Yemeni Foreign Minister Warns Houthis Seek to Replicate Iran’s Strait of Hormuz Control in Red Sea

By Timour Azhari

RIYADH, July 27 (Reuters) — Yemen’s Houthi movement is attempting to mirror Iran’s strategy in the Strait of Hormuz by disrupting maritime traffic in the Bab al-Mandab strait, a tactic encouraged by what Yemen’s top diplomat describes as an inadequate international response.

“The Houthis want to copy the Iranian model, and this will shut down two main straits—the gateways into the Gulf and the Red Sea,” Yemeni Foreign Minister-designate Afrah Al-Zouba told a small group of journalists at the Yemeni embassy in Riyadh on Monday.

The Red Sea has emerged as a new flashpoint in the broader regional confrontation involving Iran, with the Houthis adopting an escalatory posture toward Saudi Arabia. The group has launched missiles and drones at the kingdom and declared a blockade on Saudi shipping.

Saudi Arabia has retaliated with airstrikes on what it identified as Houthi military facilities, vowing to protect commercial shipping lanes and accusing the Houthis of advancing foreign agendas.

The surge in hostilities threatens to reignite full-scale conflict in Yemen, where a war that began after the Houthis seized the capital, Sanaa, in 2014 has killed hundreds of thousands. A 2022 truce has frayed under recent cross-border fire, and Saudi officials, Western diplomats, and Yemeni officials now view a return to all-out war as more likely than at any point since the ceasefire took hold.

Al-Zouba said the internationally recognized Yemeni government, which retains strong Saudi backing, is prepared for further escalation. She noted that exchanges of fire are ongoing along frontlines stretching from the Red Sea coast to the Saudi border, though neither side has yet launched a major offensive.

“We think that this conflict now needs to come to an end, either via peaceful means, or the other way,” she said.

(Reporting by Timour Azhari in Riyadh; Writing by Yasmine Ghania and Timour Azhari; Editing by Nick Zieminski and Stephen Coates)

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