Houthis Seize Red Sea Island as Saudi Arabia Strikes Back, Trump Declines Direct Airstrikes

Since Houthi rebels captured Yemen's port city of Mokha on Thursday, September 10, the fight for the Red Sea's southern gateway has moved fast. By Friday the Houthis had grabbed the island of Mayun, sitting directly in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, according to a senior Yemeni government military official and a Houthi official who both spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity, as reported by Breitbart.

Mayun, also known as Perim, sits opposite the town of Dhubab, where Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces retreated after losing Mokha, according to Reuters reporting carried by Fox News and TIME. Control of both points would give the Houthis a chokehold on a strait roughly 18 miles wide at its narrowest point. A waterway through which about 12% of global trade normally passes, per the Associated Press.

Saudi Arabia Hits Back, Iran Speaks Up

Saudi Arabia responded with airstrikes on the airport in Mokha, according to a Houthi broadcaster cited by Breitbart, though there was no immediate report of damage or casualties. Yemeni government forces separately carried out roughly 40 airstrikes on Taiz, Jawf, Hodeida and Marib provinces, according to Houthi-owned Al-Masirah TV, cited by TIME.

Iran's Foreign Ministry issued its first public comment since the Mokha takeover on Friday, calling on Saudi Arabia to end its blockade of Yemen and return to negotiations with the Houthis, according to Iran's state-run IRNA news agency, cited by Breitbart. Tehran continues to insist the Houthis are "not a proxy," per TIME, even as TIME separately reported the group has received direct guidance and weapons from Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and was reportedly told last week by Iran to escalate attacks on Saudi Arabia.

Houthi spokesperson Mohammed Abdulsalam posted that the group will stop targeting Saudi ships once the "aggression" against Yemen ends, according to TIME. A Houthi body that communicates with commercial shippers said navigation through Bab el-Mandeb remains safe for everyone except Saudi-flagged vessels.

UN Security Council Convenes

Yemen's Foreign Minister Afrah Al-Zouba sent a letter to the UN Security Council describing Houthi advances near Taiz and Hodeidah and requesting an emergency meeting to discuss the threat to Red Sea shipping, according to Yemen's state-run SABA News Agency, cited by the Epoch Times. At that Security Council session, UN special envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg warned: "This renewed war should alarm us all. It effectively marks the end of the relative calm that Yemen has experienced for over four years since the U.N.-brokered truce," according to TIME.

Yemeni President Rashad Muhammad al-Alimi told European ambassadors on September 9 that Bab el-Mandeb must not become like the Strait of Hormuz, and that Yemen cannot become a platform for Iranian "geopolitical blackmail," according to SABA News, cited by the Epoch Times.

Trump Turns Down Saudi Request

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman called Trump twice on Thursday asking the U.S. to launch airstrikes against the Houthis as they closed in on the strait, according to Axios reporting cited by the Daily Beast. Trump declined. U.S. officials said they have no intention of getting directly involved with the Houthis for now, Axios reported.

A senior administration official told Fox News Digital on background: "The United States is focused on protecting our core national security interests — such as ensuring freedom of navigation in the Red Sea — while empowering our regional partners to take the lead in managing and resolving regional security challenges."

Hisham Al-Omeisy, senior Yemen advisor at the European Institute of Peace, told Fox News Digital the dual pressure points are dangerous for global commerce: "Now you have Iran on one side of the Arabian Peninsula controlling Hormuz, and now the Houthis controlling Bab el-Mandeb on the other side of the peninsula. Which basically is going to drive prices — oil prices, goods and everything else — up exponentially."

AI Weapons Development Blocked

AI company Anthropic said it identified and banned accounts in Houthi-held northern Yemen that were using its Claude Code tool, some via commercially available smartphones, to pursue sophisticated precision, long-range ballistic and hypersonic missile development, according to Breitbart. The company said it caught the activity during an internal investigation. Iran denies arming the Houthis, though the group has smuggled advanced weapons for years despite a UN arms embargo, per Breitbart.

The Daily Beast's coverage frames the Mayun seizure primarily through the lens of Trump's "catastrophic war" with Iran and his own comments that the conflict "may not end" until after November's midterms, quoting Trump saying Iran is "desperate to try and affect the election." Other outlets, including the AP-sourced reporting carried by NPR and Newsday, stick closer to the ground-level facts: shuttered markets in Mokha, residents fleeing toward Aden, and doctors abandoning a hospital seized by Houthi forces.

Whether Saudi Arabia can retake Dhubab and hold the strait's western shore before the Houthis consolidate their grip on Mayun remains an open question. So does whether Washington's hands-off posture toward the Houthis holds if attacks on shipping through Bab el-Mandeb escalate the way they already have in the Strait of Hormuz.