US Warns of Potential Houthi Attacks in Bab el-Mandeb Strait

Among the known threats are anti-ship missiles, one-way attack drones, and unmanned surface vessels. The United States has warned that Houthi militants, backed by Iran, could begin to fire at vessels in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait after Tehran raised the possibility of extending barriers to global maritime transport during the ongoing war. The U.S. Department of Transportation's Maritime Administration issued a notice on Thursday regarding the Houthis, based in Yemen, who have significantly disrupted maritime shipping with a series of attacks in the Red Sea in response to the war between Israel and Gaza. "While the Houthi terrorist group has not attacked merchant vessels since the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Gaza in October 2025, the Houthis continue to pose a threat to U.S. assets, including merchant vessels, in this region," the Maritime Administration said in its statement. What is the importance of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait? The Bab el-Mandeb Strait, located at the mouth of the Red Sea, is used as a route to transport Saudi oil from the port of Yanbu in the western kingdom. Riyadh sends several million barrels of crude daily from its eastern fields via a pipeline, a way to bypass the Iranian blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. note on Bab el-Mandeb comes after Iran's semi-official news agency Tasnim warned of the possible opening of a new "front" in the war in response to the deployment of Trump administration troops in the region. Energy prices have already spiked due to the effective closure of the Hormuz pipeline, a conduit through which about one-fifth of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas passes. In a video released on Thursday, Houthi leader Abdul Malik Al-Houthi stated that the group would respond militarily to U.S. and Israeli attacks if the course of the war against Iran so requires. The Bab el-Mandeb Strait connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea in general. The Tasnim agency cited an anonymous Iranian military official who claimed that "the Bab el-Mandeb Strait is considered one of the world's strategic straits, and Iran has both the will and the ability to create a fully credible threat against it." In a separate statement issued on Thursday, the Joint Maritime Information Center (JMIC), an international naval force overseeing the area, stated that the threat level in Bab el-Mandeb and the Gulf of Aden remains moderate due to the "hostile posture" of the Houthis and the ongoing regional conflict. "The group retains both the capability and the demonstrated intent to carry out maritime attacks in the region," JMIC declared.