Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis have taken Perim Island — also known as Mayyun or Mayun — at the mouth of the Red Sea, witnesses and a local government official say, a day after seizing the port of Mokha and completing what officials describe as a takeover of the Bab al-Mandab corridor, BBC News reported.

On Friday, Saudi-backed pro-government forces withdrew from Perim. Witnesses said Houthi fighters moved onto the island; the BBC noted no immediate Houthi confirmation by name. A local official with Yemen’s Saudi-backed government told AFP: “The Houthis have completed their takeover of the Bab al-Mandab area and Mayyun Island.” An AFP witness separately described gunmen “deploying along the Bab al-Mandab shore” in military vehicles.

Perim sits at the narrowest point of the Bab al-Mandab Strait — the southern gateway linking Asia and Europe via the Red Sea and Suez. Its importance has jumped after the Strait of Hormuz was effectively closed in the U.S.–Iran war, the BBC noted; Saudi Arabia has been routing oil toward Asia via the Red Sea since Hormuz tightened. AFP reported that Iran adviser Mohammad Mokhber congratulated the Houthis on a “resounding victory,” and that Houthi politburo member Hazem al-Assad told Al-Araby al-Jadeed navigation in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab remains “safe and orderly” — except for Saudi vessels.

Thursday’s Mokha (Mocha) port seizure and reports of a coastal push including Dhubab sit one day before Friday’s island move; AFP also said Houthis had seized Zuqar Island north of the strait on Thursday and besieged government troops on the Hanish islands. Insanity Developing’s Thursday Mokha piece covered the port and the ~75 km approach — not Perim/Mayyun or Friday’s chokehold claim.

The International Organization for Migration said about 46,000 people have been displaced in roughly a week, with the number “alarmingly rising by the hour” on Friday (BBC/AFP). AFP put the offensive’s death toll above 500. Context, not the lede: oil has held above $100 this week, and AFP noted U.S. diesel topped $6 for the first time Friday.

Whoever holds the island in the middle of the narrow waterway sits on artillery-and-boat range of a second Middle East chokepoint — after Hormuz — with Saudi tanker traffic already under Houthi embargo rhetoric. Concentrated control of two straits is the story; the public still lacks a Houthi-named confirmation of Perim itself.

Sources