New Delhi: OSINT handles Friday cited satellite imagery and fire-detection data, including from Sentinel-3 and the NASA’s FIRMS system, to suggest that Iran-backed Houthis may have attacked sections of Saudi Arabia’s crucial East-West oil pipeline, the country’s principal route for exporting crude without transiting the Strait of Hormuz.
Citing satellite imagery it verified showing smoke in the vicinity of the pipeline Thursday, Reuters said there was no confirmation from Saudi Arabia of any incident in the area.
There is no independent confirmation as yet that the pipeline itself was struck.
This came a day after Houthi forces in Yemen seized the Red Sea port city of Mocha and pushed towards the Hanish Islands, bringing the militia closer to Bab el-Mandeb, the 18-mile-wide maritime chokepoint through which much of the traffic between Asia and Europe passes.
The fighting was the group’s most serious with the Saudi-backed government in years, giving the Houthis almost full control of Bab el-Mandeb.
The developments spell a strategic disaster for both the US and its ally Saudi Arabia, effectively bringing Iran and its proxies closer to gaining control of the two chokepoints for western shipping on opposite sides of the Arabian peninsula: Bab el-Mandeb at the southern end of the Red Sea and the Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf.
Following the capture of Mocha, Saudi’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud called US President Donald Trump twice Thursday, asking him to launch strikes against the Houthis but Trump declined, said an Axios report.
The Houthi offensive could further disrupt energy supplies amid the existing squeeze.
According to data from maritime intelligence firm Kpler, around 6-7 million barrels per day of crude currently transits Bab el-Mandeb. Roughly half of this is Saudi crude loaded from Yanbu on the Red Sea coast, while most of the remainder comprises Russian cargoes bound for India, with smaller shipments heading to China. In June, exports from Yanbu reached 4.14 million barrels per day, effectively redirecting about 64 percent of the volume that had traditionally moved through Ras Tanura, Saudi Arabia’s main eastern oil terminal.
According to reports, three brigades of Saudi-backed forces collapsed and surrendered across the Hays, Al-Mokha, Al-Khokha, Taiz and Al-Jawf fronts, in what the Houthis called the “largest mass-capture operation in the history of modern warfare”.
Houthi spokesperson Mohammed Abdulsalam, however, wrote on X that freedom of navigation and international trade through the Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb Strait remained safe, and that Houthi military operations were limited to specific targets and would continue until what the group describes as “aggression” against Yemen comes to an end.
However, Saudi-flagged or Saudi-linked ships remained subject to a previously announced ban.
According to a Reuters report, Tehran instructed the Houthis last week to intensify attacks on Saudi Arabia while pledging additional funding, weapons and senior military personnel to support the campaign. Iran officially denies backing the Houthis, calling it an ally rather than a ‘proxy’. However, the report said Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) officials had travelled to Yemen last week to oversee military operations.
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Houthi’s history with Yemen
The Houthis have controlled Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, since 2014, when they overran the government and plunged the country into civil war. Saudi Arabia then led a military coalition in 2015 that intervened on behalf of the government. In 2022, a United Nations-brokered truce brought large-scale combat to a temporary halt.
The Houthis began disrupting shipping in the Red Sea in 2023, saying their actions were intended to support Palestinians during the Israel-Gaza conflict. Their attacks on shipping and Saudi Arabia resumed this year after the US-Iran war.
Fighting between the Houthis and Saudi-backed government forces intensified on 8 September, with the militant group seeking to expand its control along Yemen’s long western coastline rather than remain focused solely on the north.
Yemen’s UN-recognised government has never fielded a single integrated military, while the UAE, long the dominant outside backer of forces in southern Yemen, including the separatist Southern Transitional Council, pulled back its financial and military support last year. Southern forces have since declined to fight beyond their own territory.
As Houthi forces advanced towards Mocha last week, Yemen’s government also appealed to Saudi Arabia for increased air support and other military assistance, according to two Yemeni officials quoted in the Reuters report.
Instead, Riyadh largely limited its support to logistics, weapons and intelligence, with only a small number of airstrikes reported. The officials said they believed Saudi Arabia was reluctant to risk a broader confrontation with the Houthis, concerned that a major escalation could trigger more intensive drone and missile attacks against Saudi territory.
(Edited by Chingkheinganbi Mayengbam)
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