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Regional officials suggested Tehran is using the threat to apply economic pressure on Washington by driving up global energy costs.
By Gila Isaacson, JFeed
Iran has instructed Houthi forces in Yemen to prepare to close the Bab al-Mandab Strait, according to sources in Iran and the region cited Thursday in a Reuters report, a move that would leave both of the Middle East’s major oil export corridors sealed at once and threatens to deepen a global energy crisis already strained by the standoff over the Strait of Hormuz.
The request came as Tehran weighs the possibility that the United States will strike Iran’s power infrastructure, according to the report, and represents an attempt to raise the cost of any further American escalation by threatening a second vital artery for global energy and trade.
Officials close to the Houthis said representatives of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps already stationed in Yemen would determine the precise timing of any closure.
The report indicated Houthi forces have completed preparations and positioned missiles and drones along the shipping lane, and are now awaiting an operational order.
A closure of Bab al-Mandab would come as the Strait of Hormuz remains fully shut, leaving the Middle East’s two principal oil export routes disabled simultaneously, according to the report, which noted that roughly seven percent of global energy supply currently transits the Red Sea.
Saudi Arabia, which has rerouted a majority of its energy exports through its Red Sea port at Yanbu, is watching the coordination between Tehran and the Houthis with concern.
Torbjorn Soltvedt, a Middle East analyst, said that if fighting intensifies and spills into export infrastructure and Red Sea shipping, it would threaten the one major alternative route left for oil exports from the region.
Regional officials suggested Tehran is using the threat to apply economic pressure on Washington by driving up global energy costs.
One source noted that closing the waterway would not require a sophisticated operation, since a fighter with a rifle can disrupt shipping without the need for advanced weaponry.
The development fits a pattern documented by multiple outlets over the past several days.
The Telegraph has reported that Houthi forces are quietly coordinating with al-Shabab, the Somali militant group, to assert control over both sides of the strait, and that Iran’s Fars news agency has explicitly named Bab al-Mandab as a planned second front in any wider war.
Yemen’s Ansarullah political bureau has separately warned that a coordinated closure with Hormuz could send oil prices as high as $200 a barrel.
Analysts caution, however, that the Houthis operate with a degree of independence from Tehran and have their own reasons, chiefly hostility toward Saudi Arabia, for considering such a move.
Neither Iranian nor Houthi officials had issued a final order to close the strait as of Thursday, and for now, shipping through Bab al-Mandab continues.
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