How Did the Houthis Take the Gateway to the Red Sea so Easily?

In barely a week, the Houthis transformed the military map of Yemen’s Red Sea coast.

Mokha fell. Dhubab fell. Government troops withdrew from Perim Island at the mouth of the Bab el Mandeb Strait. Houthi forces moved onto the Hanish islands and were reported on Zuqar.

By September 13, the Houthis controlled positions overlooking one of the most important shipping corridors on earth.

The obvious question is how.

The answer is not that the Houthis suddenly developed an unstoppable army.

They appear to have done something much simpler.

They prepared in plain sight, attacked the weak points connecting a fragmented defensive system, forced withdrawals from one position after another, and then moved into territory that the anti Houthi coalition could no longer hold.

And remarkably, there had been warning.

The attack was not a surprise

Nearly a month before Mokha fell, Yemen’s internationally recognized government was publicly warning that the Houthis were preparing to seize territory around Bab el Mandeb.

On August 18, Yemeni Information Minister Moammar al Eryani warned that the Houthis were preparing to expand toward the coast and strategic islands.

Houthi military sources cited by AFP said roughly 2,000 fighters and rocket launchers had been moved toward western fronts.

By September 2, government aligned forces were already sending reinforcements toward Taiz and the coast.

By September 3, the offensive had begun.

So this was not an enemy appearing from nowhere.

The threat was visible.

What failed was the response.

The government advanced into a trap

One of the most important moments came on September 5.

Government aligned forces counterattacked around Hays and pushed north along the coastal plain.

Initially, it looked like progress.

But the advance created a long exposed position stretching northward while the Houthis continued operating from higher ground to the east.

The Houthis did not need to destroy every government formation.

They needed to threaten the roads connecting them.

Fighting around Maqbanah, al Kadhah, Jabal Habashi, al Wazi'iyah and other inland positions increasingly threatened the network linking Taiz with Mokha and the coastal front.

Then the defensive structure began coming apart.

Hays was lost.

Al Khawkhah was lost.

Khalid ibn al Walid Camp was overrun.

The Mokha junction and Jabal al Nar fell.

Once those positions disappeared, Mokha was dangerously exposed.

Then the retreat accelerated

The decisive collapse came during the night of September 9 into September 10.

Government aligned forces began withdrawing south from Hays after heavy Houthi missile, drone and artillery attacks.

The retreat did not stop at the next defensive position.

It kept moving.

By the morning of September 10, geolocated footage showed Houthi fighters inside Mokha.

Residents told the Associated Press that Houthi vehicles had spread through the city.

There is little evidence of a prolonged final battle for Mokha itself.

The city appears to have become increasingly indefensible after the surrounding camps, junctions and roads were lost.

Government troops withdrew south.

The Houthis entered.

That pattern would repeat.

Perim was essentially handed over by withdrawal

Perhaps the most strategically significant capture was Mayyun, better known internationally as Perim Island.

Perim sits directly inside Bab el Mandeb and divides the strait into eastern and western channels.

Yet the available evidence does not show the Houthis storming the island in a major amphibious assault.

Government forces withdrew on September 10.

Houthi fighters arrived by boat afterward and occupied the island on September 11.

The same broad pattern was reported on the Hanish islands.

Government naval troops withdrew.

The Houthis moved in.

That distinction matters.

The Houthis certainly created the military pressure that led to the withdrawals. But several of their most important territorial gains were not won through costly last stand battles.

They were occupied after the defensive system around them had already failed.

The Houthis attacked a coalition, not one army

The forces defending western Yemen were never one coherent military organization.

The front included Tariq Saleh’s National Resistance Forces, Southern Giants Brigades, Tihama formations, Saudi sponsored Homeland Shield forces, Taiz Axis units and various naval and local formations.

Some had historic ties to the United Arab Emirates.

Others were primarily backed by Saudi Arabia.

They did not all answer to one simple national chain of command.

That matters enormously when a front suddenly collapses.

A coordinated military needs someone who can immediately move reserves, redirect aircraft, secure roads, reinforce islands, evacuate equipment and establish the next defensive line.

Instead, the anti Houthi side was trying to coordinate several organizations with different commanders, sponsors and political loyalties.

The Houthis only needed to find the seams between them.

The UAE was no longer there

The absence of the United Arab Emirates was another major difference from earlier phases of the Yemen war.

Abu Dhabi had built, trained and supported much of the military architecture along Yemen’s western coast.

But it had steadily reduced its direct military presence.

After a serious Saudi UAE rupture in late 2025, the UAE announced that its remaining military personnel had left Yemen by January 2026.

The local forces it had helped create remained.

The Emirati military layer behind them did not.

There is no confirmed evidence that Emirati troops, aircraft or advisers intervened to save Mokha, Dhubab or the islands during the September offensive.

For a defensive system historically built with heavy Emirati involvement, that absence mattered.

Saudi aircraft were flying. They still failed to stop the collapse

It would be inaccurate to say Saudi Arabia simply watched the offensive without acting.

Saudi and Yemeni aircraft were carrying out strikes before Mokha fell.

Air attacks were reported in Taiz, al Bayda, al Jawf and other areas.

But air activity is not the same thing as effective battlefield support.

Despite the strikes, the coastal front collapsed during the night of September 9 and the morning of September 10.

The most clearly documented attacks on newly occupied positions around Mokha, Khalid Camp, Jabal al Nar and Dhubab came after those locations had already been lost.

Saudi aircraft could still bomb the Houthis.

They had failed to prevent them from taking the ground.

The public record does not yet establish why.

Possible explanations include poor targeting information, weak coordination between aircraft and ground forces, rapidly shifting front lines, fear of hitting retreating friendly troops, competing demands elsewhere in Yemen and the need to defend Saudi territory from Houthi missile and drone attacks.

Saudi Arabia has not publicly released an after action account answering those questions.

Washington was asked to intervene and said no

By the time Mokha was falling, Riyadh reportedly wanted American help.

According to reporting cited by Reuters and Axios, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman spoke with President Donald Trump on September 10 and requested direct U.S. strikes against the Houthis.

Trump declined.

Washington instead agreed to provide intelligence and targeting assistance.

The reported reasoning was straightforward: the United States was already heavily focused on Iran and the Strait of Hormuz and did not want to open another direct combat front in Yemen.

That decision left Saudi Arabia and Yemeni government forces responsible for stopping the offensive themselves.

They failed.

Iran appears to have helped. Direct command is not proven

Iranian support for the Houthis is well established.

Houthi missiles, drones and other weapons have long relied on Iranian designs, components, technology and smuggling networks.

Reuters also reported claims from Yemeni and regional sources that Iran had promised additional weapons, money and senior personnel before the offensive.

Several Saudi backed Yemeni military sources alleged that Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps personnel helped direct the operation.

Some reports identified senior Quds Force figure Abdolreza Shahlai.

But there is an important evidentiary limit.

Publicly available evidence does not prove that Shahlai personally commanded the offensive or that the IRGC directly controlled every Houthi operation.

Those remain allegations based largely on intelligence sources, intercepted communications and prisoner statements that have not been made public.

The safer conclusion is that Iranian material and advisory support is strongly supported.

Direct Iranian command of this particular offensive remains unproven.

The Houthis also understood the psychology of collapse

Military retreats have momentum.

When one unit pulls back, the neighboring formation begins wondering whether it is about to be surrounded.

When headquarters disappear, roads become unsafe and communications fail, commanders must decide whether holding one more position is worth losing their entire force.

The Houthis added another tool: surrender and amnesty messaging.

As the west coast broke apart, Houthi officials openly encouraged government fighters to lay down their weapons.

There is no reliable evidence that entire brigades suddenly defected to the Houthis, despite claims circulating online.

But mass defection was not required.

The Houthis merely had to convince already isolated soldiers that staying behind was more dangerous than withdrawing.

They now sit beside one of the world's most important sea lanes

Perim does not give the Houthis magical control over global shipping.

Neither does Mokha.

Bab el Mandeb has another shore controlled by Djibouti and Eritrea, and international vessels continued passing through the strait after the Houthi advance.

But the geography undeniably improves Houthi options.

From coastal and island positions, they can potentially deploy surveillance equipment, drones, small boats, mines, short range weapons and sensors much closer to passing ships.

Perim is particularly sensitive because the island sits directly inside the strait.

The Houthis already possessed missiles and long range drones capable of threatening Red Sea shipping from much farther away.

Now they have additional locations from which to watch, track and potentially attack that traffic.

That could matter enormously for Israel.

Ships heading toward Eilat must pass through Bab el Mandeb.

So do vessels traveling between Asia, the Red Sea and the Suez Canal.

Saudi Arabia also increasingly depends on Red Sea routes as an alternative when the Strait of Hormuz is threatened.

The Houthis do not need to completely close Bab el Mandeb to create economic consequences.

They only need shipping companies and insurers to believe the risk has increased.

The biggest failure happened before Mokha fell

The most striking part of this story is not that the Houthis possessed missiles, drones or motivated fighters.

Everyone knew that.

It is that their opponents had warning, aircraft, tens of thousands of troops across multiple formations, Saudi support, American intelligence and years to prepare.

Yet when the offensive reached its decisive moment, those resources did not function as one military system.

The defenders advanced into an exposed position.

The Houthis hit their roads and flanks.

Several different commands struggled to respond together.

The UAE was no longer directly present.

Saudi air power failed to stabilize the battlefield.

The United States declined to enter the fight.

And once the retreat began, the Houthis turned one withdrawal into another.

That is how Mokha, Dhubab and strategically important Red Sea islands could fall in a matter of days.

The Houthis did not need to defeat every opponent standing between them and Bab el Mandeb.

They needed the system defending it to break.

It did.