Today's Edition
SHAMSA AREF AL QUBAISI*
The Bab al-Mandab is a 29-kilometre-wide strait between Yemen and the Horn of Africa. Nearly a tenth of the world’s seaborne trade — practically everything that passes between Asia and Europe through the Suez Canal — must pass through it. Yemen sits on the eastern shore, and the Houthis control that coastline.
The militia seized Yemen's capital in 2014. A Saudi-led coalition intervened the following year, and a UN truce in 2022 froze the war without ending it.
The Kingdom maintained restrictions on air and sea traffic into Houthi-held territory, arguing that this stopped weapons from reaching the group. The Houthis referred to it as a siege.
That stalemate was broken this month over an aircraft. On July 3, an Iranian flight landed in Sanaa, the first in roughly a decade, and departed carrying a Houthi delegation to Tehran to attend the funeral of Iran's supreme leader. To prevent their return, the airstrip was bombed on July 13.
While Yemen's internationally recognised government claimed responsibility, the Houthis blamed Riyadh, launched attacks on the Abha airport, and declared Saudi oil facilities as targets. On July 20, they declared a maritime blockade against Saudi Arabia: a blockade for a blockade, calling the move “an eye for an eye” response.
If you follow that sequence, shipping appears to be the tool rather than the objective. The Houthis are making their own isolation intolerable for the state enforcing it. In February, they demanded $13 billion in reparations and an end to the restrictions.
There is a larger claim beneath that. A militia that governs northern Yemen without being recognised as its government has found a way to be treated as one — by demonstrating how decisions made in Sanaa affect oil prices in London.
The prize is not tonnage but sovereignty. Although the grievance being traded on is Yemeni, Tehran gains a second pressure point on Gulf energy exports.
What followed proved the point. The Strait of Hormuz was never closed. Within 48 hours, four tankers carrying 3.8 million barrels turned back, and daily transits plummeted by a third.
After strikes on Red Sea energy sites, only 11 vessels crossed on July 26, the lowest in months; 37 passed through two days later. Brent crude hit over $100 for the first time since May, before losing 13% in a session once the strikes paused. There have been virtually no ship strikes. The volatility is the weapon, and it is nearly free.
Timing gave it force. With Hormuz already a trickle, the Kingdom's Red Sea terminals had become the relief valve for global supply, carrying roughly 3.5 million barrels per day in June compared to 240,000 a year earlier.
Then there is a more subdued development: the Houthis are reportedly weighing transit fees on shipping, collected by a new authority with Iranian assistance, with exemptions proposed for Chinese vessels. That is not warfare but administration, disruption turned into revenue, and a standing claim to police an international waterway.
For the UAE, the reality is clear: both freight and insurance costs are increasing, and rerouting around the Cape adds up to three weeks. The security of maritime corridors is a shared responsibility. A blockade can be lifted. A toll booth, once built, tends to stay.
*The writer is a Researcher at TRENDS Research & Advisory
