Houthis declare naval blockade against Saudi Arabia

Yemen’s Iran aligned Houthi movement announced Monday that it was imposing an immediate naval blockade against Saudi Arabia, according to a televised address by the group’s military spokesperson.

The group described the move as a maritime embargo against what it called the criminal Saudi enemy, framing the action as a direct response based on an eye for an eye approach that it said would take effect immediately upon the statement’s release.

Houthi officials said the blockade responds to nearly 12 years of what they characterized as an unjust and oppressive siege imposed by Saudi Arabia on the Yemeni people, accusing the kingdom of plundering the country’s resources and enforcing a comprehensive blockade on Yemeni ports and airports by land, sea and air.

The announcement follows missile strikes the group launched against Saudi Arabia last week after accusing the kingdom of bombing an airport under Houthi control, an attack that shattered a four year truce between the kingdom and the Iran aligned movement. Those strikes marked the first attacks the Houthis have claimed against Saudi Arabia since an informal truce took hold in March 2022, following an earlier round of Houthi strikes on Saudi energy infrastructure.

The declared blockade threatens to reignite one of the region’s longest running conflicts at a moment when hostilities between the United States and Iran have already destabilized much of the wider Middle East. Saudi Arabia has for years led a coalition intervening in Yemen’s civil war against the Houthis, and any breakdown of the 2022 truce raises the risk of renewed large scale fighting between the kingdom and the group, with potential consequences for shipping and energy infrastructure across the southern Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. The timing of the announcement, coming amid broader regional turmoil tied to the US Iran conflict, has heightened concerns among analysts that multiple fronts in the Middle East could become increasingly intertwined in the weeks ahead.