Following the severance of supply lines and the PLC’s rout at Mocha, the rest of the Yemen’s Red Sea coast was taken very quickly. On the morning of 11 September, the last coastal town of Dhubab fell to the liberators. National-liberation forces reached the Bab el-Mandeb strait and landed on Perim island, which bisects the vital shipping lane, unopposed. (Houthis close in on Bab el-Mandeb as Saudi Arabia strikes back, Indian Express, 14 September 2026)

Since then, Ansar Allah has captured all of Yemen’s Red Sea islands and advanced down the coast as far as al-Aradi. It has also turned inland to capture strategic positions in the southern highlands and conducted another advance around the central city of Marib, which lies directly east of Sanaa. In the mountains, there are two major combat areas – in the south, and to the east of the major city Taiz, from which the national-liberation forces were forced to retreat in 2015 (Iran update, Institute for the Study of War, 14 September 2026).

Since the Saudi attack, Ansar Allah-led forces have taken advantage of their improved drone and missile capabilities to strike Saudi-Arabian oil infrastructure, including the Jizan oil refinery and the kingdom’s crucial East-West pipeline. Jizan is home to a 400,000 barrel-per-day oil refinery, which is among the country’s largest, along with associated plants and energy infrastructure.

“More refined oil products than usual were shipped from Jizan in the first few months of the US-Iran war as the conflict crimped Saudi exports from the Gulf, but volumes dropped dramatically after the Houthis restarted their attacks. No oil products were shipped from Jizan in August, according to data compiled by Kpler.” (Saudi Aramco oil facilities hit in new strikes by Verity Ratcliffe et al, Financial Times, 7 September 2026)

The East-West pipeline, also known as the Petroline, is a 1,201km (746 mi) pipeline in Saudi Arabia that runs from the Abqaiq oil field in the Eastern province (near Bahrain and Qatar on the Persian Gulf coast) across the width of the Arabian peninsula to Yanbu on the Red Sea.

The first pipe on the route was built to carry natural gas during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, allowing Saudi exports to bypass the tanker war that was then taking place in the strait of Hormuz. It was later converted to carry oil and supplemented by further pipes, steadily increasing its capacity in a move that was aimed at undermining the danger of Iran one day retaking control of and closing Hormuz – a threat that analysts in 2012 dismissed as mere sabre-rattling according to an FT article written at the time. (Pipelines bypassing Hormuz open by Javier Blas, 15 July 2012)

In the early part of the US-led aggressive regime-change war against Iran, the Saudis had been able to export up to 5mn barrels of oil per day despite the closure in Hormuz, using the East-West pipeline and Red Sea route. This bought vital breathing space both for the Saudi regime, whose dictatorship is totally dependent upon oil exports, and for the imperialist warmongers.

It was a significant factor in helping the US regime to hold back the arrival of the kind of catastrophic oil shock that would send the global economy spiralling into full-blown depression, thus enabling the Trump White House to continue spinning the suicidal attack as a “great success” and to incessantly declare “imminent victory”.

The pipeline route has now been closed as a result of resistance bombing that is thought to have been coordinated between Yemeni and Iraqi resistance forces. Photographs show the pipe having been seriously damaged in multiple places, meaning there will be no quick recovery. The Saudi government has said merely that the closure was a “precautionary measure”.

According to the Associated Press: “Shipping through the Bab al-Mandeb strait had fallen by about 60 percent since the Houthis began attacking some ships there in late 2023 and expressing solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. Shipping increased this year as Saudi Arabia sought alternatives to the strait of Hormuz, but renewed Houthi threats have ‘curtailed’ that activity, according to Lloyd’s List Intelligence.

“That has forced Saudi Arabia to find yet another alternative, sending its oil north out of the Red Sea to the Mediterranean, either via the Suez Canal or a pipeline through Egypt, a far longer route for its clients in Asia. The Houthis have threatened that route as well, striking a Saudi vessel in the north of the Red Sea in late August.” (Saudi Arabia shuts down a pipeline as Houthis seize an island, opening a new front in the Iran war by Fatma Khaled et al, 12 September 2026)

The repercussions of simultaneously degrading Saudi oil infrastructure and blockading both the Bab al-Mandeb and the strait of Hormuz cannot be overstated – either for the Saudi economy or for global oil supplies. As the Anglo-American imperialist camp continues to ratchet up its middle-eastern war front in the hopes of reviving its waning hegemony and resetting its crisis-ridden economy, the price is already being felt by billions of workers around the world – and is set to rise far higher in the near future.

The imperialists’ reckless gamble, at the expense of so many lives and livelihoods, has so far not been paying off at all. A blockage of both vital shipping lanes out of the middle east has long been flagged by western analysts as the ‘ultimate nightmare’ for the very global capitalist economy that the USA and its allies are trying to bail out. As we go to press, the imperialists appear to have no viable way to escape this trap of their own making.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia’s King Khalid airbase near Khamis Mushait has also been struck by Ansar Allah, which targeted it “with ballistic missiles and drones last week after it was used to carry out air strikes on Yemen. At least three aircraft hangars or shelters appear to have been damaged at the Royal Saudi Air Force facility where US-made F-15 fighter jets are based.” (Financial Times, op cit)