global geopolitics

The fall of Yemen’s last major western port brings Houthi forces within striking distance of the Bab el-Mandeb and exposes the limits of Saudi and American air power

General Article | September 2026

Saudi Arabia poked a beehive. Yemeni forces aligned with Ansarallah have taken the Red Sea port city of Mokha and its airport, advancing to within roughly seventy-five kilometres of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. The offensive unfolded with a speed that appears to have surprised both the Saudi-led coalition and the Yemeni units aligned with it. Within a short period the western coastal defensive line that pro-government forces had held for years collapsed. Multiple independent reports confirm that Ansarallah first secured the districts of Hays and al-Khawkhah in Hudaydah province and Yakhtul in Taiz province before moving on Mokha itself. The airport was closed amid fighting in its immediate vicinity, after which Ansarallah declared control of both the airfield and the city. Open-source imagery and local accounts showed Saudi-backed units in full retreat west of the former front line, with commanders and troops withdrawing toward Lahj and Aden. Tareq Saleh, commander of the National Resistance Forces, confirmed that he had moved his headquarters to a safer location and acknowledged that his men had paid a heavy price. Field reports described the withdrawal as disordered, with camps and headquarters left behind and subsequently looted.

(Footage reportedly of a mass surrender of pro-Saudi Arabia forces to Yemen’s Houthis at Khalid Bin Walid Military Camp)

Saudi Arabia responded with more than sixty airstrikes across Taiz, Hudaydah, Marib and Jawf in a single day. The bombardment did not reverse the ground advance. Yemeni air-defence units also brought down a Saudi-operated Vestel Karayel surveillance drone over Hajjah province. Mokha had been the last significant port on Yemen’s western coast still held by pro-government forces and had served as a principal resupply point for coalition operations along the Red Sea littoral. Its loss removes that logistics node and places Ansarallah within closer striking distance of the Bab el-Mandeb, the narrow waterway that links the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and carries a substantial share of global trade and European energy imports. At its narrowest the navigable channel is approximately ten kilometres wide. With the effective restriction of the Strait of Hormuz earlier in the year, Saudi Arabia has become more dependent on Red Sea routes for oil exports. Control of the approaches to the Bab el-Mandeb therefore carries direct consequences for the kingdom’s ability to move crude.

The fall of Mokha exposes a persistent contradiction in the Yemen war. Saudi Arabia and its partners possess air power, advanced munitions, intelligence support and financial resources far beyond those available to Ansarallah. The Yemeni forces assembled by Riyadh—the Giants Brigades, units loyal to Tareq Saleh and associated militias—were equipped and paid to serve as a proxy ground army. When confronted with determined resistance their cohesion failed. Air power can disrupt movement and destroy fixed positions, but it cannot occupy mountainous coastal terrain that local fighters know intimately. Every significant Saudi escalation has been met by Yemeni missile and drone strikes against Saudi refineries, airports and energy facilities. The pattern has been consistent: pressure applied to Yemen produces costs imposed on Saudi infrastructure. Analysts familiar with the conflict have described this dynamic as a self-tightening knot in which each attempt to exploit material superiority erodes the very advantage it seeks to preserve.

The capture of Mokha forms part of a wider regional redistribution of pressure. Ansarallah now sits astride the southern approaches to one major chokepoint while Iran has signalled an intention to expand its restricted zone into the Gulf of Oman, asserting a security buffer on the eastern side of the Strait of Hormuz. The language of buffer zones mirrors formulations previously used by Israel and the United States regarding Gaza and southern Lebanon. Interests can converge without requiring a single chain of command. Iran gains when Saudi attention and resources are diverted. Ansarallah gains diplomatic cover and, according to multiple assessments, material assistance. Both gain when American naval assets are forced to divide attention between the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. The cumulative effect is more important than the precise degree of coordination.

The information environment surrounding recent exchanges in the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf remains contested, yet several elements can now be stated with greater precision. United States Central Command has reported that Iranian forces fired ballistic missiles at American warships on more than one occasion in early September, stating that the vessels successfully evaded the attacks and that no American personnel were harmed. In response, American forces destroyed a series of Iranian oil tankers, a policy Washington has described as deliberate retaliation for any attempt to strike its ships. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has advanced a different account, claiming that it struck two American vessels, including named destroyers, and caused significant damage, while also asserting that it attacked additional commercial tankers. Independent visual confirmation of hits on United States Navy warships has not been released by either side. Iranian officials have simultaneously stated that they employed newly fielded anti-ship systems, including missiles with electro-optical terminal guidance such as the Qassem Basir, and a “special anti-destroyer” missile tested against American vessels in the region. These technical claims have not been independently verified in open sources, but they form part of Tehran’s declared shift toward more precise maritime strike options.

(The Qassem Basir, and a “special anti-destroyer” missile)

A clearer picture has emerged regarding strikes on American positions in Jordan. Multiple reports, including accounts provided to CBS News, Reuters and specialised aviation publications, indicate that an Iranian missile barrage on Muwaffaq Salti Air Base overnight on 8–9 September damaged United States aircraft. One A-10 Thunderbolt II was struck and left with a missing wing; roughly eight F-15s sustained lighter damage and were returned to service. Circulating footage has shown damaged UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters being loaded onto flatbed trucks for removal from the base. Jordanian authorities stated that their air defences intercepted eighteen of approximately twenty incoming ballistic missiles, with the remaining two falling in unpopulated areas, and reported no casualties. American forces expended a substantial number of Patriot interceptors during the engagement. The IRGC has claimed heavier destruction of aircraft shelters and fighter positions at the same base; those broader assertions remain unconfirmed by independent imagery.

The discrepancy between official American denials of damage to warships and Iranian claims of successful hits, set against the corroborated damage to aircraft in Jordan, illustrates the persistent difficulty of establishing a complete public record while both sides restrict the release of primary evidence. What can be established is that Iran continues to test and declare the use of more advanced anti-ship systems, that American forces have responded by targeting Iranian tankers, and that Iranian missiles have inflicted verifiable material damage on United States aircraft based in Jordan.

The timing of the Mokha offensive is not accidental. Global oil markets are tight, with prices having moved above one hundred dollars a barrel. Any credible threat to Red Sea shipping amplifies that pressure. American domestic politics are unsettled, and public confidence figures for the principal Western leaders associated with the current regional posture remain low. The Pentagon’s reported review of Middle East deployments creates an incentive for regional actors to consolidate gains before any repositioning is complete. Iran’s expansion of its restricted zone is a deliberate assertion of reciprocal rights. These factors together help explain why the western Yemeni coast became the focus of decisive action at this moment rather than earlier or later.

Conventional Western coverage frequently presents these developments as Iranian aggression against American forces and Saudi allies. That description captures part of the surface action but omits the longer record. The Saudi-led intervention began in March 2015 with the declared aim of restoring the internationally recognised government. More than a decade later that government still operates largely from outside Yemen. The blockade imposed on Yemen restricted food, medicine and fuel, with United Nations estimates of hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths from indirect causes. The United States provided intelligence and logistical support throughout successive administrations. When the historical chain is restored, the capture of Mokha appears less as an isolated act of aggression and more as the latest phase in a conflict whose original objectives have not been met.

The strongest counter-argument to any claim of Western restraint is the operational record itself. The Yemeni government of Ali Abdullah Saleh fought the Houthis from 2004 to 2010 without success. The Saudi-Emirati air campaign that followed from 2015 likewise failed to dislodge the movement. In March 2025 the United States launched Operation Rough Rider, a sustained campaign involving the USS Harry S. Truman carrier strike group. During that deployment the carrier group lost three F/A-18 Super Hornets: one to friendly fire from the USS Gettysburg, one that slid from the hangar during an evasive manoeuvre against incoming fire, and one that went overboard when an arresting cable failed on landing. Investigations later attributed the losses to operational stress, inadequate training, equipment shortcomings and the intensity of the Houthi response. By early May 2025 the United States announced it would halt the bombing campaign. The Truman left the Red Sea the same month. The outcome was not the neutralisation of Ansarallah. It was the abandonment of an effort that had proved costly and inconclusive.

( The Houthi’s now control the red sea coastline and Bab-El-Mandeb Strait)

Saudi Arabia spent years and substantial resources attempting to build a viable proxy force and to degrade Ansarallah from the air. It did not succeed. Assessments from specialised observers have concluded that Riyadh failed both to defeat the Houthis militarily and to construct credible Yemeni institutions capable of holding territory. The pattern across two decades is consistent. Material superiority in aircraft, munitions and finance has not translated into strategic success against an adversary that disperses, absorbs punishment and returns fire against the economic assets of its opponents. Ansarallah does not possess the capacity to conquer the whole of Yemen or to defeat the United States in open conventional battle. It has, however, demonstrated that the level of force required to destroy it exceeds the political and economic cost that Saudi Arabia and the United States have so far been prepared to pay.

The immediate consequence of Mokha’s fall is that Ansarallah now controls a continuous stretch of the Red Sea coast from the approaches to the Bab el-Mandeb northward, with only limited pockets of residual resistance. The second-order consequence is that Saudi oil exports through the Red Sea now depend, in practical terms, on Ansarallah’s calculations. The third-order consequence is that the security architecture long maintained by the United States to protect the free flow of energy is under simultaneous pressure at two chokepoints. The cost of sustaining that architecture continues to rise while domestic willingness to bear the cost continues to fall. Whether Ansarallah translates its new position into formal interference with shipping, whether Saudi Arabia escalates its air campaign to levels not seen in years, whether the United States proceeds with any force reduction, and whether oil prices remain elevated will determine the next phase. The evidence of the past decade indicates that further attempts to resolve the conflict solely through superior firepower are unlikely to succeed where earlier efforts have already failed.

Authored By: Global GeoPolitics

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References

AFP (2026) ‘Yemen’s Houthis seize key city on Red Sea: military source’, 10 September.

Al Jazeera (2026) ‘Houthis capture Yemeni town of Mocha: Why it’s important’, 10 September.

BBC News (2026) ‘Yemen’s Houthis reportedly seize strategic Red Sea port of Mokha’, 10 September.

Clash Report (2026) ‘Houthis Seize Mokha in Rapid Western Yemen Offensive’, 10 September.

CNN (2026) ‘Iran-backed rebels capture Red Sea port, tightening grip on a key global chokepoint’, 10 September.

dpa international (2026) ‘Sources: Yemen’s Houthis capture key Red Sea port city of Mokha’, 10 September.

The National (2026) ‘Houthis seize Yemen’s Mokha port on the Red Sea as attacks on Saudi Arabia escalate’, 10 September.

The New York Times (2026) ‘Houthis Seize Strategic Red Sea Port, a Major Victory for Iranian Ally’, 10 September.

Reuters and associated Yemeni government sources (2026) Confirmation of Mokha’s capture and repositioning of National Resistance Forces.

USNI News (2025) ‘Investigations Show Failures Behind USS Harry S. Truman Collision, Fighter Losses’, 4 December.

Washington Post (2025) Reporting on Navy investigations into Super Hornet losses and Operation Rough Rider.

South24 Center and Yemen Monitor (2026) Field reporting on the fall of Mokha and government repositioning toward Dhubab.