Houthis seize strategic island, Saudis close pipeline as fighting escalates | CBC News

Yemen's Iranian-backed Houthi rebels captured a strategic island at the southern entrance to the Red Sea, two officials said Friday, opening a new front in the Iran war and further threatening oil exports from Saudi Arabia, which shut down a major pipeline after it was attacked.

Saudi Arabia said it had shut down the pipeline after it was attacked the day before. The Saudi Ministry of Energy called the shutdown "a precautionary measure."

Saudi Arabia and the United States bombed Iranian-backed militias in Iraq in July after blaming them for drone attacks on Saudi oil facilities that had been claimed by the Houthis. Regional officials told The Associated Press that the Houthis helped the Iraqi militias plan and carry out the attacks.

Built in the 1980s, the East-West pipeline has played an important role in Saudi Arabia's ability to export oil following the disruption of the Strait of Hormuz during the Iran war. By early June, Saudi Arabia had more than doubled oil exports from the Red Sea port at the pipeline's end to more than five million barrels per day, according to the International Energy Agency.

Who are the Houthis? How they could send oil prices surging even further

Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter, has increasingly relied on the Red Sea to get its crude to market as an alternative to the Strait of Hormuz, where Iran has been striking ships. Houthi efforts to close the 28-kilometer-wide Bab el-Mandeb channel have made that route more complicated.

Still, markets are nervous, and experts have described the Houthis as highly unpredictable. Crude prices this week soared again above $100 US a barrel, giving Tehran more leverage in any talks.

Saudi Arabia struck the airport in the port city of Mokha after the Houthis seized it Thursday, a Houthi broadcaster said. There were no reports of damage or deaths.

A senior military official with Yemen's internationally recognized government told the AP that officials were stunned the Saudi air force did not try to prevent the capture of Mokha, about 80 kilometres from the strait. He assessed that Saudi Arabia did not get a green light from the U.S. to embark on a large-scale air campaign.

Shipping through the Bab al-Mandeb Strait had fallen by about 60 per cent since the Houthis began attacking some ships there in late 2023 and expressing solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. Shipping increased this year as Saudi Arabia sought alternatives to the Strait of Hormuz, but renewed Houthi threats have "curtailed" that activity, according to Lloyd's List Intelligence.

That has forced Saudi Arabia to find yet another alternative, sending its oil north through the Red Sea to the Mediterranean, either via the Suez Canal or a pipeline through Egypt — a far longer route for its clients in Asia. The Houthis have threatened that route as well, striking a Saudi vessel in the northern Red Sea in late August.

In a sign of the Houthis' importance to Tehran, the spokesperson for Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard on Wednesday called for any negotiated settlement with the U.S. to include Yemen, the first explicit reference to that front.