Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you. An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more. Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you. An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more. THE IRAN-BACKED HOUTHIS have seized control of Yemen’s entire Red Sea coast and captured three strategic islands on Friday, in a lightning offensive that cemented their hold on a vital shipping corridor linking Europe and Asia.

The developments are likely to deepen the Middle East war’s impact on international commerce, as Saudi Arabia shut down an oil pipeline following attacks, and after months of Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter, has relied on the Red Sea ever since Iran’s Hormuz blockade choked off its shipments via the Gulf.

Following a week-long offensive that has left hundreds dead, government officials said the Houthis seized the Yemeni side of the Bab al-Mandab Strait, the southern gateway to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal. A local official with Yemen’s Saudi-backed government said on Friday that the Houthis had “completed their takeover of the Bab al-Mandab area and Mayyun Island”.

A government military official later reported the group had also seized Greater and Lesser Hanish, the last two islands in the narrow waterway not under their control, as well as all the neighbouring Red Sea coastline. “Everything that was under our control on the western coast has fallen,” the military official added.

A witness told AFP that gunmen were “deploying along the Bab al-Mandab shore and are driving around in military vehicles”. The capture of the islands, particularly Mayyun in the middle of the strait, heightens the Houthis’ ability to attack Saudi tankers, which they have been targeting since July.

Mohammad Mokhber, an adviser to Iranian supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei, congratulated the Houthis on their “resounding victory” on Friday. Farea Al-Muslimi, research fellow at Chatham House, told AFP: “Now the Iranians don’t only control… the Strait of Hormuz, but they control the other most strategic chokepoint in the Middle East.

” Oil prices have soared past $100 a barrel this week, while average US diesel prices topped $6 for the first time on Friday — a potential headache for President Donald Trump ahead of midterm elections. The Houthis’ military spokesman, Yahya Saree, said navigation through the Bab al-Mandab Strait was “safe” for all but Saudi Arabia following the latest advances.

The Houthi offensive has killed more than 500 people, according to sources on both sides. It has also displaced about 46,000 people, the UN migration agency said on Friday. It is part of renewed hostilities in Yemen’s civil war that began with the group’s takeover of the capital Sanaa in 2014.

Houthi supporter Abdulhamid Dhaifallah lauded the group’s “great victories” in and along the strait. “They have been preparing for this front for four years,” the Sanaa resident said. Satellite images from Copernicus Sentinel Data taken on Thursday showed black smoke billowing near Medina, along the general route of the East-West pipeline that carries Saudi oil to its Red Sea coast.

The Saudi energy ministry on Friday announced that attacks led to the closure of the pipeline — which it had been increasingly using to bypass Hormuz — adding that injuries were recorded. “The East-West pipeline in the Riyadh and Medina regions was subjected to several attacks on Thursday morning,” a ministry official told the SPA news agency, adding: “The pipeline was stopped as a precaution, and the attacks resulted in some injuries.

” Before the Red Sea offensive, the Houthis already controlled a large part of Yemen’s north. They have recently attacked government-held areas in Hodeida and Taiz provinces and swept down the coast, seizing the port city of Mocha and Zuqar Island, north of Bab al-Mandab, on Thursday.

UNITED NATiONS (AP) — The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously Friday to briefly extend the arms embargo on Sudan’s western Darfur region while negotiations continue on a contentious U.S. proposal to expand the embargo throughout the country to pressure the warring parties to end their more than three-year conflict.

The uphill struggle the United States and its allies face during the monthlong extension was evident in speeches after the vote. Russia, which holds veto power in the council and backs the Sudanese government in its fight against paramilitary forces, vowed to prevent any expansion of the arms embargo.

Moscow made its “red lines” clear during closed negotiations, Russia’s deputy U.N. ambassador Anna Evstigneeva said. “We will not allow even a hint of broadening the restrictions by the council on Sudan.” The Security Council imposed an arms embargo on the vast Darfur region after violence erupted in 2003 when rebels took up arms against the authoritarian government in Khartoum, then led by Omar al-Bashir.

The government responded with air attacks and a ground offensive by local nomadic Arab militias known as the Janjaweed, who are accused of mass killings and rapes. Up to 300,000 people died in the conflict and 2.7 million fled their homes.

At a council meeting on Aug. 24, the United States urged a countrywide arms embargo to push the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces to negotiate an end to fighting that began in April 2023. The current war has killed at least 59,000 people, though aid groups warn the number could be much higher.

It has displaced some 13 million people and pushed parts of the country into famine, creating one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. Evstigneeva asked why the U.S. was trying to expand the arms embargo now when government forces “have a definite advantage on the ground,” and not in 2023 when the RSF was threatening the capital, Khartoum, and other cities.

It is the government that guarantees the country’s unity and institutions, and protects its civilians, she said. China’s deputy U.N. ambassador Sun Lei warned that extending the embargo would worsen the humanitarian situation and might lead to the fragmentation of Sudan, which would threaten regional stability.

Sudan’s U.N. Ambassador Al-Harith Mohamed told the council that a total arms embargo goes against the U.N. Charter’s guarantee that countries have the right to self-defense and their armed forces have the right to produce and acquire weapons to protect their sovereignty.

But U.S. deputy ambassador Jeffrey Bartos said another long-term extension of the Darfur embargo “is not an option,” calling it outdated and “insufficient to address the realities of the war today.” The council also needs to sanction people who commit “horrific actions,” including sexual violence, kidnapping for ransom and attacks on humanitarian personnel, he said.

“Inaction means more suffering and death,” Bartos warned. “That is unacceptable, and we refuse to rubber stamp another year of maintaining the status quo.” He reiterated the U.S. call for an end to the flow of arms to the belligerents from external parties.

And he decried the attacks on aid convoys, pointing to last week's loss of over 50 metric tons of aid in an aerial attack on clearly identified World Food Program trucks in South Kordofan. WFP acting director Carl Skau said in an interview with The Associated Press during his recent visit to Sudan that a lack of funding has forced the agency to reduce the number of people it assists from about 5 million at the beginning of the year to 3.

5 million. “We risk now having to cut even further,” he warned. “The world keeps sending weapons when they should be sending food and shelter, and when the focus and the energy and effort should really be on trying to bring an end to this conflict,” Skau said.

Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao told The Epoch Times that Iranian strikes on February 28 caused "significant damage" to the U.S. Navy base in Bahrain, marking the first official acknowledgment of impact on the Fifth Fleet headquarters, though the Pentagon previously stated operations were not significantly impacted.

While open-source imagery had suggested structural damage, a retired Vice Admiral noted it may take time to restore full operating capacity.

On September 11, 2026, Yemen’s Ansarallah announced the capture of six districts in western Yemen and control of the Red Sea coast, coinciding with Saudi airstrikes on Mocha airport and reports that its East-West oil pipeline was struck. The escalation displaced at least 46,000 people according to the IOM, while the IRGC claimed the destruction of a U.

S. unmanned vessel in the Strait of Hormuz, contributing to oil prices surpassing $108. Concurrently, Israel intensified operations in Gaza and the West Bank, killing a Hamas commander and conducting attacks that resulted in multiple casualties, while also detonating explosives at the Ali Al-Taher ridge.