Iran has signaled that its effort to disrupt global energy markets could extend beyond the Strait of Hormuz into the Red Sea if U.S. military action continues a threat that hinges largely on cooperation from Iran’s Houthi allies in Yemen.
If the Bab el-Mandeb strait, the entrance to the Red Sea, were closed, it would open a second front in the broader energy crisis stemming from the Iran conflict. That’s because the Red Sea has become a critical fallback route for Gulf oil exports since Hormuz was partially blocked. A serious disruption at Bab el-Mandeb would raise the possibility that both of the region’s major oil export corridors could be shut down at the same time.
Iran’s partial blockade of Hormuz which followed Israeli and U.S. strikes on February 28 cut off most Gulf oil exports and triggered a global price spike. In response, Saudi Arabia rerouted more than 70% of its typical daily crude exports to the Red Sea port of Yanbu.
According to data from Kpler and Signal Ocean, exports from Yanbu have averaged around 4 million barrels per day recently, a sharp jump from roughly 973,000 barrels per day during the same period last year. Total petroleum volumes moving through Bab el-Mandeb reached 7.4 million barrels per day in June about 7% of global oil output up from 4.2 million barrels per day a year earlier.
This rerouted flow has helped cushion global oil prices, and Saudi Arabia is reportedly weighing an expansion of its crude pipeline network to the Red Sea coast. Any major Houthi disruption to this shipping including possible attacks on vessels or ports would pose a significantly bigger threat than earlier disruptions, since oil cargoes are now actively being loaded from that coastline, unlike during the group’s 2023 attacks when Gulf exports were still flowing unimpeded.
The Houthis are a Yemen-based movement with roots in the 1990s, having fought a long civil war against the Saudi-backed government in Yemen and launched missile and drone attacks on Gulf states. A 2022 truce between the warring Yemeni factions had mostly held until this week, when Yemen’s internationally recognized government said it struck Sanaa’s airport to prevent an Iranian aircraft from landing. The Houthis blamed Saudi Arabia and responded with missile fire toward Abha airport in southwestern Saudi Arabia. A senior Houthi politburo figure, Mohammad al-Farah, subsequently warned via Iranian state media that continued escalation could lead to a closure of Bab el-Mandeb.
Iran considers the Houthis part of its regional “Axis of Resistance” alongside Hezbollah and Iraqi Shi’ite militias, though the relationship differs from those other groups the Houthis don’t recognize Iran’s supreme leader as a religious authority in the same way, and their motivations are largely domestic even as they remain ideologically aligned with Tehran. The U.S. maintains that Iran has armed, funded, and trained the group with Hezbollah’s assistance; the Houthis reject being characterized as an Iranian proxy and say their weapons are self-developed. How far they’d act purely at Iran’s direction remains unclear.
Following Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel and Israel’s subsequent military campaign in Gaza, the Houthis began targeting Israel and Red Sea shipping in stated solidarity with Palestinians. Those attacks badly disrupted global shipping, pushing major carriers like Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd to reroute around Africa a considerably longer and costlier journey.
A U.S.-led effort to restore safe passage in the Red Sea included repeated strikes on Houthi positions and intercepted hundreds of drones and missiles. Sporadic Houthi attacks continued until the Gaza ceasefire fully ended them last October. Last month, the group threatened to bar Israel-linked vessels from the Red Sea after renewed Israeli strikes on Iran, though that threat was never carried out and Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd have since begun resuming some previously abandoned Red Sea routes, per a Maersk statement last week.
Unlike Hezbollah and Iraqi militias which joined the fight early with rocket and drone strikes after the initial U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran the Houthis have largely stayed on the sidelines. Houthi leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi said on March 5 that the group’s “fingers are on the trigger” and ready to act if circumstances demanded it.
Iranian officials have repeatedly floated the idea that the Houthis could enter the war; Quds Force commander Esmaeil Qaani said on June 1 that the group could move to block the Red Sea. In practice, the Houthis have mostly held back, limited to a handful of missile and drone strikes on Israel in late March and early April.
That relative restraint may reflect a deliberate choice to preserve the Red Sea closure threat as leverage for a larger escalation, or simply reluctance to reopen a costly domestic front with Saudi Arabia after years of ceasefire. Either way, it leaves a wide range of outcomes possible for how the group might act if the wider conflict intensifies.
