A new threat by Yemen's Houthis could widen the Iran war and put another trade chokepoint at risk

CAIRO (AP) — A declared blockade of Saudi Arabia by Yemen's Houthi rebels has the potential to widen the Iran war and further disrupt global oil supplies and international trade.

The rebels say they have closed the Bab el-Mandeb Strait to Saudi-linked shipping in retaliation for the kingdom’s blockade on Yemen and a recent attack on the international airport in Yemen's rebel-held capital, Sanaa. The Houthis claim to have forced six ships to reroute on Tuesday, but there was no independent confirmation.

Bab el-Mandeb, at the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, is a vital shipping chokepoint, connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Arabia. Around 12% of the world’s trade, including a fourth of global container traffic, passes through the narrows, moving between Europe and Asia via Egypt’s Suez Canal.

The strait has become even more vital for Saudi oil exports since the disruption of the Strait of Hormuz during the Iran war has severely limited shipping out of the Persian Gulf.

The Houthis say they will only stop vessels connected to Saudi Arabia or going in and out of its Red Sea ports. But during a similar blockade announced against Israel over the war in Gaza, the rebels attacked many vessels with little or no connection to that conflict.

The threat alone could keep international shippers from using the route.

The Houthis don’t control the part of Yemen’s coastline along Bab el-Mandeb — that’s in the hands of its opponents in the country’s civil war. But they hold territory less than 100 kilometers (60 miles) away.

Three Houthi officials told the AP on Tuesday that the group has planned for months how to disrupt shipping in the strait. Those plans include the use of naval mines, explosive-laden boats, drones and helicopters to allow fighters to board ships, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to media.

They said vessels would first be warned not to cross designated boundaries in the strait. If ships ignore the warnings, the Houthis would resort to military action.

In the Strait of Hormuz, Iran has shown that even sporadic attacks on ships can be enough to effectively close a critical waterway, by driving up risks and insurance premiums.

“If Bab el-Mandeb comes under pressure at the same time as shipping in the Gulf, you have disruption around two of the world’s most important maritime routes at once,” Clionadh Raleigh, the founder of ACLED, a conflict monitoring service, said Tuesday.

More than 7 million barrels of petroleum a day transited Bab el-Mandeb in June, compared to around 4 million before the Iran war, Allison Minor, the director of the Atlantic Council’s Project for Middle East Integration, wrote in an analysis published Monday.

Saudi Arabia has been recently exporting some 4 million barrels of oil a day through its Red Sea port of Yanbu, blunting the impact of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which has still rattled economies around the world.

Saudi Arabia could still get crude to market without using Bab el-Mandeb, by shipping up to 2.5 million barrels a day across the Red Sea to Egypt, whose SUMED pipeline can carry it to the Mediterranean. It could also ship 1 million barrels a day through the Suez Canal.

International shippers could also reroute, as they did at the height of the war in Gaza. But that means going the long way around the Cape of Good Hope off South Africa, adding one or two weeks to voyages — and raising costs.

The Houthis attacked over 100 vessels at the height of the war in Gaza, before a punishing U.S. and Israeli air campaign put an end to the attacks in early 2025.

U.S. President Donald Trump brushed off the latest threat.

“So far, it hasn’t happened,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday. “I think that if there is something like that, we’ll just have to take care of business.”

The Houthis also run the risk of reigniting the war with Saudi Arabia and its allies in Yemen, where major fighting ended with a truce in 2022. Saudi Arabia’s military says it will keep Bab el-Mandeb open.

“All Houthi threats against transiting vessels will be dealt with swiftly and firmly, as such threats are a blatant violation of international law and fall under acts of maritime piracy,” said Maj. Gen. Turki al-Malki, a Saudi military spokesperson.

Yemen’s civil war began in 2014 when the rebels seized the capital, Sanaa, and much of northern Yemen, forcing the government into exile. Saudi Arabia has led an international coalition fighting the rebels and also imposed an air and sea blockade on Houthi-held parts of Yemen, which had eased in recent years.

The Houthis say Saudi Arabia struck the airport in Sanaa earlier this month in an attempt to stop a flight carrying Houthi leaders back from Iran, where they had attended the funeral of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The plane landed safely at another airport.

The Houthis then launched missiles and drones at Saudi Arabia’s Abha International Airport in the most significant confrontation in years.

The Houthis say closing Bab el-Mandeb to Saudi traffic aims to break the coalition’s blockade.

Ahmed Nagi, a senior Yemen analyst at the International Crisis Group, said the blockade also benefits the Houthis' ally, Iran, at a time when the U.S. has resumed daily airstrikes.

″From Iran’s perspective, opening additional pressure points across the region gives it more leverage,” Nagi said. “The Houthis provide Tehran with influence over one of the world’s most important maritime chokepoints.”

——

Al-Haj reported from Aden, Yemen. Associated Press writer Collin Binkley in Washington contributed.

Fireworks burst as Houthi supporters rally against the Saudi-led coalition in Sanaa, Yemen, Monday, July 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Osamah Abdulrahman)

Fireworks burst as Houthi supporters rally against the Saudi-led coalition in Sanaa, Yemen, Monday, July 20, 2026. Placards in Arabic read: "God is great, Death to America, Death to Israel, A curse on the Jews and Victory to Islam" and "boycott American and Israeli goods". (AP Photo/Osamah Abdulrahman)

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The new commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian military forged his reputation as a daring and determined fighter in the early days of the country's battle against Russia, then spent a decade in combat assignments while steadily rising through the ranks.

Maj. Gen. Mykhailo Drapatyi was named to the post Tuesday after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy fired Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi following days of mass protests in Kyiv and other cities. Demonstrators demanded his removal and the reinstatement of former Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, who was seen as a driver of military modernization. Protesters said Syrskyi embodied the army’s old, Soviet-style command culture.

In a Facebook post, Drapatyi thanked Syrskyi for his work strengthening the military.

“I grew up in it,” he said, referring to the army. “I will work responsibly, with focus and with respect for the people defending our state today.”

Drapatyi, 43, represents a new generation of Ukrainian generals forged in the crucible of the country’s fight against Russia. He has spent nearly his entire career in combat postings, including leading Ukraine’s Joint Forces, which direct day-to-day combat operations across branches of the army.

He is known as intensely disciplined and highly effective in combat, and he is often sent to stabilize the most critical sectors of the front. He has rarely appeared in public but has nonetheless gained wide respect and popularity within the military and beyond for his past victories.

His reputation was forged in 2014, early in Russia’s war in eastern Ukraine. That May, as a major commanding a battalion of the 72nd Brigade, he led an armored column into central Mariupol to rescue police officers and territorial defense officials besieged by pro-Russian militants who had threatened to burn them alive.

When the column’s path was blocked by a barricade more than a meter (yard) high, Drapatyi, riding in the lead vehicle, ordered the driver to accelerate, and the vehicle bounced over the barrier as if off a ramp. The moment, which was captured on video that circulated widely, is considered one of the most remarkable episodes in the early resistance.

It was a bold move for the Ukrainian army at the time, when decisive and independent moves by field officers were rare. The army was still poorly equipped, largely untested and wary of any action that might escalate tensions with Russia.

Months later, Drapatyi's battalion spent weeks encircled by Russian-backed forces near the Russian border. Rather than disarm and walk out, Drapatyi chose to fight his way free, leading 260 soldiers and more than 30 vehicles out of the pocket at night.

He rose through field commands over the following decade, leading brigades in eastern Ukraine, then serving as deputy Joint Forces commander when Russia’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022.

In 2024, he took command of forces that halted Russia’s advance on Zelenskyy’s hometown of Kryvyi Rih and helped push Russian troops back from parts of the Kherson region, then organized the defense that blunted a renewed Russian offensive in the Kharkiv region in 2024.

Zelenskyy named him ground forces commander later that year.

But he soon resigned from that post after a Russian strike killed numerous Ukrainian soldiers at a ground forces training center, the second such attack on the facility in months. He took personal responsibility, saying he had been unable to ensure his orders were carried out. He wrote in his resignation report that he had been blocked from reforming the branch by officials protecting one another from accountability.

Shortly after that, Zelenskyy named him commander of the Joint Forces.

Drapatyi’s uncompromising streak became public on Thursday, when Fedorov, the former defense minister, said Ukraine’s military leadership had resisted reform and pressured commanders who pushed for it, including Drapatyi, who he said had received three reprimands from Syrskyi.

Drapatyi responded with a social media post backing the Defense Ministry’s leadership that was eventually dismissed. He agreed that many changes had been pushed through “despite the system, rather than thanks to how it worked.” A commander’s silence, he wrote, “has never been a form of responsibility.”

He was born in 1982 in Kamianets-Podilskyi, in western Ukraine’s Khmelnytskyi region, to a family of teachers. He trained as a tank officer at the Kharkiv Institute of Tank Troops, graduated in 2004 and was assigned to the 72nd Separate Mechanized Brigade in Bila Tserkva, which was then commanded by Syrskyi.

In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Office, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, center, shakes hands with new commander-in-chief of Ukraine's Armed Forces Mykhailo Drapatyi during their meeting in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, July 20, 2026. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP)

In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Office, new commander-in-chief of Ukraine's Armed Forces Mykhailo Drapatyi looks on during his meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, July 20, 2026. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP)