[UPDATE] Houthis claim new missile and drone strikes on Saudi Arabia after taking Perim Island in offensive that killed more than 1,500 soldiers
Saudi civil defense says a projectile wounded two in al-Tawwal; Perim fell Friday, Sept. 11
Iran-backed Houthi fighters claimed new missile and drone strikes on Saudi Arabia on Sunday, Sept. 13. Saudi civil defense said a projectile fell in al-Tawwal governorate near the Yemen border, wounding two people and damaging a mosque and other buildings. Sultan al-Arada of Yemen's ruling presidential council called the collapse at Mokha "painful and regrettable" and said forces are regrouping; the UN warns of renewed catastrophe.
PREVIOUSLY
- Sept. 11 — Houthi forces captured Mokha, 46 miles from the Bab el-Mandeb strait.
- Sept. 12 — The Houthis said they took Perim Island, completing a month-long offensive along Yemen's west coast that killed more than 1,500 soldiers, Fox News reported.
- Sept. 13 — Monitors recorded no new shipping halts; retreating forces abandoned U.S.-made armored vehicles and artillery along the coast.
Perim sits in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, the waterway between Yemen and Djibouti — 18 miles wide there, the island under 2 miles off Yemen, splitting traffic into two lanes (TWZ, Fox News).
The island holds a 1.85 km runway and three hangars built in February–May 2021 in UAE-linked construction (TWZ, Fox News). The runway's condition is unknown, and the Houthis have no manned aircraft to use it (TWZ, Fox News).
Yemen's earlier civil war killed 150,000 people before the 2022 ceasefire (NBC News) — the scale officials fear resuming.
Oil through the strait fell to 4.1 million barrels a day in 2024 from 9.3 million in 2023 (EIA); through Hormuz it ran 21 million a day in early 2026 (Kpler). EIA's tables put LNG through the strait at zero for 2024, down from 4.2 billion cubic feet a day in 2023.