Houthi attacks create tinderbox in Red Sea: What to know
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Comments: by Ryan Mancini - 07/23/26 4:46 PM ET Comments: Link copied by Ryan Mancini - 07/23/26 4:46 PM ET Comments: Link copied NOW PLAYING Houthi strikes on a pair of Saudi oil tankers have created an explosive situation in the Red Sea, threatening to open a new front in the U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran and further roil the global energy market.
The Yemen-based militant group said Thursday it struck the Encelia and Layla tankers with ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones, according to the Houthis’ SABA News Agency . It marked the first attack from the Houthis since they announced a blockade of Saudi ships attempting to go through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait earlier this week.
The blockade was imposed in response to a strike on Sanaa International Airport in northern Yemen. The Houthis blamed Saudi Arabia, but the Saudi-backed Yemeni government claimed responsibility for the strike.
The strikes on the tankers Thursday caused international benchmark Brent crude to cross the $100 mark , with futures trading at about $101 per barrel, up from about $79 a month ago. Average gas prices jumped to almost $4.10 per gallon, up from $3.92 a month ago, according to AAA .
About 8 percent of the world’s oil passes through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait at the southern end of the Red Sea, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration . Analytics platform Kpler’s statistics show about 6.2 million barrels of oil have passed through the strait every day over the past month, two-thirds of it from Saudi Arabia, allowing it to bypass the Strait of Hormuz.
The Houthis control Yemeni territory along the strait. Closing it leaves most Saudi oil exports unable to exit the Middle East, compounding the 10-percent reduction in oil flow since Iran shut down the Strait of Hormuz at the start of the war with the U.S. and Israel in February.
Several Asian countries are likely to be hit hard by the reduction of their crude imports transiting through Bab el-Mandeb Strait, most notably India, according to Kpler.
International Energy Agency Executive Director Fatih Birol warned Tuesday that threats to the Red Sea choke point “exacerbate” concerns over the security of oil supply and “uncertainty over the market outlook.”
“We estimate that Gulf exports are below their late-June highs but are still considerably higher than the levels seen between early March and mid-June,” he noted.
Oman’s Foreign Ministry emphasized the need to avoid any new escalation or threats “that could exacerbate the situation and endanger freedom of navigation.”
With the Bab el-Mandeb Strait’s effective closure, Asian oil refineries are looking at alternative routes to export oil, including the longer path of transit from Yanbu, Saudi Arabia, through the Suez Canal in Egypt and into the Mediterranean Sea, sailing around Africa past the Cape of Good Hope and off to Asia, Al Jazeera reported Wednesday .
Rerouting Saudi crude through this method would mean avoiding security risks, but it would add time and distance to exporting oil. Rerouting cargoes from Yanbu to South Korea would increase the journey time from 24 days to 54 days, according to Kpler.
The challenge is whether enough oil can physically move quickly enough through the canal to meet global demands, Homayoun Falakshahi, head of crude oil analysis at Kpler, told Al Jazeera.
“Maintaining current export rates would require materially higher terminal productivity, making logistics the key bottleneck,” he told the outlet.
Another risk is whether or not Iran could interfere with cargo passing through the Suez Canal. Retired U.S. Navy Adm. James Stavridis earlier this month warned to keep an eye on Iran’s moves around the Suez Canal.
“It’s got more traffic flowing through it than the Strait of Hormuz, and the Iranians are beginning to make noises about attempting to close that, using the Houthis in the southwest corner,” Stavridis told CNN’s Jake Tapper.
President Trump warned after the attack on the two Saudi tankers that he will “ hold Iran responsible ” if the Yemeni militants continued their attacks.
“A year ago the United States of America attacked, very powerfully, the Houthis, for their interference with commerce and trade, by shooting at ships,” Trump said on Truth Social, referring to the U.S. military strikes against the Houthis from March to May 2025.
The president acknowledged that the Houthis had been acting “responsibly” since those strikes, but “now they are starting up again.”
“Please let this TRUTH serve to represent that if they do this again, the U.S. will hold Iran responsible, in that the Houthis are a Surrogate and/or Proxy of Iran, and major military punishment will be inflicted upon Iran and, of course, the Houthis, themselves, who I am very disappointed with in that they have, until now, acted very professionally and smart,” Trump’s post reads.
Trump designated the Houthis as a foreign terrorist organization in January 2025, shortly after he returned to the White House.
In late March, the Iran-backed militants released a five-point directive warning the U.S., its Persian Gulf partners and Israel against further strikes on Iran. One of these points argued in favor of a diplomatic solution to the conflict and a “cessation of aggression against Muslim countries in Palestine, Lebanon, Iran, and Iraq, and the lifting of the unjust siege on Yemen.”
Within this point were three red lines the Houthis said must not be crossed: Middle Eastern countries cannot ally with the U.S. and Israel in fighting Iran; the Red Sea cannot be used to carry out attacks on Iran on behalf of the U.S. and Israel; and there must not be any escalation of hostilities toward Iran and its allies.
The Houthis’ other points call for humanitarian aid and “the…
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