AMMAN, Jordan — Iranian-backed Houthi fighters on Friday claimed success in a large-scale operation to expel Saudi-backed forces from Yemen’s Red Sea coast, including areas that provide leverage over the Bab al-Mandab Strait, a key waterway for Saudi oil exports.
The Houthi territorial claims would mean that Iran and its Houthi proxies can now threaten, if not entirely block, energy and other cargo shipments through two key chokeholds in the Middle East — the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf and Bab al-Mandab in the Red Sea.
Hundreds of Saudi-led military coalition forces were killed, injured or captured in the fighting, a Houthi spokesman, Yahya Saree, said at a news conference. In all, the Houthis said they had seized control of 2,000 square miles of land along Yemen’s western coast.
Neither Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry nor its military coalition have addressed Saree’s claims.
Ahmed Nagi, a senior Yemen analyst for the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based research organization, said that the Houthis made substantial advances since Thursday, pushing forward from the city of Mokha to capture the strategic town of Dhubab and Perim Island.
Iran and the Trump administration are locked in a bitter standoff over the Strait of Hormuz, which Washington has sought to break — so far without success — by imposing heavy economic sanctions.
Iran on Friday expressed its support for the Houthi rebels, with the Iranian foreign ministry calling for an end to the “illegal and inhuman blockade” of Yemen, which Houthi militants have accused Saudi Arabia of imposing on the country for years.
The statement, carried by state media, called for an “immediate resumption of dialogue” and condemned the “unprecedented oppression and expansionism of the Israeli regime with U.S. complicity.”
Since late February, when Iran’s blockade of Hormuz began, Bab al-Mandab has become an increasingly crucial waterway for global shipping, and especially for oil exports from Saudi Arabia.
The Houthis on Friday specifically threatened to target Saudi ships. But Nagi said that the Houthi advance “is not just about Saudi but many countries, and means that Iran can activate the Houthis against U.S. interests in the region.”
The Houthi rebels and Yemen’s military, backed by Saudi Arabia, were at war from 2015 until 2022.
That war brought Yemen to the brink of famine and led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Yemenis, according to findings by the U.N. Development Program. It ended with a fragile truce in 2022.
“What is currently happening in Yemen cannot be separated from the developments of the past decade,” the statement from Iran’s ministry of foreign affairs said.
The Houthis have in recent years grown increasingly frustrated with what they say is a blockade on their country by Saudi Arabia, which backs the internationally recognized government in the south. The truce left the Houthis in control of the country’s north.
But in recent days, the Houthis have mounted a ground offensive that has captured key port cities along the Red Sea, including Mokha on Thursday.
Yemen’s Saudi-backed coalition forces withdrew, a Yemeni official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation. The official said that his government hoped that the U.S. would strike the Houthis — as it had done in 2025 — but that it was unclear whether it had plans to do so.
The moment represents “a huge opportunity for the Houthis to negotiate from a position of power,” said Adam Baron, a fellow with the Future Security Program at New America, a Washington think tank, who studies the Houthis.
“They have a tremendous amount of momentum behind them,” he said. “So they are going to use it to get concessions on their own terms. And if the Houthis get what they want, this will most likely be in a way that also fits with Iran’s interests.”
He said that the Houthis were able to make such rapid gains because of a combination of the size of their forces on the ground and a lack of air support.
Hussain al-Bukhaiti, a pro-Houthi commentator whose brother is a senior political officer in the group, said that the group’s goals include free movement at Yemen’s ports and airports, the exchange of all prisoners of war and the use of Yemen’s oil revenue — much of which is under Saudi control — to pay salaries for civil servants and for services across the country.
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