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Houthi forces take Mocha and push toward Perim
September 11, 2026
Houthi rebels captured the coastal town of Mocha on Thursday and opened an offensive toward Perim, the island at the narrow gateway into the Red Sea.
Yemen has been at war with itself for over a decade, split between Houthi rule over Sanaa and the northwest and an internationally recognized government holding, with allied factions, the bulk of the country's south and its east.
Key facts
- Port director Abdel Malek Al-Sharaabi told CNN that upward of 25 Houthi rockets landed in the sprawling harbor a few weeks ago while commercial vessels were being unloaded.
- CNN reports that the Houthis entered the fighting after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7 and the war on Gaza that followed.
- Riyadh has policed Yemeni airspace since its 2015 intervention, and CNN reports that it made an unusual allowance by letting a passenger aircraft from Iran set down in Sanaa.
- Mocha, a coastal town of key importance lying roughly 50 miles north of Perim, fell to the Houthis on Thursday, CNN reports.
- CNN reports that an offensive now under way by Yemen's Houthi rebels, described as Iran's most powerful regional proxy, could put Perim in their hands and give them the means to stop vessels moving through the narrow gateway out of the Red Sea.
CNN reports an offensive by the Houthis, the strongest of Tehran's allies in the region, that may end with Perim in their hands and with it a chokehold over vessels entering the Red Sea through that narrow passage. Mocha fell on Thursday, CNN reports, a coastal town lying roughly 50 miles up the shore from Perim, and its harbor has taken heavy damage. Abdel Malek Al-Sharaabi, who directs the port, counts upward of 25 rockets landing there a few weeks ago while freight was being unloaded. One trader, speaking to CNN, said of an ordinary day, “there would be many ships out there”. Traffic on the route is down by half, per figures from Kpler. The advance is carried by AP News and Reuters, by The New York Times, and by Al Jazeera. Reuters puts Houthi fighters on the island guarding the entrance to the lane. The New York Times treats the capture of a Red Sea port as a win for Tehran's partner, and Al Jazeera describes Houthi reach spreading along Yemen's coast.
The regional war threads through the same account. Riyadh has policed Yemeni skies since its 2015 intervention, CNN reports, yet it let an Iranian airliner set down in Sanaa, the first flight linking the two capitals in roughly ten years. Aboard for the return leg was a Houthi delegation bound for Ali Khamenei's funeral. The former supreme leader of Iran was killed with several relatives when US and Israeli strikes opened on February 28. The runway was then hit by Saudi aircraft, sending the aircraft to Hodeidah instead. A quiet truce of four years between Riyadh and the Houthis came apart over that episode, pulling Yemen's fight into the larger confrontation with Iran. That sequence is carried by AP News and Reuters, by The New York Times, and by Al Jazeera.
Fighting on the ground has changed shape too. Government units now send small FPV quadcopters against Houthi positions dug into cover, CNN reports, while the Houthi inventory runs to anti-ship weapons that skim the surface at long range to slip past radar, plus air-defense missiles able to bring down American drones flying high. Tarik Saleh, who serves as a vice president in the government Yemen's partners recognize, said in an exclusive CNN interview that the group would lay mines in the strait as Iran once did at Hormuz, and that dislodging them later will cost Yemen more. Mohammed Al-Basha, once a press officer for the government and now a risk analyst based in Washington, DC, put Tehran and the Houthis “in bed together” rather than in a chain of command. Washington labeled the group a terror organization in 2025 under the Trump administration. Mocha, the drone campaign, the halved traffic and the Sanaa flight sit corroborated across all five outlets, while the question of what the Houthis actually hold on Perim keeps moving.
He said, according to CNN, “They would mine the strait, just like (Iran) did in Hormuz.”
Still developing
The extent of Houthi control on Perim is still moving: CNN describes an offensive that could land them the island, while Reuters places Houthi forces at the island at the mouth of the lane and Al Jazeera describes control of Yemen's entire Red Sea coastline. The casualty count from the strike that prompted evacuations from an island north of Perim stands only as killed and injured several people, according to Yemeni government officials, and the Kpler figure of a halving in volume is the last measure of traffic on the route.
How settled the reporting is
Sources
- CNN — Exclusive: This small island off Yemen is now a strategic prize in the widening Iran war
- AP News — Iran-backed Houthi rebels take strategic port city in Yemen, raising threat to Red Sea shipping
- Al Jazeera — Iran war live: Houthis take control of Yemen’s entire Red Sea coastline