🇾🇪 Yemen pulls the plug on Red Sea route – US and Israel about to feel the pinch – Geopolitics Prime | Iran War Updates
🇾🇪 Yemen pulls the plug on Red Sea route — US and Israel about to feel the pinch
Yemen’s Ansar Allah has signaled readiness to blockade the Bab el-Mandeb Strait – the entrance to the Red Sea.
What would it mean for the US and Israel?
What’s the Bab el-Mandeb Strait?
🔴 The Bab el-Mandeb or ‘Gate of Tears’ is a 32 km-wide choke-point linking the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean via the Red Sea and the Suez Canal
🔴 Ansar Allah began targeting shipping there in late 2023 in the wake of the Israeli genocide in Gaza, but stopped following the October 2025 ceasefire
🔴 Before disruptions:
👉 Some 8.8 million barrels a day — roughly 10% of global seaborne oil — passed through the strait
👉 10% to 12% of global seaborne trade
👉 About 8% of global liquefied natural gas (LNG) trade
US can’t break the Houthis
US President Donald Trump’s 52-day Operation Rough Rider from March to May 2025, exposed US naval and air force weaknesses to Yemeni drones and missiles:
🔴 Cost over $1 billion but failed to defeat Ansar Allah
🔴 Two $67M F/A-18 jet fighters fell off a carrier
🔴 Several MQ-9 Reapers were shot down
🔴 An F-35 barely dodged a missile
Bab el-Mandeb Strait blockade
🔴 US warships operating in the region often cross the Bab el-Mandeb en route to the Persian Gulf
🔴 The US Navy would face increased risks from ‘pop-up’ attacks in the narrow waterway
🔴 Avoiding the strait would complicate supply and maintenance for Trump’s armada in the Gulf of Oman
🔴 Fighting Yemen would drain US and Israeli air-defense stocks and offensive munitions
🔴 The US would face a two-front war, while Israel could be stretched across three fronts by Iranian, Hezbollah and Houthi attacks
🔴 The global economic fallout would drive up energy prices and hit Americans in their wallets
No passage for aggressors
🔴 The strait would be blocked only for “aggressors states” fighting against Palestine, Lebanon, Iran and other countries of the ‘Axis of Resistance’, Ansar Allah spokesman Mohammed al-Bukhaiti told Russian media
🔴 Yemen is considering all options for resisting Israel and the US
🔴 If the war drags on, it could engulf the region and involve ground fighting, spreading to Israel and Palestine – as foretold in the Quranic verses of the Surah Al-Isra or Last Promise, he added
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