SANAA, September 11 — The Houthi movement has expanded its positions along Yemen’s Red Sea coast, consolidating control over a stretch of one of the world’s most important maritime corridors, a decade after it seized the capital. The Iran-aligned group, formally known as Ansar Allah, has controlled Sanaa since September 2014 and much of Yemen’s north for ten years. Its new coastal gains extend its ability to threaten shipping and complicate international efforts to secure the waterway, according to the source material.
Ansar Allah emerged in the early 2000s from a revivalist movement in Yemen’s northern Saada province. Between 2004 and 2010 it fought six rounds of conflict with the Yemeni government before joining the 2014 takeover of Sanaa.
Its leadership includes Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, who has led the group since 2004, and its political apparatus operates from the capital. A Saudi-led military coalition intervened in March 2015 to restore the internationally recognized government, beginning a war that has killed more than 150,000 people, including over 14,000 civilians, according to the United Nations. The UN calls it the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, with more than 4 million people displaced.
The internationally recognized Yemeni government, backed by the coalition, is based in the southern city of Aden.
Why the Red Sea corridor matters
The Bab el-Mandeb strait, between Yemen and the Horn of Africa, is a chokepoint roughly 18 miles wide at its narrowest. The Suez Canal route that runs through it normally carries about 12 percent of global trade, including a significant share of Europe’s energy imports. Since late 2023, Houthi forces have launched dozens of attacks on commercial and military vessels in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.
Major shipping lines have diverted around the Cape of Good Hope, adding roughly 10 days and thousands of miles to Asia-Europe voyages and raising freight and insurance costs. The United States and Britain have carried out retaliatory strikes on Houthi targets since January 2024, and the European Union launched its own naval mission, Aspides, in February 2024.
The Houthis have also fired missiles and drones at Israel, drawing Israeli airstrikes on Yemen, including on the port of Hodeidah in July 2024.
Hodeidah and the humanitarian stakes
Hodeidah, Yemen’s principal Red Sea port, has been a focal point. A UN-brokered ceasefire in December 2018 halted a coalition offensive on the city, and the port remains a lifeline for food and fuel imports on which millions of Yemenis depend. UN-led peace efforts have repeatedly stalled, and the conflict remains unresolved.
The expansion of Houthi control along the coast raises the stakes for global shipping, regional stability, and the humanitarian response in a country where more than 17 million people face acute food insecurity, according to UN agencies. What to watch next is whether the group’s coastal gains prompt a renewed international response, and whether stalled UN-led peace efforts can be revived before the humanitarian situation deteriorates further.
