Yemen’s Houthis declare naval blockade against Saudi Arabia
By Nayera Abdallah and Timour Azhari
DUBAI, July 20 (Reuters) – Yemen’s pro-Iran Houthis said on Monday they were imposing a naval blockade of Saudi Arabia, prompting a warning that the Saudi-led coalition would respond “harshly” with a move that threatens to disrupt global energy supplies beyond the Gulf.
The Houthis’ armed forces said in a statement that they had declared “a naval embargo against the guilty Saudi enemy, based on the ‘eye for an eye’ equation, with immediate effect.”
They said the decision was taken in response to what they called the “unfair and oppressive siege” imposed on Yemen by the Saudis. A complete closure of the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, the southern gateway to the Red Sea, would halt the export of Saudi oil to Asia and could reduce global oil supplies by 7%.
The Saudi-led coalition in Yemen has vowed to respond harshly to the threat to its commercial ships.
“Such threats are a blatant violation of international law and fall within the scope of maritime piracy,” the coalition said in a statement.
He said that he started to implement protection measures for his ships passing through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.
The Iran war has already triggered a major disruption in global oil flows, reducing global supply by 10%.
“The question now is whether they will start targeting ships heading to Saudi ports. There is no clear answer at this stage,” said Mohammed Albasha, a Yemeni analyst and founder of Washington-based risk consultancy Basha Report.
“Even if no ships are attacked, this announcement alone is likely to disrupt shipping and create uncertainty for Saudi ports. Whether the Houthis move from threat to direct action remains the critical issue,” he said.
The group fired missiles at Saudi Arabia last week after accusing the kingdom of bombing an airport under their control, breaking a four-year ceasefire in the conflict between the kingdom and the pro-Iran group.
(Reporting by Timour Azhari and Nayera Abdallah and Menna Alaa El-Din and Ahmed Tolba; Editing by Nadine Awadalla, Aidan Lewis, Jason Neely and Sanjeev Miglani)
