LONDON: Four Saudi crude tankers were forced to turn back on Tuesday after Yemen’s Houthi militia warned that any vessel calling at Saudi ports could be targeted “in any location within the operational reach of the Yemeni Armed Forces,” marking a sharp escalation in their Red Sea campaign.
The threat, issued a day after the group declared a maritime blockade against Saudi Arabia, has heightened tensions around the Bab Al‑Mandab Strait, a critical chokepoint for global trade and energy flows.
It also pushes the Houthis beyond harassment of Israel‑linked shipping and more squarely into the Iran war, at a moment when Western naval forces are already deployed and Riyadh appears increasingly willing to defend its Red Sea lifelines.
However, by directly threatening Saudi‑bound trade, it has raised the stakes not only for Riyadh, but also for Washington and the wider international community.
“This latest escalation against Saudi Arabia is another example of the Houthis relying on military pressure and the threat of wider conflict as a negotiating tactic,” Mohammed Al-Basha, founder of US-based risk consultancy Basha Report, told Arab News.
“In doing so, they have shifted from presenting themselves as an oppressed movement to acting in ways that many now see as oppressive.”
The Iran‑backed militia that controls much of northern Yemen has long cast itself as part of Tehran’s “axis of resistance” alongside Hezbollah, Hamas and Iraqi militias.
After the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel triggered the war in Gaza, the Houthis began attacking Red Sea shipping, ostensibly in solidarity with the Palestinians, prompting US and UK strikes on their positions and a UN Security Council resolution demanding they cease attacks on merchant vessels.
This handout photo released on August 29, 2024, shows explosions taking place on the deck of the Greek-flagged oil tanker Sounion on the Red Sea after being hit by Houthis in solidarity with Palestinians at the height of Israel's war on Gaza. (Houthi photo/Handout via Reuters)
The latest escalation set off earlier this month when strikes hit the runway at Sanaa International Airport to prevent an Iranian aircraft from landing, according to Yemen’s internationally recognized government, which claimed responsibility for the operation.
The Houthis blamed Saudi Arabia, declared the deescalation phase over, and responded by firing missiles and drones at Abha International Airport in southwestern Saudi Arabia, in the sharpest rupture of the truce since 2022.
The threats drew swift condemnation across the region and beyond as they risked choking one of the world’s most sensitive shipping lanes.
While the Houthis have not formally announced a full closure of the waterway linking the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean via the Suez Canal, their threat to vessels using Saudi ports has raised fresh concerns over navigation through a route that carries about 7 percent of global maritime traffic.
With more than 25 percent of oil and gas shipments passing through the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab Al‑Mandab combined, any major disruption would likely carry significant global economic consequences.
The Saudi‑led coalition condemned the blockade as a “blatant violation of international law” and “acts of maritime piracy,” vowing to respond firmly and implementing protection measures for Saudi‑linked ships transiting the Bab Al‑Mandab.
In a statement issued on Monday, the coalition’s official spokesperson, Maj. Gen. Turki Al‑Maliki, called the Houthi claims “false,” adding that the Zaydi revivalist group “are the ones who caused the closure of Sanaa airport, destroyed Yemenia Airways’ fleet and refused all initiatives to resume flights.”
Saudi-led coalition spokesperson Major General Turki al-Malki. (Reuters/File photo)
On Tuesday, the UAE’s Foreign Ministry also condemned the move in solidarity with Riyadh and urged the international community to “ensure the implementation of the relevant UN Security Council resolutions, particularly Resolution 2216 on Yemen and Resolution 2722 on the rights and freedom of navigation in the Red Sea.”
The ministry said freedom of navigation in international waterways is guaranteed under international law and the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Jasem Al-Budaiwi, secretary-general of the Gulf Cooperation Council, likewise denounced the Houthi statements as “irresponsible” and groundless, describing them as a “desperate and exposed attempt to distort facts and evade responsibility.”
The UN and regional governments such as Kuwait and Qatar have also rejected the move, highlighting the Houthis’ diplomatic isolation on the blockade.
When the Houthis targeted Red Sea shipping in support of Hamas during the Gaza war, the US, UK and 10 other states called those attacks “illegal, unacceptable and profoundly destabilizing,” while the UN Security Council unanimously condemned the strikes, signaling broad opposition to Houthi maritime tactics.
During the Gaza war, the Houthis mostly targeted vessels they said were linked to Israel or the US, claiming solidarity with the Palestinians and attempting to frame their attacks as part of a wider “resistance” narrative.
However, their latest move explicitly singles out Saudi Arabia and threatens any ship trading with Saudi ports, abandoning that narrower justification and exposing them to wider accusations of economic coercion and destabilization of maritime security.
“Their actions have strengthened the arguments of those who support a military solution to the Houthi issue in Yemen,” Al-Basha said.
“That perception has only been reinforced by the closure of international NGO offices, the detention of embassy staff and the departure of UN personnel.”
In an interview with Arab News on Tuesday, former senior CIA intelligence officer Norman Roule said the Houthis’ rhetoric should be taken seriously — but so should the military and political realities they are confronted with.
“The US continues to maintain a robust naval force in the region, which is more than capable of working with Saudi partners to ensure the stability and frequent navigation in the Red Sea,” Roule told Arab News.
“Fortunately, we have the support of European actors who are maintaining a naval force under the Operation Aspides architecture. They have announced that they will be bringing additional mine-sweeping capacity into the Red Sea, which would be useful.”
Roule, who spent 34 years managing Middle East-related intelligence programs, including serving as the US national intelligence manager for Iran, added that the Houthis must weigh the consequences of any escalation.
“The Houthis will need to consider this: they have Saudi-American military forces, which would be quite devastating, and there is even the potential Israeli action if the Israelis attempted to repeat their terrifically damaging attacks on the Houthis.
“This said, Washington also understands that the Iranians have continued to work with the Houthis to enable them.”
Saudi Arabia is now publicly treating the blockade as a security issue rather than a purely humanitarian or political dispute, with the coalition saying it will protect commercial shipping and is prepared to respond “swiftly and firmly.”
Riyadh has so far stuck to a restrained diplomatic line, but its patience appears to be wearing thin.
The Kingdom has invested heavily in Red Sea infrastructure and domestic pipelines to reduce its exposure to Hormuz risk, and senior Saudi officials have described Red Sea export routes as a lifeline while the Gulf chokepoint remains closed.
Reports earlier this month noted that Saudi Arabia was considering expanding its East-West pipeline to the Red Sea coast so it could move more oil without crossing Hormuz.
That could make Riyadh more willing to adopt stronger defensive measures, including strikes on Houthi launch sites and maritime assets, than in earlier phases of the Yemen war, when its energy flows were less tied to Bab Al-Mandab.
Saudi military capabilities have also changed markedly since the war began, as have its strategic priorities.
Nawaf Obaid, a senior fellow at King’s College London, has described the Saudi-led Joint Forces Command as having reached a form of “military maturity” that includes more than 650,000 personnel, built around intelligence, command-and-control, precision strikes, air defense and cyber operations.
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While Saudi Arabia has consistently demonstrated that it prefers stability to confrontation — because its overriding strategic priority remains economic transformation and long‑term national development — experts stressed that no state can indefinitely tolerate an Iranian‑backed proxy threatening its economy, energy infrastructure and maritime lifelines.
The risk, as Obaid and others see it, is that each Houthi provocation increases the chance of a Saudi response that goes beyond missile launchers and drones to target the wider command-and-control and logistics networks behind the group’s operations.
That could push Riyadh and Tehran closer to direct confrontation, reshaping the strategic calculus of a war that has already closed Hormuz and threatened one of the world’s most vital shipping arteries.
Yet — as recent diplomacy over Hormuz has shown — that outcome is still avoidable.
