Iran-backed Houthi rebels have seized Yemen’s Red Sea port city of Mocha, officials said, securing their biggest territorial gain since a 2022 truce and moving closer to the strategic Bab el-Mandeb Strait.
The takeover was confirmed by Ahmed Baash, a commander with the government-aligned National Resistance Forces, and Hazam al-Assad, a member of the Houthi political bureau.
Mocha lies about 80km from Bab el-Mandeb, the narrow waterway linking the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden. Roughly 12 per cent of the world’s oil and other goods normally pass through the route.
The strait has assumed greater importance since shipping through the nearby Strait of Hormuz was disrupted by Iran following attacks by the United States and Israel earlier this year.
Yemeni government military sources said the Houthis had also gained ground towards the Hanish islands and were seeking to extend their influence along the southern entrance to the Red Sea.
Government forces and their allies were reported to be withdrawing south along the coast towards Dhubab, which sits opposite Perim island at the mouth of Bab el-Mandeb. Control of the town and island would provide a commanding position over the shipping lane.
The Houthis have said Red Sea navigation remains safe for all shipping companies except those linked to Saudi Arabia. Their spokesman, Mohammed Abdulsalam, described the group’s operations as defensive and said they would end if attacks on Yemen stopped.
Residents told the Associated Press that Houthi fighters had spread through Mocha, with roads from the western coast closed and shops and markets shut. The agency also reported that three doctors had fled a hospital after it was taken over by the rebels, although those accounts could not be independently verified.
The Houthis have recently advanced in Taiz province, where Mocha is located, and seized the al-Shaqira area, an important supply route linking the provincial capital with the western coast, according to Yemeni military personnel and Saudi-backed forces.
Yemeni government forces have launched air strikes against Houthi reinforcements west of Taiz, while fighting has continued along the coast towards the southern approaches to the key port of Hodeida.
Mocha had been held for years by forces aligned with Yemen’s internationally recognised government. Its capture raises fears that the country’s fragile truce could collapse into a full-scale civil war, with consequences for civilians and global energy supplies.
