What happened
Yemen’s Houthis on Thursday seized control of the key Red Sea port city of Mokha, giving the Iran-backed rebel group more control over the narrow Bab el-Mandeb Strait. The “lightning Houthi advance” down the Red Sea coast “came with direct guidance from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards seeking to open a new front in Iran’s war with the U.S.,” Reuters said, citing Yemeni and Iranian sources.
Who said what
Mokha, or Mocha, is about 50 miles north of Bab el-Mandeb, a “geopolitical chokepoint similar to the Strait of Hormuz” on the opposite side of the Arabian Peninsula, CNN said. If the Houthis “use their presence in Mokha to ramp up threats or attacks on shipping in the Red Sea,” The Associated Press said, that “gives Iran another potential point of leverage in its war with the U.S.”
Saudi Arabia “pivoted to the Red Sea to export most of its oil” after the Iran war shut down Hormuz, The New York Times said. After Mokha fell Thursday, Brent crude rose above $106 a barrel and U.S. diesel prices topped $6 a gallon for the first time.
What next?
The Houthis are “expected to try to push farther south to try and take territory next to the strait,” the Times said. An “effective Houthi blockade of Bab al-Mandeb” could “require U.S. military intervention,” CNN said.
The port of Mokha is about 50 miles north of a critical chokepoint
