The Bab el-Mandeb Problem

Yemen's Houthis Seize Mokha Port Near Bab el-Mandeb Strait

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World Brief:

The Bab el-Mandeb Problem

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World Brief

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The Bab el-Mandeb Problem

Houthi control of a Red Sea port brings Tehran closer to claiming another critical waterway.

!An illustration of Alexandra Sharp, World Brief newsletter writer

*An illustration of Alexandra Sharp, World Brief newsletter writer*

*Alexandra Sharp*

By **Alexandra Sharp**, the World Brief writer at *Foreign Policy*.

!The navigation bridge of a sunken vessel is all that is seen at the surface of the water in the Port of Mokha.

*The navigation bridge of a sunken vessel is all that is seen at the surface of the water in the Port of Mokha.*

A sunken vessel in the Port of Mokha the day after a Houthi rebel attack on the Yemeni city on Aug. 10. Khaled Ziad/AFP via Getty Images

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September 10, 2026, 4:04 PM

Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at the fight for control of the **Bab el-Mandeb** strait, record-high **global temperatures**, and **Ukraine**’s request for more foreign aid.

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The Fall of Mokha

Houthi rebels in Yemen seized the strategic Red Sea port city of Mokha on Thursday in their quest to eventually control the vital Bab el-Mandeb strait. The sweeping ground offensive—which pushed out forces allied with the Saudi-backed, internationally recognized Yemeni government—raised concerns that the two sides’ fragile 2022 truce may officially be over and that Yemen has returned to all-out war.

Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at the fight for control of the **Bab el-Mandeb** strait, record-high **global temperatures**, and **Ukraine**’s request for more foreign aid.

Sign up to receive World Brief in your inbox every weekday.

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The Fall of Mokha

Houthi rebels in Yemen seized the strategic Red Sea port city of Mokha on Thursday in their quest to eventually control the vital Bab el-Mandeb strait. The sweeping ground offensive—which pushed out forces allied with the Saudi-backed, internationally recognized Yemeni government—raised concerns that the two sides’ fragile 2022 truce may officially be over and that Yemen has returned to all-out war.

Renewed fighting between the Houthis and Yemeni forces erupted in July, after the Saudi-led military coalition tried to prevent a plane bringing Houthis back from Tehran from landing at Sanaa International Airport. Since then, the two sides have exchanged heavy fire, including a Saudi attack on a Houthi-run prison on Monday, which killed at least 23 people, and a Houthi operation across Saudi Arabia that same day, which injured more than 70 people.

Fierce battles around Mokha in recent days have particularly drawn the international community’s attention, as many worry that Houthi control of the port brings Iran one step closer to claiming another critical waterway.

For months, Iranian forces have effectively stopped most commercial traffic from transiting the Strait of Hormuz, through which around one-fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas previously passed. That has forced vessels to rely more heavily on Bab el-Mandeb, which connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden.

However, if the Houthis—an Iranian-backed proxy group—were to transform Bab el-Mandeb into a second choke point, then Tehran would likely turn the strait into another war front, further strangling the already volatile global energy market. Mokha is less than 50 miles from Bab el-Mandeb. Brent crude and West Texas Intermediate oil prices both exceeded $100 per barrel on Thursday in response to the Houthis’ assault.

“This is a potentially major strategic shift,” Maged al-Madhaji, the co-founder of a Yemen-based think tank, the Sanaa Center, told FP’s Keith Johnson. “The fall of Mokha—and, increasingly, the prospect of Houthi control over Bab el-Mandeb—would allow them to turn intermittent pressure on shipping into a sustained threat at much lower operational cost.”

What comes next remains unclear. Some experts suggest that the Houthis may try to seize Perim Island, a Yemeni territory that sits at the strait’s narrowest point, making it a crucial hub for controlling the flow of maritime traffic; already, the proxy group has reached the Red Sea islands of Hanish. Taking Perim, though, would grant the Houthis a similar position to Iran’s control of Larak Island, which Tehran uses to monitor global shipping and host military activity.

On Wednesday, Pakistan warned Iran to rein in the Houthis’ actions or risk triggering a joint defense arrangement involving Riyadh, Ankara, and Islamabad.

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What We’re Following

**Turn up the AC.** August marked one of the world’s hottest months in recorded history, according to a new report by the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service on Thursday. With an average global surface air temperature of 1.65 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, August 2026 tied with July 2023 for Earth’s hottest period. Last month also saw the highest daily sea surface temperature over the extra-polar ocean (the band of ocean located between 60 degrees south and 60 degrees north latitude) ever recorded, and it wrapped up Europe’s warmest summer in recent history.

Copernicus cited the burning of fossil fuels and a strong El Niño climate pattern for the rise in air and sea temperatures. Human-caused greenhouse gas emissions rose 0.7 percent globally last year to hit a record 54