Tehran has told Yemen’s Houthi rebels to be prepared to close the Bab al-Mandab Strait if the US attacks Iranian power infrastructure – a warning that comes as hostilities in the Gulf escalated this week, once again reducing commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
If the signal is acted upon, it would open a second front in a war that has already disrupted about a fifth of the world’s oil shipments and driven Brent crude to nearly $85 a barrel, up nearly 12% this week. This would draw the Houthis directly into the US-Iran confrontation, and simultaneously put the world’s two most heavily used maritime chokepoints off limits to global trade.
US President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to attack Iran’s power plants, bridges and desalination facilities unless Tehran stops its attacks on shipping in Hormuz. In a statement carried by Iranian state news agency IRNA, a spokesman for Iran’s Central Military Command warned on Thursday that if the US targeted Iranian infrastructure, “everything that has remained intact so far because of Iran’s oligarchy will be broken into pieces – that is, all the infrastructure in the region”.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps issued a parallel warning via IRNA that it could “target all other export corridors that benefit the US and its allies”, adding: “regional energy exports are either shared by all, or rejected by all.”
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a narrow entrance
The name itself – Bab al-Mandab, Arabic for ‘Gate of Tears’ – reflects the treacherous navigation of the strait. It is a 32 kilometer wide strait that separates the Arabian Peninsula from the Horn of Africa. It connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and through it to the Indian Ocean. According to the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, the strait is divided by the volcanic island of Perim into two channels: a 26 km wide western channel and a 3 km wide eastern channel.
It is one of the busiest sea corridors in the world. The Associated Press reported that about 12% of all global trade transits it, much of it headed through the Suez Canal and on to Europe.
Before the current increase, US Energy Information Administration (EIA) data showed that crude oil and petroleum liquids passing through the strait rose from 5.7 million barrels per day in 2020 to 9.3 million in 2023.
That figure dropped to 4.1 million barrels per day in 2024 as Houthi attacks forced ships to reroute around Africa, and remained close to that level through the first quarter of 2025.
How did the closure of Hormuz increase the risk?
The war that began in February changed the mathematics rapidly. As Iran shut down traffic through the Strait of Hormuz – the chokepoint through which about 20 million barrels of oil a day would move in 2025 – Gulf exporters scrambled for alternative routes to the sea, according to the International Energy Agency.
Saudi Arabia was best placed to adapt. According to Forbes, it restored full pumping capacity through its East-West Pipeline, which runs from its eastern oil fields to the Red Sea port of Yanbu, with a capacity of about 7 million barrels per day. The announcement came just days before the latest escalation of tensions. That oil now originates from Yanbu, crosses the Red Sea and exits Bab al-Mandab on its way to Asian markets including South Korea and China.
“The importance of Bab al-Mandab has increased especially amid what is happening in the Strait of Hormuz. Saudi Arabia managed to re-route some sections…” Noam Redan, senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told Time magazine.
The numbers track change. According to the EIA, crude oil and condensate flows through the Bab al-Mandab, measured in the narrow crude oil and condensate range, are expected to increase from 3.7 million barrels per day in the first quarter of 2025 to 5.4 million in the first quarter of 2026. Movement of liquefied natural gas, which had stopped in the second quarter of 2025, resumed and reached 2.9 billion cubic feet per day in the first quarter of 2026.
Houthi playbook
The Houthis have used the strait as leverage before. From November 2023 — a month after Hamas’ attack on Israel — to early 2025, the group attacked more than 100 merchant ships with missiles and drones in the Red Sea corridor, sinking two ships and killing four sailors, the AP reported. The Houthis framed the campaign as one in solidarity with Palestinians, targeting what they described as Israeli-linked vessels.
The commercial impact was immediate. Container lines began routing ships around the Cape of Good Hope in southern Africa instead of using the Suez Canal, adding about two weeks to the Asia-Europe journey. According to commodity publication Cyclop, Egypt stands to lose about $6.3 billion in Suez toll revenue in 2024 – a drop of more than 60% from 2023.
The Houthis halted their Red Sea attacks following the US-Houthi agreement in 2025 and the Israel-Hamas ceasefire in October 2025. This year, they joined the Iran war in March, and threatened to target Israeli-linked ships again in June.
In recent days, they have exchanged air strikes with Saudi Arabia after Riyadh accused Riyadh of bombing Sanaa airport. Houthi leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi warned in a televised address on Thursday that the group was prepared to move “toward a full-scale attack” if Saudi Arabia continued its attacks.
Mohammad al-Farah, a member of the political bureau of the Houthi movement, Ansarullah, said closing both straits simultaneously could send oil hitting $200 a barrel — “a terrible blow,” he said in comments carried by Iran’s state-run Press TV.
Analysts have cautioned against reading the Houthis as straightforward Iranian proxies.
Analysis by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) has described the relationship as a partnership in which both sides often assert their independence while agreeing on foreign and military objectives. However, at Bab al-Mandab, the alignment is generally maintained. The Houthis have already deployed missiles and drones that can target ships in the Red Sea and are awaiting orders, a source told Reuters, with timing expected to be from members of Iran’s IRGC deployed in Yemen.
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What would double closure mean?
The simultaneous closure of Hormuz and Bab al-Mandab would essentially leave commercial shipping with one option for moving goods between Asia and Europe: a longer detour around the Cape of Good Hope.
The scale of that re-routing is already visible. According to the International Monetary Fund’s Portwatch platform, which tracks ship movements using GPS data, commercial traffic around the Cape has more than tripled in three years. Between March 1 and April 24 this year, an average of 20 ships passed each day, up from six over the same period in 2023. Over the same window traffic through Bab al-Mandab fell from 18 daily transits to five.
Yves Guillou, a supply chain expert at Paris-based consultancy Efeso, told AFP that due to the Red Sea rerouting, transportation times between Asia and Europe have already increased by about two weeks on average, fuel consumption has increased by 30% to 50%, and 10% to 20% more ships are needed to maintain the same service frequency. The Drewry Container Freight Index saw the price of carrying a standard 40-foot container rise 14% year-over-year in April.
For India and other South Asian economies, the immediate challenges may be fuel prices and consumer goods. Redan told TIME that Bab al-Mandab carries crude, refined petroleum, LNG and liquefied petroleum gas, as well as bulk cargo such as grain and steel, and container-ship goods including clothing and toys.
Experts said that by demonstrating its ability to capture Hormuz, Iran is signaling that it can also threaten alternatives. “Iran is prepared to go all the way… the message is that not only Hormuz, but also Bab al-Mandab is in danger,” Fawaz Gerges, a Middle East scholar, told Reuters.
Whether the Houthis actually receive and act on orders remains an open question. Abdulaziz Segar, chairman of the Saudi-based Gulf Research Center, said the group retained the ability to disrupt navigation through the Bab al-Mandab, but was unlikely to escalate without explicit direction from Tehran. He said any such move could invite a broader US military response aimed at reducing Houthi capabilities.