Yemen forces retreat from area near Bab el-Mandeb, Houthis in control

Yemeni forces fighting for the internationally recognised Saudi-backed government said on Sunday that they were withdrawing from an area overlooking the strategic Bab el-Mandeb Strait, leaving the Iran-aligned Houthis in control.

The government's retreat from the Bab el-Mandeb area hands the Houthis greater leverage over the maritime chokepoint, creating a potent pressure point on global shipping while Iran continues to disrupt traffic through the Strait of Hormuz on the other side of the Arabian Peninsula.

This dual squeeze would further isolate Gulf oil producers from their main shipping routes.

The Bab el-Mandeb Strait is one of the world's most important and busiest routes for global seaborne commodity and goods shipments, particularly from Asia to ⁠Europe via Egypt's Suez Canal.

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The southern Yemeni forces said they were redeploying toward Aden, where the government is based, as the Houthis — who control much of the north, including the capital Sanaa and Yemen's most populous areas — increase pressure on the southern areas still under government control.

"The Southern Armed Forces announce the implementation of a redeployment operation for its forces from Dhubab Airport and the Bab el-Mandeb area, west of Taiz Governorate," the southern forces said in a statement.

"This step is taken based on the priority of securing the capital, Aden, and the neighbouring governorates, as well as strengthening the front lines and addressing existing threats."

Government forces launched a military campaign in October to recapture the strategic coastal areas from the powerful militia, which had pushed south in September in an attempt to seize control of Yemen's entire Red Sea coast. The lightning offensive brought the Houthis within reach of Bab el-Mandeb.

The escalation in fighting, which broke a 2022 UN-brokered truce, became another volatile front in the wider US-Israeli war on Iran, as the Houthis continue to launch attacks on Saudi Arabia, a key US ally and the world's biggest crude exporter.

Houthi attacks on the kingdom, which had enjoyed relative calm during the early months of the nine-month-old Iran war, have disrupted flights and oil supplies as the Houthis struck Saudi ports, airports and facilities of state oil company Saudi Aramco — including the kingdom's Red Sea oil export hub of Yanbu.

In response, Saudi Arabia struck Houthi targets in Yemen, a country mired in civil war since 2014, when the Houthis pushed the government south. Impoverished Yemen has been grappling with one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.

Fighting is intensifying around the western region of Taiz, with humanitarian conditions worsening. The city, which hosts about half of the 300,000 people displaced across Yemen by the latest fighting, remains besieged. Aid supplies are unable to enter, and civilians are unable to leave.