The Invisible War in the Red Sea

he Bab el-Mandeb Strait —also known as Bab al-Mandab, “the Gate of Tears”— is a maritime passage of global strategic importance, located between Yemen and Djibouti, separating the African continent from the Arabian Peninsula. In the middle of this narrow corridor lies Mayyun Island (also known as Perim), a mere 13 km² in size, sitting to the north just 3 kilometers off the Yemeni coast, separated by a narrow eastern channel. This position is crucial: around 7% of global trade and 4.8 million barrels of oil per day pass through Bab el-Mandeb, linking the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden, and by extension, the Suez Canal with the Indian Ocean. To control —or even threaten— this chokepoint is to hold one of the main arteries of global maritime and energy flows.

In this setting emerges an unexpected yet increasingly decisive actor: the Houthi insurgency. Originating in northern Yemen, the movement follows a Zaydi Shia interpretation of Islam—distinct from Iran’s Twelver Shiism but united in its opposition to Saudi Wahhabism, which it views as both a religious and cultural threat. The Houthis defend a nationalist theocratic vision, in which religious authority confers political legitimacy, and see themselves as defenders of Yemen’s “authentic faith” against foreign contamination. Over time, this ideology has solidified into a political-military structure with firm territorial control in northwestern Yemen, particularly around Sana’a and Hodeidah, giving them direct access to the Red Sea and international shipping lanes.

Their role, however, goes well beyond local resistance. For Iran, the Houthis represent a low-cost tool of strategic projection. Unlike deploying fleets or establishing permanent bases, Tehran uses this militia as a forward arm in the Red Sea, much as it uses Hezbollah in the eastern Mediterranean. Since 2023—and more intensely throughout 2024—the Houthis have launched missile, drone, and unmanned boat attacks against commercial and military vessels, proving that they do not need to control the strait to make it vulnerable. Each attack—or even the threat of one—raises insurance premiums, diverts shipping traffic, and disrupts global logistics. For Iran, it is like placing a key at the southern gate of the Red Sea: turning it can unsettle economic flows across multiple continents without deploying a single warship.

This new front has forced multiple actors to respond. Saudi Arabia has suffered direct strikes on oil facilities and airports, exposing the vulnerabilities of its defense systems against a persistent, irregular adversary. The United States and Western allies have deployed naval operations to secure maritime transit, while Israel is increasingly concerned about the vulnerability of its Eilat–Ashdod corridor, a critical alternative route to the Suez Canal. None of these actors can ignore that a non-state militia allied with Iran has gained the ability to disrupt global maritime circulation from one of the planet’s most sensitive chokepoints.

Yet the Houthis are not a conventional army. Their effectiveness relies on asymmetry, tactical surprise, and Iranian political and logistical backing. They do not seek to conquer and hold the strait in the traditional sense, but rather to maintain a constant, latent, and hard-to-neutralize threat. This allows them to operate flexibly, adapt to Western naval responses, and keep strategic attention focused on Yemen, diverting resources from other fronts. In this sense, Bab el-Mandeb is becoming a theater of hybrid warfare, where cheap drones and explosive boats can generate strategic effects comparable to those of large fleets.

The emergence of this “maritime proxy” reveals a broader pattern: Iran has woven a network of non-state alliances that, collectively, grant it unprecedented regional projection capabilities. Hezbollah in Lebanon, Shia militias in Iraq, groups in Syria, and now the Houthis in Yemen form an arc of geopolitical pressure that partially surrounds Israel, strains Saudi Arabia, and complicates Western trade routes. This strategy is not aimed at winning conventional wars but at eroding, distracting, and exhausting the freedom of action of Iran’s rivals.

Ultimately, the conflict in Yemen and the Houthis’ growing influence in the Red Sea are not local anomalies; they are part of a broader strategic realignment. If the Persian Gulf has long been the epicenter of energy wars and naval power projection, Bab el-Mandeb may become the next major arena of global competition — a “second Gulf” in the south. Are we witnessing the birth of a new maritime front in Iran’s proxy war? That will be the subject of another column.