Houthis seize Hanish islands in southern Red Sea

Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels captured Greater and Lesser Hanish islands in the southern Red Sea, government and Houthi officials said Monday. The seizure strengthens the rebels’ control of a major maritime shipping route near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a key passage for Saudi oil shipments.

The rebels deployed on the Hanish islands, 160 kilometers north of Bab el-Mandeb, after hundreds of government-allied forces withdrew from the archipelago, according to two government officials and a Houthi official. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to journalists.

The capture came after the rebels last week seized the port city of Mokha on the mainland nearby and the island of Mayun, inside the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. The Houthis’ advances also put them just 20 miles from the U.S. military base in Djibouti, on the other side of the strait.

For more than a month, the Houthis have been striking Saudi oil infrastructure and shipping in the Red Sea. Like Hormuz at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, the Bab el-Mandeb Strait connects the Red Sea to the open ocean and Saudi Arabia’s key Asian markets.

Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces have been attempting to rally and fight back. Sultan al-Arada, a member of the government’s presidential leadership council, described the collapse of government forces in Mokha, about 80 kilometers from the strait, and elsewhere on Yemen’s west coast as “painful and regrettable.”

He said in a televised interview aired late Saturday that forces “are currently regrouping and will return to the battle.”

On Sunday, Rashad al-Alimi, who leads the presidential council, sought to downplay the defeats as “incidental,” according to comments published by the country’s state-run SABA news agency. The government, he said, “will remain clear and fixed on the goal of retrieving (state) institutions and of reclaiming sovereignty over all national territories.”

Some 150 civilians have been killed in fighting since Sept. 3, including a pregnant woman killed Saturday in a village in Taiz, the government’s Human Rights Ministry said. More than 200 civilians have been wounded.

Thousands of families have fled their homes in Taiz and nearby provinces in the past day, said Khanzad Shah, acting head of Islamic Relief, a charity that operates in the area.

“Many of them don’t have enough food or water as they had to flee with whatever they could carry. In some areas, whole villages have reportedly emptied,” he said.

The United Nations has estimated that more than 80,000 people have been displaced in the past two weeks, including over 2,000 people who fled by boat to Djibouti.

The Hanish islands, newly captured by the Houthis, had been controlled by the United Arab Emirates and its southern allies in Yemen. However, the UAE dismantled its military infrastructure there after it fell out with Saudi Arabia and the Yemeni government earlier this year.

Saudi authorities sounded sirens on Sunday afternoon in the southern city of Abha and Khamis Mushait province, warning residents to take shelter from potential incoming fire. A Houthi spokesman said they fired dozens of missiles and drones at the King Khalid Air Base in Khamis Mushait, targeting hangars, radar installations and ammunition depots.

The statement on Monday by Brig. Gen Yahya Saree did not specify when the attack took place. The Saudi civil defense said a projectile fell in a different area near the border with Yemen along the Red Sea, injuring two people and damaging a mosque and several other buildings.