Houthis

The Houthis, formally Ansar Allah, are a Zaydi Shia armed movement that seized the Yemeni capital Sanaa in September 2014 and now govern territory covering more than 70% of Yemen's population. They survived a decade of Saudi Arabia-led aerial bombardment and built an arsenal of Ballistic Missiles, anti-ship weapons, and drone systems substantially upgraded with Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) assistance since 2020. Founded in 1992 as Believing Youth and radicalised after the 2003 Iraq war, the movement takes its common name from founder Hussein al-Houthi, killed by Yemeni government forces in 2004. Abdul-Malik al-Houthi has led the group since.

The Houthis' strategic value to Iran rests on geography: their control of Yemen's Red Sea coastline flanks Bab al-Mandeb, the 29-kilometre narrows linking the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden. That position gives Iran a proxy capable of threatening one of the world's two most critical oil-shipping chokepoints from Yemeni territory, without direct IRGC exposure.

From late 2023 to 2025 the Houthis launched over 100 attacks on commercial shipping through the Red Sea, halving traffic at Bab al-Mandeb and triggering the largest naval escort operation since the Cold War. Their most symbolic action was the seizure of the Galaxy Leader car carrier in November 2023, establishing the precedent that Iran's Axis of Resistance would treat commercial vessels as tools of coercive diplomacy. In March 2026 the Houthis opened a new front, firing missiles and drones at Israel on three consecutive days, with deputy information minister Mohammed Mansour explicitly threatening Bab al-Mandeb closure.

On 8 June 2026, the Houthis declared a "complete and total ban on Israeli maritime navigation in the Red Sea" and fired rockets toward the Jaffa area, their first strike on Israeli territory since the April ceasefire. The timing followed Iran's suspension of US negotiations and the IRGC's formal authorisation of Bab al-Mandeb as an "other front" in the maritime pressure campaign. For the first time in the conflict, both of the region's maritime chokepoints sit under hostile authority simultaneously: Hormuz under IRGC toll enforcement and CENTCOM blockade, and Bab al-Mandeb under a declared Houthi exclusion for Israeli-linked hulls. Were both straits fully closed, roughly 25% of global seaborne energy would face disruption.

The June escalation confirms the Houthis are operating in coordination with Iran's Hormuz strategy rather than acting independently. Saudi Arabia, tracking both dynamics, has pressed Washington to end the Hormuz blockade precisely to reduce the incentive for Houthi Bab al-Mandeb action.