Saudi Arabia shuts down a pipeline as Houthis seize an island, opening a new front in the Iran war

Sau­di Ara­bia said Fri­day it shut down a ma­jor pipeline a day af­ter it was at­tacked by drones, and Yemen’s Iran­ian-backed Houthi rebels cap­tured a strate­gic is­land at the south­ern en­trance to the Red Sea, two of­fi­cials said, open­ing a new front in the Iran war.

The Houthis made their biggest ter­ri­to­r­i­al gains in years along the Bab el-Man­deb Strait, one of the world’s key ship­ping lanes. The ad­vance could boost Iran’s strat­e­gy of dri­ving up world oil and gas prices to pres­sure the Unit­ed States.

Sau­di Ara­bia said it had shut down the East-West pipeline af­ter it was at­tacked the day be­fore. The Sau­di Min­istry of En­er­gy called the shut­down “a pre­cau­tion­ary mea­sure.”

The Sau­di For­eign Min­istry blamed the at­tack on sev­er­al drones that came from Iraq. In a state­ment car­ried by the state-run Sau­di Press Agency, the king­dom said it would not re­spond to give the Iraqi gov­ern­ment “an op­por­tu­ni­ty to take the nec­es­sary mea­sures.” The Iraqi gov­ern­ment con­demned the as­sault and or­dered an in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Sau­di Ara­bia and the Unit­ed States bombed Iran­ian-backed mili­tias in Iraq in Ju­ly, af­ter blam­ing them for drone at­tacks on Sau­di oil fa­cil­i­ties that had been claimed by the Houthis. Re­gion­al of­fi­cials told The As­so­ci­at­ed Press that the Houthis helped the Iraqi mili­tias plan and ex­e­cute the at­tacks.

Pipeline was built in the 1980s

Built in the 1980s, the East-West pipeline has played an im­por­tant role in Sau­di Ara­bia’s abil­i­ty to ex­port oil fol­low­ing the dis­rup­tion of the Strait of Hor­muz dur­ing the Iran war. By ear­ly June, Sau­di Ara­bia had more than dou­bled oil ex­ports from the Red Sea port at the pipeline’s end to more than 5 mil­lion bar­rels per day, ac­cord­ing to the In­ter­na­tion­al En­er­gy Agency.

The Houthi’s cap­ture of Mayun, a tiny, bar­ren vol­canic is­land in­side the strait al­so known as Per­im, was con­firmed by a se­nior mil­i­tary of­fi­cial with Yemen’s in­ter­na­tion­al­ly rec­og­nized gov­ern­ment and by a Houthi of­fi­cial. Both spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty be­cause they were not au­tho­rized to talk to jour­nal­ists.

Sau­di Ara­bia, the world’s largest oil ex­porter, has in­creas­ing­ly re­lied on the Red Sea to get its crude to mar­ket as an al­ter­na­tive to the Strait of Hor­muz, where Iran has been strik­ing ships. Houthi ef­forts to close the 28-kilo­me­ter-wide (17-mile) Bab el-Man­deb chan­nel have made that route more com­pli­cat­ed.

In a state­ment Fri­day, the Houthi armed forces boast­ed of gains along the coast with­out men­tion­ing the is­land, Mokha or the Bab el-Man­deb Strait. They vowed “es­ca­la­tion for es­ca­la­tion” in the con­fronta­tion with Sau­di Ara­bia, while de­clar­ing that “mar­itime nav­i­ga­tion is safe for all com­pa­nies ex­cept for Sau­di ves­sels.”

Still, mar­kets are ner­vous, and ex­perts have de­scribed the Houthis as high­ly un­pre­dictable. Crude prices this week soared again above $100 a bar­rel, giv­ing Tehran more lever­age in any talks.

Yemen’s gov­ern­ment was shocked by slow Sau­di re­sponse

The Houthis have been at­tack­ing Sau­di ship­ping on the Red Sea since de­clar­ing a block­ade in Ju­ly, as well as hit­ting oil in­fra­struc­ture in­side Sau­di Ara­bia. The rebels said they act­ed in re­sponse to the king­dom’s years­long block­ade of Houthi-held parts of Yemen.

Sau­di Ara­bia struck the air­port in the port city of Mokha af­ter the Houthis seized it Thurs­day, a Houthi broad­cast­er said. There were no re­ports of dam­age or deaths.

A se­nior mil­i­tary of­fi­cial with Yemen’s in­ter­na­tion­al­ly rec­og­nized gov­ern­ment told the AP they were stunned that the Sau­di air force did not try to pre­vent the cap­ture of Mokha, about 50 miles (80 kilo­me­tres) from the strait. He as­sessed that Sau­di Ara­bia didn’t get a green light from the U.S. to em­bark on a large-scale air cam­paign.

The of­fi­cial, who spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty be­cause he wasn’t al­lowed to speak to the me­dia, al­so blamed “lack of co­or­di­na­tion” be­tween Yemen’s army and mul­ti­ple al­lied mili­tias, say­ing it gave the Houthis “a price­less op­por­tu­ni­ty.”

Ship­ping through the Bab al-Man­deb Strait had fall­en by about 60% since the Houthis be­gan at­tack­ing some ships there in late 2023 and ex­press­ing sol­i­dar­i­ty with Pales­tini­ans in Gaza. Ship­ping in­creased this year as Sau­di Ara­bia sought al­ter­na­tives to the Strait of Hor­muz, but re­newed Houthi threats have “cur­tailed” that ac­tiv­i­ty, ac­cord­ing to Lloyd’s List In­tel­li­gence.

That has forced Sau­di Ara­bia to find yet an­oth­er al­ter­na­tive, send­ing its oil north out of the Red Sea to the Mediter­ranean, ei­ther via the Suez Canal or a pipeline through Egypt, a far longer route for its clients in Asia. The Houthis have threat­ened that route as well, strik­ing a Sau­di ves­sel in the north of the Red Sea in late Au­gust.

Iran calls for a re­turn to Sau­di-Houthi talks

Ear­li­er Fri­day, Iran’s gov­ern­ment called for an end to Sau­di Ara­bia’s block­ade of Houthi-held ar­eas in a show of sup­port for its al­ly. The Iran­ian For­eign Min­istry al­so called for a re­turn to ne­go­ti­a­tions be­tween Sau­di Ara­bia and the Houthis.

In a sign of the Houthis’ im­por­tance to Tehran, the spokesper­son for Iran’s pow­er­ful Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Guard on Wednes­day called for any ne­go­ti­at­ed set­tle­ment with the U.S. to in­clude Yemen, the first ex­plic­it ref­er­ence to that front.

Sau­di Ara­bia, which said it had al­ways of­fered “op­por­tu­ni­ties for ne­go­ti­a­tion,” al­so said it has the right to de­fend it­self. The for­eign min­is­ters of Iran and Sau­di Ara­bia spoke Thurs­day about diplo­mat­ic ef­forts to “re­store sta­bil­i­ty,” Iran­ian For­eign Min­is­ter Ab­bas Araghchi said on so­cial me­dia.

The fight­ing risks a re­turn to Yemen’s civ­il war

As the Houthis swept along the Red Sea coast to­ward the Bab el-Man­deb chan­nel, Yemen’s Sau­di-backed gov­ern­ment called for in­ter­na­tion­al sup­port.

In a state­ment Fri­day from a meet­ing the pre­vi­ous day, its Na­tion­al De­fense Coun­cil said it was on the front line of de­fend­ing free­dom of nav­i­ga­tion and con­demned the Houthis’ re­newed at­tacks on Sau­di Ara­bia.

The es­ca­lat­ing fight­ing threat­ens to end a frag­ile truce that had large­ly halt­ed Yemen’s civ­il war since 2022. At stake are 40 mil­lion peo­ple in the Arab world’s poor­est coun­try. The con­flict killed 150,000 and brought many oth­ers to the brink of famine.

The surge in fight­ing in the past week has sent over 46,000 peo­ple flee­ing, the U.N. mi­gra­tion agency said Fri­day.

Peo­ple seek­ing safe­ty left with “what­ev­er they can grab,” Ab­dusat­tor Es­o­ev, mis­sion chief in Yemen for the In­ter­na­tion­al Or­ga­ni­za­tion for Mi­gra­tion, said Fri­day. He said the num­ber of peo­ple dis­placed more than dou­bled this week and could still rise sharply.

“You see the fears in their eyes, and peo­ple are scared,” Es­o­ev said.

Those flee­ing in­clud­ed doc­tors and oth­er med­ical work­ers. Lou Cor­ma­ck, Yemen co­or­di­na­tor for Doc­tors With­out Bor­ders, said Fri­day that the aid group has pri­or­i­tized keep­ing Mokha’s hos­pi­tal open af­ter most of its staff left.

The Houthis have been at war with Yemen’s gov­ern­ment since 2014, when the rebels seized much of north­ern and cen­tral Yemen and the cap­i­tal of Sanaa. Sau­di Ara­bia en­tered the war the fol­low­ing year on be­half of the gov­ern­ment. —CAIRO (AP)

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Sto­ry by FAT­MA KHALED, SAMY MAGDY and CARA AN­NA | As­so­ci­at­ed Press

Cara An­na re­port­ed from Jerusalem. As­so­ci­at­ed Press writ­ers Jamey Keat­en in Gene­va and Toqa Ezzidin in Cairo con­tributed.