Bab el-Mandeb Strait faces growing threat as Houthi attacks raise fears of a second Hormuz

Bab el-Mandeb Emerges as a Second Front in the U.S.–Iran Shadow War, Raising Hard Questions About How to Secure It

The waterway connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden has spent much of the past two decades in the shadow of its more famous counterpart to the east, the Strait of Hormuz. But as Houthi attacks on commercial shipping intensify, analysts, diplomats and military planners are increasingly asking whether Bab el-Mandeb is becoming something it has never quite been before: a second strategic chokepoint in a regional war.

The danger became concrete this week when Houthi forces attacked the Egyptian-owned cargo ship Tihamah in the strait. Four crew members — three Pakistani nationals and one Indonesian — were killed, according to Yemeni and Pakistani officials. Two Yemeni rescue workers died as well, struck when the Houthis fired again after rescue crews arrived, Yemen's Coast Guard said. Reuters reported that, if confirmed, those would be the first deaths in a Houthi strike on shipping since the U.S.–Iran war began on Feb. 28.

The Tihamah attack landed at a moment of widening escalation. On July 20, the Houthis announced what they described as a naval blockade of Saudi Arabia, threatening vessels doing business with Saudi ports. Riyadh has rejected the Houthi accusation that Saudi Arabia has imposed a siege on Yemen. The economic ripple effects were already visible: United Against Nuclear Iran, citing Joint Maritime Information Center data, has put the decline in tanker transits through the strait since the blockade declaration at roughly 40%. Some tankers have begun broadcasting messages through their tracking systems, including phrases like "CHINESE OWNER" and "ARMED GUARD ON BOARD," apparently in an effort to reduce the chance of being targeted.

China, meanwhile, has been quietly working the phones. According to a July 28 Reuters report citing Chinese and regional sources, Beijing has been in contact with the Houthis over safe passage for Chinese vessels. Four China-bound tankers crossed Bab el-Mandeb following the blockade announcement as China sought assurances for its shipping.

A Waterway With No Single Guardian

Geographically, the comparison to Hormuz is tempting but incomplete. Iran sits directly on the Strait of Hormuz, giving Tehran the ability to threaten shipping from its own coastline. Bab el-Mandeb, by contrast, is overlooked by Yemen, a country that has been at war with itself for more than a decade. Tehran's leverage there runs almost entirely through its Houthi allies.

That distinction is doing a lot of work in the policy debate. Richard Goldberg, a senior advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former National Security Council official, said Iran's reach into Bab el-Mandeb is real but indirect. "Iran doesn't have the same direct influence on flows through the Bab al-Mandeb as it does for the Strait of Hormuz," he said. "The strategy would depend much more on proxies — Iraqi groups focusing fire on infrastructure and the Houthis focusing on the Red Sea."

There are limits to that proxy model, Goldberg argued, including the Houthis' growing independence. "The Houthis act much more independently than they used to, and have not yet shown an interest in going to war against the world — just against Riyadh," he said.

Goldberg also pointed to one structural difference that complicates the worst-case scenarios: ships that cannot safely cross Bab el-Mandeb can simply bypass the Red Sea by sailing around Africa. "Unlike Hormuz, shippers can go around the Red Sea if they really need to," he said. "It adds cost and time but it's not a single point of failure like Hormuz."

Why the Pressure Is Building Now

The economic stakes have risen sharply because of what is happening hundreds of miles to the east, in and around the Strait of Hormuz itself. As the U.S.–Iran conflict has disrupted shipping through Hormuz, Saudi Arabia has leaned increasingly on its Red Sea export infrastructure, making the Bab el-Mandeb corridor both an alternative route and, in turn, a second potential pressure point.

The strait sits at the southern end of a maritime corridor that runs through the Red Sea, up to the Suez Canal and Egypt's SUMED pipeline, and on to the Mediterranean. Energy and commercial shipping moving between Europe and Asia pass through it daily.

But the country that controls the terrain on its shore is fractured. The Houthis hold Sanaa and most of northern Yemen. The internationally recognized, Saudi-backed government and a shifting set of allied or rival armed groups control other areas. Among the most consequential of those groups is the Southern Transitional Council, a separatist movement backed by the United Arab Emirates that has become a major force in the south.

That fragmentation is no longer an internal Yemeni problem. It is, increasingly, a problem for anyone who depends on the waterway.

A Warning From Inside the Council Chamber

At the United Nations on Thursday, the alarm was raised in unusually direct terms. U.N. Special Envoy Hans Grundberg told the Security Council that Yemen faces its most serious threat of a return to large-scale war since the U.N.-brokered 2022 truce, warning that renewed Houthi attacks on commercial vessels risk dragging Yemen deeper into the broader regional confrontation.

That truce sharply reduced major fighting after years of war that followed the Houthi seizure of Sanaa in 2014 and the Saudi-led military intervention that began the following year. Though the formal truce expired in October 2022, large-scale combat had remained comparatively limited for years — until now.

Yemeni Nobel Peace Prize laureate Tawakkol Karman delivered an even sharper warning. Invited by Denmark, which holds the Security Council presidency, to brief council members, Karman was ultimately unable to speak inside the chamber. Denmark's deputy U.N. ambassador said "strong opposition" prevented the briefing from taking place. Karman addressed reporters outside instead.

"This is no longer a Yemeni crisis alone," Karman said. "The continued collapse of the state in Yemen threatens international navigation and trade, energy security, and global supply chains and undermines regional and international peace and security."

In a separate interview, Karman argued that restoring a functioning Yemeni state is ultimately essential to defeating the armed groups operating from its territory. "Yemeni people can do that," she said of defeating the Houthis and other militias. "We can be partners on saving the global and regional security." Without that, she added, "there is not any sustainable peace."

Why Navies Alone May Not Be Enough

The strategic problem, several analysts argue, is that the threat comes from land, not from sea. Naval forces can escort vessels, but the launch sites, weapons depots and resupply routes that fuel Houthi attacks sit on territory the Houthis control.

Amr Al Bidh, the foreign affairs chief of the Southern Transitional Council, put it bluntly. "Naval presence protects individual ships," he said. "It does not take away Houthi launch sites, it does not interdict the smuggling routes that resupply them and it does not hold terrain." His conclusion was equally direct: "You have to be on the ground."

That presents a much harder problem than the one navies are built to solve.

The Coalition-Building Push

Riyadh, meanwhile, is trying to assemble two overlapping layers of regional security cooperation.

On Aug. 7, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan signed the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement, a mutual-defense pact calling for high-level political and military coordination, joint exercises and deeper defense-industry cooperation. Turkey has stressed that the agreement is defensive in nature and does not identify Iran — or any other country — as an enemy.

Dr. Aziz Alghashian, a Saudi foreign-policy researcher and senior non-resident fellow at the Gulf International Forum, said one immediate implication could be greater coordination against Iran-backed groups, particularly the Houthis. He said the pact could produce a greater trilateral presence near the Saudi-Yemeni border, "especially in the maritime dimension," while allowing Riyadh to take a firmer collective approach toward Iran-backed militias even as it maintains a more diplomatic posture toward Tehran.

Separately, Saudi Arabia is leading a maritime-focused effort of its own. On July 30, the Saudi Defense Ministry announced plans for a multinational maritime-defense coalition intended to protect freedom of navigation and commercial and energy routes through Bab el-Mandeb, the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. Fourteen countries — including Turkey, Pakistan, Egypt, Sudan and Djibouti — initially backed the initiative. Turkey's Defense Ministry confirmed on Thursday that Ankara is participating in meetings in Jeddah aimed at establishing the coalition.

Washington's Position

A White House official, speaking on background, said the United States expects the Houthis to continue to uphold the terms of the existing ceasefire. The official said the Houthis "saw during Operation Rough Rider that the United States and President Trump will take necessary action to protect freedom of navigation and U.S. commercial shipping from Houthi terrorist attacks."

The official added that the United States is focused on protecting core national security interests — including freedom of navigation in the Red Sea — while "empowering our regional partners to take the lead in managing and resolving regional security challenges." The official said Washington is in continuous dialogue with Saudi Arabia and the internationally recognized government of Yemen on regional stability.

A State Department spokesperson separately said protecting commercial shipping through both the Red Sea and the Strait of Hormuz remains a "top priority" for the Trump administration, pointing to freedom of navigation as a core U.S. national security interest in the Middle East. "We will continue to work with international partners to deter Iranian and Iranian-proxy attacks on merchant vessels, ensure the free flow of commerce and hold accountable those who threaten the safety of international shipping lanes," the spokesperson said.

The spokesperson said the administration is also working to disrupt the flow of Iranian money and weapons to the Houthis, noting that the U.S. has sanctioned more than 200 entities associated with the group. "We condemn Iran's flagrant violation of Yemen's sovereignty and international law in threatening freedom of navigation and supporting their Houthi proxies," the spokesperson said. The State Department also emphasized Washington's support for Saudi Arabia and Yemen's internationally recognized government. "The United States stands firmly with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the internationally recognized government of Yemen against Houthi terrorism," the spokesperson said. "We are in close consultation with our Saudi and Yemeni partners and remain committed to their security."

A Different Kind of Chokepoint

The strategic question, in the end, is not whether Bab el-Mandeb could become a second Strait of Hormuz. Geography, politics and the structure of Iran's proxy network all argue against a clean parallel.

But it is also no longer just a Yemeni problem. With tanker traffic already down sharply, with crew members dying at sea and with a growing list of countries joining Saudi-led security initiatives, the strait at the mouth of the Red Sea is fast becoming one of the more difficult maritime security problems of the wider Middle East conflict — one that naval power, on its own, may not be able to solve.