THE war around Bab al-Mandab (the doorway to the Suez Canal) has brought into sharp focus the instability of the regional order in West Asia. Saudi Arabia has renewed its military campaign in Yemen, while Ansar Allah has intensified attacks on Saudi airports and energy installations. The tensions between Saudi Arabia and Yemen go back over a decade, with no end in sight through diplomacy (now foreclosed) or through warfare. At the early point of Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza in 2023-2024, Ansar Allah began an escalation in the Red Sea and in the Gulf of Aden as well as at Israel itself. These attacks – more than a hundred at last count – resulted in a dramatic decline in commercial shipping through the Suez Canal and in the closure of Israel’s only Red Sea port of Eliat. Ansar Allah sent a clear message to Israel and the US that the Yemeni people will stand with the Palestinians by any means necessary, even if the Yemenis pay a price for their solidarity. The current attacks, largely inspired by Ansar Allah’s determination to mirror Iran’s control over the Strait of Hormuz, have now paralysed the Bab al-Mandab.

The Sultans of Arabia, from the Saudis to the Emiratis, feared that the arrivals of Ansar Allah to power in Yemen would inspire their own oppressed populations to unrest. These regional satraps, joined by US and British airstrikes in March 2015 (and by continued US and British weapons transfers), tried to contain Ansar Allah, but failed. Despite a peace agreement signed in Stockholm (Sweden) in December 2018, Saudi Arabia began a ruthless bombing campaign against Yemen, including against civilian centres. Ansar Allah retaliated with strikes against civilian targets in Saudi Arabia in 2019 and now have struck Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport. These attacks on civilian targets on both sides of this war are contrary to the rules of war.

THE BATTLE FOR THE COAST

The immediate military background is Ansar Allah’s advance across western Yemen during September. In September, the Yemeni forces took Mokha and Mayyun island and consolidated their position along the western coast and around Bab al-Mandab (including the seizure of Mayyun Island in the heart of the passage). These gains threaten the gates to the Red Sea, the Bab al-Mandab (the Gate of Grief) – Ansar Allah can now easily threaten or deny safe passage through the Strait: ships that go through Bab Iskander, a three kilometre passage between the Yemen coastline and Mayyun Island, and that go through the Dact al-Mayyun, a 23-kilometre passage between the island and the African coastline, face Ansar Allah projectiles and drones.

Saudi Arabia and its Yemeni allies responded with Operation Dawn of Yemen. A hundred combat aircraft blasted hundreds of targets. The Saudis said that they had advanced around Dhubab, south of Mokha, and the approaches to the strait, with the littoral contested by both sides in a ferocious contest. Saudi forces advanced but could not secure the strait’s surrounding areas. Mayyun Island remains in Ansar Allah’s hands. The geography of this war is fluid and difficult to verify given the claims being made by both sides. The inland city of Taiz is integral to this struggle. Fighting around the city and in its countryside impacts communications between the interior and the coastline. Negotiations between Ansar Allah and the local authorities in Taiz continue as of this writing. The coastal operations and the struggle over Yemen’s major urban centres proceed together with each influencing the other’s possibilities.

If Ansar Allah holds the coast and is able to disrupt shipping through the Red Sea, and if Iran with Oman keep the doors restricted at the Strait of Hormuz, then the Arabian Peninsula’s oil trade will be severely disrupted and the gateway to the shortest maritime trade between Europe and Asia will be closed.

SAUDI ARABIA’S VULNERABILITY

For Riyadh, the stakes extend beyond the fortunes of its Yemeni allies. Saudi Arabia has attempted to build an economy attracting investment, tourism, and international business. Missile and drone attacks expose the fragility of that ambition when airports and energy infrastructure become recurring targets. On October 8, an apparently empty commercial aircraft was badly damaged at Riyadh airport. The subsequent deadly attack demonstrates how quickly economic pressure can become a catastrophe for ordinary passengers and workers.

Ansar Allah presents its campaign as a response to Saudi bombardment and the continuing blockade. Sana’a’s foreign ministry has called for pressure on Riyadh to end the war and lift restrictions, while rejecting the claim that Yemeni sovereignty over its coastline inherently threatens navigation. This political argument matters because maritime insecurity has a history. Treating every attack as an isolated disturbance obscures the failed negotiations and unresolved conditions that precede it. It also leaves the demands of Yemen’s population outside discussions ostensibly concerned with restoring stability.

Disruptions around Hormuz increase the importance of Saudi Arabia’s westward pipeline and Red Sea export routes, but insecurity around Bab al-Mandab places pressure on that alternative. It is not as if every Saudi shipment is blocked, but it means that moving oil across the peninsula does not by itself guarantee safe onward passage. The kingdom’s energy infrastructure is embedded in a regional conflict that pipelines and air-defence systems alone cannot resolve. Saudi Arabia wants to protect its oil infrastructure, while its Yemeni allies want to defeat Ansar Allah. The difference between these two objectives might lead to a break between the two allies and to Saudi Arabia making a peace agreement with Ansar Allah. This does not bode well for Israeli and US objectives in the region, which has been to destroy Ansar Allah, reduce Iran’s role in Yemen, and install a pro-Western government in Sana’a.

SECURITY PARTNERSHIPS UNDER STRAIN

Washington remains involved, although its willingness to assume direct responsibility has fluctuated. Trump cancelled a planned intervention in September shortly before its execution, although US intelligence and targeting assistance continue to support Saudi operations. Restraint over one proposed attack does not amount to withdrawal from the conflict, but it does illustrate Washington’s effort to preserve influence while managing the costs and dangers of another military commitment.

Saudi Arabia’s arrangements with Pakistan and Turkey reflect its search for additional support. Yet the practical meaning of these commitments remains contested as Pakistan denies any role in air operations and Turkey ruled out its participation. Reports in Israeli media suggest that there is a Pakistani deployment within Saudi Arabia – although there is a major difference between defensive operations and offensive operations.

Israel sees opportunities in these tensions, since the Red Sea crisis could facilitate partnerships with Arab states against Ansar Allah. For Netanyahu, approaching the October 27 election, regional danger offers material for a familiar campaign argument: only his leadership can protect Israel. The Yemen crisis can reinforce this presentation of permanent emergency. If Israel’s adversaries are weaker than ever, as Netanyahu maintains, their continued capacity to disrupt regional infrastructure requires explanation. Tactical destruction has failed to produce durable political security. The electoral consequences remain uncertain: fear can consolidate support for an incumbent, but exhaustion and repeated insecurity can also undermine him.

Meanwhile, Yemen’s population carries the heaviest accumulated burden. At least 125,000 people have been displaced by renewed fighting, including more than 57,000 children – figures that have only increased since September. For families repeatedly driven from their homes, discussions of deterrence and maritime order offer little comfort. Every renewed offensive threatens to turn temporary displacement into another enduring condition of life.

The insecurity of these waterways cannot be understood apart from the wars surrounding them. The Saudi-led intervention in Yemen, sustained by Western support, and the US–Israeli war against Iran have helped create the conditions in which maritime routes become instruments of coercion and retaliation. The disruptions to shipping are not being caused by Iran or Oman or indeed Ansar Allah. They are a product of the illegal US and Israeli war. Yet identifying this history does not remove the responsibility of those who attack civilian airports or merchant vessels. Civilian life must be protected from foreign bombardment, restrictions on trade to Yemen that impoverish its people must be lifted, and its people must be permitted to determine their own political future. Security for oil shipments cannot endure alongside permanent insecurity for the people living on their shores.