Yemen's Houthi rebels have taken over the country's entire western coast and the strategically important island of Perim, giving them unmatched control over the Bab Al Mandeb strait, the Red Sea's main entry and exit point, Yemeni officials told The National.
“They took it all,” a Yemeni security official said. “All of the west has fallen, and Perim Island too. They have everything now.”
A second security official confirmed the details and said the Iran-backed Houthis had also taken control of Zuqar, another vital Red Sea island. A Houthi military spokesman said the group had seized a total of 5,400 square kilometres in a successful military sweep.
After taking control of the port city of Mokha on Thursday, the Houthis continued south on their offensive and seized Dhubab, the last major town on Yemen's western coast and one that directly overlooks the Bab Al Mandeb strait and Perim Island, also known as Mayyun. Houthi media reported strikes on Mokha on Friday.
Many people have fled the Yemeni port city of Mokha after Houthi rebels took over, while health workers have left most hospitals and several medical facilities have stopped functioning, Doctors Without Borders said on Friday.
The fighting comes during the biggest declared wave of US-Iran tit-for-tat attacks on Gulf shipping since the war began in late February.
As Iran's leadership celebrated a "great victory" for its allies in Yemen, a former British ambassador in the country said the capture of Mokha amounted to a failure by the US to see the Yemeni front as integral to the Iran war.
"The US failure to marshal an international coalition to enforce the law of the sea has implications for the Strait of Hormuz,” Edmund Fitton Brown told The National. “It should have been obvious that Bab Al Mandab and the Strait of Hormuz are linked to each other."
The Houthis gaining control of the waterway on the opposite side of the Arabian Peninsula from the Strait of Hormuz could give Iran a critical advantage in the war with the US, reducing supplies through a second major transit corridor and sending oil prices surging.
Zuqar and Perim islands are vital for maritime security. Fighting around the western coast put them at the centre of the rebel offensive and the wider US-Iran war.
Perim, with an area of 13 square kilometres, lies in the Bab Al Mandeb strait, between Yemen’s mainland and Djibouti, dividing the strait into two channels.
Its position gives whoever controls it an exceptional advantage to monitor vessels entering or leaving the Red Sea and those on the route towards the Suez Canal moving between Asia, the Gulf and Europe.
Zuqar lies in the Red Sea. Like Perim, it is a volcanic island, and covers about 130 square kilometres, sitting between mainland Yemen and Eritrea. It lies about 32km off Yemen’s west coast and 90km south-west of Hodeidah. The island was used by government forces to track shipping traffic, monitor Houthi movements and stop weapons smuggling in the Red Sea.
The Houthi takeover has been blamed on a security vacuum on the west coast. “The deterrence on the west coast was not there any more,” said Amr Al Bidh, an exiled political figure for Yemen’s Southern Movement.
Iranian guidance
The Houthi advance along Yemen's Red Sea coast came with direct guidance from the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, which was seeking to open a new front in Iran's war with the US, said Yemeni government, Iranian and regional sources.
Iran told the Houthis last week to escalate their attacks on Saudi Arabia and promised more funding, weapons and senior officers to help them do so, two Iranian sources told The National.
Several senior IRGC commanders had already travelled to Yemen to oversee Houthi attacks against Saudi Arabia after weeks of discussions over military strategy, a regional diplomat briefed by Tehran said.
A third Iranian source, an official, said Iran had held several meetings with allies including the Houthis and that the move on Mokha was a Houthi rather than an Iranian decision.
Inside Yemen, five military sources from the Saudi-backed and internationally recognised government said the IRGC had directed the Houthi campaign along the Red Sea coast.
Citing intercepted communications and the accounts of captured Houthi prisoners, the Yemeni military sources told Reuters they believed the Iranian push was being directed by Abdolreza Shahlaei, a high-ranking IRGC commander.
Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council vice chairman Tareq Saleh said government forces, including the National Resistance, Giants Brigades and Nation’s Shield forces, as well as units from Taiz, had suffered deaths and injuries during several days of Houthi attacks.
Nicholas Hopton, a former British ambassador to Yemen who met Mr Saleh in 2011, said the general had been able to "reinvent himself in this role" as a protector of the west coast. "Ultimately he is a survivor, and he will find a new off route."
