The Houthis’ advance toward full control of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, the narrow waterway connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, has rattled oil markets and raised fears for global trade, as fighting between the United States and Iran reshapes the Middle East’s most critical shipping lanes. Brent crude settled down 2.8% on Friday at $104.61 a barrel, pulling back from a peak of around $108 the previous day, though the weekly gain remained sharp after prices surged above $100 for the first time in months.
The week’s extraordinary volatility was driven by a cascade of military and diplomatic developments: drone strikes on Saudi Arabia’s main oil export pipeline, Iranian diplomacy in Oman, and, most dramatically, a rapid Houthi ground offensive that placed Yemen’s western coast and its surrounding islands under the militant group’s expanding control.
Houthi control of Bab el-Mandeb closes in after Perim Island advance
The Houthis reportedly seized Perim Island, a small rocky outcrop that divides the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, on Friday, just one day after taking the port city of Mokha on the Red Sea coast. Multiple news agencies cited several Yemeni government sources in reporting the advance, though CNBC said it could not independently confirm the claim. The rapid offensive is seen as a severe setback to Saudi Arabia and the Yemeni forces it backs.
According to Al Jazeera, the Houthis also control the areas surrounding the strait, including the island of Hanish and the entire Red Sea coastline of Yemen, giving the group a sweeping geographic grip on one of the world’s busiest maritime corridors.
The scale of that grip matters because of the volume of trade that flows through the waterway. According to TIME, 8.1 million barrels of oil passed through the Bab el-Mandeb every day during the second quarter of 2026. Any sustained disruption there would ripple quickly through global energy prices and supply chains far beyond the Middle East.
Iran and its proxies now appear on course to exercise influence over two critically important oil choke points on either side of the Arabian Peninsula: the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and the Strait of Hormuz, through which much of the world’s seaborne oil trade passes.
Drone strikes on Saudi pipeline and an Iraqi commander dismissed
The week’s tensions were sharpened further by drone attacks on Saudi Arabia’s East-West crude oil pipeline, which the Saudi government said struck the pipeline in the Riyadh and Medina regions on Thursday morning, causing fires, some damage, and injuring several people. Saudi Arabia shut down the pipeline as a precautionary measure.
The pipeline, which has a capacity of 7 million barrels per day, runs across the kingdom to export terminals on the Red Sea. Saudi Arabia has relied on it to route crude exports away from the Persian Gulf as the US and Iran contest control of the Strait of Hormuz. Emergency teams were deployed to assess its safety after the attacks.
Trump said he spoke with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman following the attack, and said he believed Iran was likely responsible. ‘Well, I think they are. Probably, they are,’ he said in response to a reporter’s question. According to NBC News, an Iraqi military commander was dismissed early on Saturday after investigations confirmed the latest drone attacks targeting Saudi Arabia had originated from Iraq.
The Houthi advance on Perim Island prompted Saudi Arabia’s crown prince to personally press Trump for US military intervention, according to MS NOW, citing a person familiar with the conversations.
Diplomacy alongside escalation
The price retreat on Friday followed a signal of limited diplomacy. Iranian state media said Tehran would meet with Gulf states in Oman to discuss the Strait of Hormuz. MS NOW, quoting a senior government official and a Gulf diplomat, reported that Iranian and Gulf officials would meet in Oman’s capital, Muscat, on Monday to sign an agreement establishing an Iran-Oman shipping route through the strait.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, speaking late Friday at a gathering of Indian religious leaders in New Delhi ahead of the BRICS Summit, dismissed any suggestion of concession. ‘Iran has successfully stood against Israel and the US,’ he said. ‘Since we are seeking truth and justice, we will not yield in front of bullying arrogance.’
Trump, meanwhile, said Yemen’s Houthi rebels had been in contact with his administration. ‘The Houthis called us and they don’t want to fight with us,’ he said. ‘They let us know, they don’t want to fight with us. They don’t want me to go after them.’ That framing sits alongside a warning Trump issued in July: according to Euronews, the US president said Washington would respond against the Houthis if they attempted to block maritime traffic in the Red Sea. With Houthi control of Bab el-Mandeb now a near-reality on the ground, that threshold may soon be tested.
