World News: Houthis Lie in Wait on Another Key Route for Oil

 

 

“Iran has successfully strangled the Persian Gulf, the critical maritime route for energy supplies. It hasn't yet prevented its foes from using a workaround that runs through the Red Sea. But that could change if the Houthis get involved.

 

The U.S. and its Mideast allies are closely watching the Yemeni militant group that -- armed and funded by Iran -- crippled shipping through the Red Sea for much of two years.

 

The Houthis have recently stepped up threatening rhetoric that has caught officials' attention. While they haven't started shooting, the militants are an important lever for Iran if it decides to further squeeze the global economy or expand its targets to Saudi Arabia and nearby U.S. assets, such as a base in Djibouti.

 

"If the Houthis enter the conflict, it really raises the stakes," said Adam Baron, a fellow at think tank New America who specializes in Yemen and the Gulf. "It pulls the Suez Canal and the Egyptians in, it brings Saudi further in."

 

Iran has long cultivated militia allies across the Middle East as a way to project power and as a deterrent against attack. Hezbollah, in Lebanon, and Iran-aligned militias in Iraq have jumped into the war to attack Israel and U.S. bases.

 

The Houthis are a notable holdout but have signaled they could enter at any moment.

 

"Our finger is on the trigger," Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, a senior Houthi official, said recently. "Yemen joining the conflict is only a matter of time."

 

Long dismissed as sandal-wearing mountain fighters, the Houthis are formidable combatants. The group seized control of Yemen's capital and many of its population centers more than a decade ago in a long-running civil war, fending off an Arab coalition led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

 

Houthi drone and missile attacks during the war in Gaza all but halted traffic through the Red Sea and Suez Canal, forcing shippers to take the longer journey around South Africa's Cape of Good Hope.

 

President Trump launched a campaign against the Houthis a year ago. The fight exposed U.S. sailors and pilots to a barrage of drones and missiles and ended after nearly two months in a simple cease-fire that left the Houthis battered but not broken.

 

Saudi Arabia has pipelines that allow it to partly circumvent Iran's blockade of the Strait of Hormuz by routing crude across the peninsula to the Red Sea port of Yanbu.

 

That exit path takes ships past hundreds of miles of Houthi-controlled coastline leading to another chokepoint at Bab al-Mandeb, the strait that links the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden.

 

"They've got super useful real estate," Baron said.” [1]

 

1. World News: Houthis Lie in Wait on Another Key Route for Oil. Abdel-Baqui, Omar; Kalin, Stephen; al-Batati, Saleh.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 25 Mar 2026: A6.