Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces drove Houthi fighters from most of the Red Sea coastline around the Bab el-Mandeb Strait on Monday, retaking the Dhubab district and pushing into the outskirts of Mocha, the Yemeni defence ministry said.
The advance undoes part of what the Houthis seized in a lightning September offensive, when the group took roughly 90 miles of coast and the strait itself in a matter of weeks, sending shockwaves through energy markets and Red Sea shipping. Government sources said pro-government troops, backed by hours of Saudi air strikes, reached the edge of Mocha late on Monday, and the defence ministry said the port city had already fallen. Houthi officials called those claims baseless, and Reuters reported it could not independently verify the extent of the government gains.
Four government sources told Reuters that Houthi fighters were retreating into the highlands as the advance moved north. Saudi Arabia also said its air force had flown hundreds of sorties to shield Yemeni ground troops and to keep the strait clear for shipping.
The strait matters more than usual
Bab el-Mandeb is the southern gateway linking the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, and in normal years around a fifth of global seaborne oil transits the wider Red Sea corridor. Its importance has grown sharply since Iran moved to choke traffic through the Strait of Hormuz at the start of the US-Iran war in February, forcing Gulf producers to lean harder on routes that bypass the Persian Gulf entirely. A reopened Bab el-Mandeb widens those options again.
Tracked flows show how fragile the progress is. Provisional data from the tanker-tracking firm Kpler, cited by Reuters, showed Middle East crude exports above pre-war levels on four of the seven days in the final week of September, the first time that has happened since the war began. Any renewed Houthi campaign along the coast would put that recovery at risk.
The Houthis hit back on other fronts
While the coast slipped from their grip, the Houthis pushed forward elsewhere. Their forces advanced against government positions near Taiz, cutting sections of the Taiz-Aden road and, according to several Yemeni military sources, tightening a siege around the city. The Houthi-run news agency quoted a military source as saying their forces had driven government troops from a district in Taiz province and reached the area near the head of Yemen's interim presidential council.
The group also kept up its cross-border pressure on the kingdom. Houthi officials said drones and ballistic missiles struck the King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh and an Aramco refinery in Rabigh on the Red Sea coast, among other targets. Saudi Arabia has not confirmed those claims. A source in the Saudi energy sector told AFP separately that a fresh attack on Sunday had again halted pumping on the East-West pipeline at the Khurais pumping station, part of the infrastructure that moves crude around Iran's naval blockade of Hormuz.
Saudi-led coalition forces responded in kind. A coalition spokesman said its navy destroyed Houthi weapons depots and naval mine stores in Hodeidah, a Red Sea province, disrupting what it described as a planned attack on civilian shipping lanes in the southern Red Sea.
Allies weigh in
Pakistan and Turkey have pledged to send troops to Saudi Arabia under a joint defence agreement signed in August, after emergency talks in Riyadh among the three governments on Monday. Officials did not spell out the deployments' role, but the agreement commits each side to come to the others' aid after an attack, and Pakistan has publicly called the Houthis' actions on Saudi soil a direct threat to Gulf stability.
The United Nations Secretary-General's office said it was deeply concerned by the sharp escalation in fighting and condemned continued Houthi cross-border attacks on Saudi Arabia.
Why this fight is wider than Yemen
The Houthi push for the Red Sea coast this summer was one of a series of regional blows that disrupted shipping and pushed the price of oil higher. Controlling Bab el-Mandeb gave the group leverage over a corridor that carries crude and refined products out of the Arabian Peninsula, alongside Iran's campaign against traffic through Hormuz. Monday's reversal is the first real check on that momentum, but it is not yet decisive, and the Houthi statement kept up the threat of drone and missile attacks on Saudi shipping lanes.
For traders, the fight has kept a risk premium in place even as tracked flows recovered. Brent crude settled just above the $100-a-barrel mark on Monday at $100.32 and WTI crude finished at $89.43, with the market weighing improved Gulf exports against the risk of new attacks on Red Sea shipping and Saudi export infrastructure.
President Donald Trump has publicly said the US-Iran war could end soon, but no date has been set, and the Houthis have shown no sign of standing down their own attacks. Any broader settlement that reopens Hormuz would likely require the group to end its campaign along the coast, and Monday's losses look like a step in that direction.
What to watch next
Three questions will shape the next few days. First, whether government forces can hold the retaken coast against a Houthi counterattack, or whether Monday's advance proves temporary. Second, whether Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey turn their pledge into an actual joint force with defined roles, something the three have not fully clarified. Third, whether the Houthi campaign against Saudi infrastructure, including the East-West pipeline, escalates beyond what has been seen so far this month.
For energy markets, the practical signal so far is a fragile improvement. Tracked crude flows have recovered, the strait and its approaches have reopened to commercial traffic, and government forces hold more of the coast today than they did on Friday. None of that would survive a full collapse of Monday's gains, and the Houthis remain capable of striking, as they have shown repeatedly this month.