days after the outbreak of the war led by the United States and Israel against Iran, the leader of Yemen’s Houthi movement, Abdul Malik al-Houthi, announced that his group stood alongside Tehran. In a televised speech, he said that “hands are on the trigger and ready to move at any moment dictated by the military equations.”
The question, however, is: what tools can the Houthis use in this confrontation to support Iran?
On Wednesday, an Iranian military official warned in an interview with Qatar’s Al Jazeera channel that Iran might expand the scope of its military operations to include another strait if Washington commits what he described as a “strategic mistake.”
The Iranian official did not explicitly name the strait, but analysts believe he was referring to the Bab al-Mandab Strait — the highly sensitive maritime passage between the Yemeni and Djiboutian coasts. It serves as the southern gateway to the Red Sea and is one of the most critical chokepoints in global shipping.
Political writer and analyst Faisal al-Shammari says that if Iran decides to use the Houthis as a pressure card, Bab al-Mandab could become an influential strategic tool. However, he adds that it would not be an equivalent substitute for the Strait of Hormuz, which lies under Iran’s direct threat, while Bab al-Mandab depends on indirect influence through allies.
More than 20,000 cargo ships pass through the Bab al-Mandab Strait, transporting nearly 1.6 billion tons of goods and commodities. According to data from previous years, about 6.2 million barrels per day of crude oil and refined petroleum products transit this passage, accounting for roughly 9 percent of global seaborne oil trade.
Economic estimates indicate that between 12 percent and 15 percent of global trade passes through Bab al-Mandab. If navigation there were disrupted, commercial vessels would be forced to reroute around the African continent via the Cape of Good Hope — adding between ten days and two weeks to their journeys.
The consequences would not be limited to time delays. Operating costs and fuel consumption would also rise sharply, with additional expenses potentially reaching between $10 million and $14 million in some cases.
If the Houthis were to disrupt navigation in this strait, the repercussions would not be confined to global trade. The Gulf energy sector could also be affected. Saudi Arabia, for example, relies on a network of pipelines that transport oil from the eastern part of the kingdom to its ports on the Red Sea, from where shipments head to Asian markets. Closing this passage would strike one of the most vital routes for oil exports and could disrupt a significant portion of energy shipments leaving the region within weeks.
Thus, between the Strait of Hormuz — whose keys Iran holds in the Gulf — and Bab al-Mandab, where the Houthis possess the ability to influence maritime traffic, a maritime pressure equation is emerging that affects two of the most strategic energy trade corridors in the world.
Within the Gulf, Saudi Arabia is the only country with major ports on the Red Sea. These ports gain even greater importance amid the pressure Iran exerts in the Strait of Hormuz, as they represent the kingdom’s alternative maritime outlet. They also serve as a vital gateway for some Gulf states that essentially have no other maritime route to global markets except through Hormuz.
In assessing this equation, strategic expert Khaled Ibrahim al-Sallal believes Iran’s ability to turn Bab al-Mandab into a full deterrence tool remains limited due to its lack of geographic control over the strait and the presence of significant international forces in the Red Sea. For that reason, he expects the strait to remain within the realm of intermittent threats — an indirect pressure instrument complementing Tehran’s influence in Hormuz.
From another perspective, al-Shammari notes that Saudi Arabia retains room for maneuver through the East-West pipeline to Yanbu, in addition to its Red Sea ports. This means the scenario would not amount to a complete blockade, but it could impose heavy pressure on oil exports, supply chains, and international trade — making any escalation along this route costly for multiple parties.
As the confrontation in the Gulf region expands, global markets have begun repricing geopolitical risk. This has been reflected in rising oil and gas prices, declining stock markets, and increasing shipping and maritime insurance costs. The development also raises the possibility of a new economic shock for the global economy — potentially the most severe since the energy crisis that followed Russia’s war in Ukraine in 2022.
Al-Sallal believes that the impact of a disruption in the Strait of Hormuz combined with threats to Bab al-Mandab would not affect Gulf states equally. Kuwait, Qatar, and Iraq would be the most exposed because their exports depend almost entirely on Hormuz, while Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates possess some alternatives such as Red Sea ports or the Fujairah outlet outside Hormuz.
However, disrupting Bab al-Mandab could reduce the effectiveness of those alternatives because it would obstruct access to Europe through the Suez Canal. Oman would remain the least affected comparatively because it lies directly on the Arabian Sea outside the Strait of Hormuz. Al-Sallal believes the most likely scenario is a temporary maritime choke point that pressures supply chains and drives up shipping and energy costs.
Reports citing energy market analysts indicate that the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has already caused major disruptions in global oil supplies, with a sharp decline in tanker traffic through one of the world’s most important energy shipping routes. According to the reports, about 15 million barrels per day of crude oil have become stranded inside the Gulf, along with roughly 4.5 million barrels per day of refined petroleum products. Under normal circumstances, nearly one-fifth of the world’s seaborne oil trade passes through the strait.
The article is a translation of the original Arabic.
Sakina Abdallah
A Saudi writer, researcher, and TV presenter
