- Vigil category device · not official insignia
Identity provenance
Vigil category device — drawn from this record’s own domain, echelon and role. Not an official insignia.
In brief
The movement's naval and coastal-defence component — anti-ship missiles, sea mines, small fast craft and unmanned surface vessels on the Red Sea coast, the instrument of the campaign against shipping and of the July 2026 blockade of Saudi-bound traffic at Bab el-Mandeb.
- Scope
- Structure, role, lineage and links. No subordinate records published.
- Subordination
- Subordination reported
- Sources
- 3 on the record
- Record state
- Partial
- Broad area of activity
- The Yemeni Red Sea coast, Bab el-Mandeb and the Gulf of Aden
- Notable history
- The movement inherited the Yemeni navy's coastal-defence infrastructure in 2014 and built on it the force that has made the southern Red Sea the most attacked commercial water in the world since 2023: anti-ship ballistic and cruise missiles fired from the coast, one-way attack drones, sea mines, small craft and explosive-laden unmanned boats. The campaign drew the American-led and European naval operations that are also in this atlas and the strikes that answered it. In July 2026 the same force was the instrument of the blockade declared against vessels calling at Saudi ports — the decision that coupled the Gulf's two chokepoints into one system by contesting the outlet of Saudi Arabia's alternative to Hormuz. This record describes what the force is for and carries no sites, craft by count or patterns.
- Strengths
- A chokepoint position, cheap methods that impose expensive defences, and the demonstrated ability to move insurance and routing decisions across the whole system.
- Limitations
- Exposed to strike from the air and sea, dependent on the coast it operates from, and facing an escort and interception architecture that has adapted to it. No systems, sites or dispositions are recorded.
Reported & historical equipment associations
Iranian anti-ship missile families: Anti-ship missiles of Iranian lineage are widely reported in the movement's hands; the extent of supply as against local assembly is disputed and the edge is graded reported.
Related locations
Hodeidah: The movement's principal port and the northern anchor of its Red Sea coast; association is structural, not positional. Bab el-Mandeb: The water of the July 2026 blockade declaration; no position or pattern is described.
Campaigns
Campaigns naming this organisation as a participant. The campaign record owns the relationship and grades it; this list is computed.
- The Saudi–Houthi Red Sea front, 2026 round Primary force · Since 13 July 2026 · moderate confidence
The component through which a blockade of shipping is physically enforced and the coastal advance was made.
- The Houthi campaign against Red Sea shipping, 2023–2025 Primary force · November 2023 – October 2025 · moderate confidence · as of 2025-07
The component through which seizures, small-boat and uncrewed surface attacks on ships were carried out, on the movement's own released footage and UKMTO advisories; attribution to the component is Vigil's.
Key events
The Houthi movement seizes the Galaxy Leader and opens a campaign against Israel-linked shipping
Houthi forces land on the car carrier Galaxy Leader from a helicopter in the southern Red Sea and take the ship and its 25 crew to Hodeidah. The movement had said the week before that it would target Israeli vessels in response to the war in Gaza; the ship was operated by a Japanese company and linked by reporting to an Israeli shareholder, and Israel said it was not an Israeli ship. The movement had already claimed missile and drone launches towards Israel, Eilat among the areas Israel said it intercepted near, on 31 October.
The Houthi movement blockades shipping to and from Saudi ports
The Houthi movement declares a blockade on vessels calling at Saudi ports at Bab el-Mandeb. Vessel traffic through the strait falls by about a quarter, and Saudi Arabia reroutes Asia-bound crude through the Suez Canal — turning a voyage from Yanbu to South Korea of about twenty-four days into one of about fifty-four.
The Houthi movement takes the southern Red Sea coast and reaches Bab el-Mandeb
The Houthi movement takes the port of Mokha, about 75 kilometres north of Bab el-Mandeb, at dawn on 10 September, and over the following day Dhubab some 46 kilometres further south, the coastal villages beyond it, Perim (Mayyun) island in the strait and Zuqar in the Hanish group — the last government-held stretch of Yemen's Red Sea coast. Reporting describes the result as the whole of that coastline passing into Houthi hands; independent verification of a control line has not been read. The Presidential Leadership Council's vice chairman, Tareq Saleh, says he ordered a strategic retreat and the formation of an alternative command centre to regroup the forces in consultation with the Arab coalition command. Reporting places a remaining government force, put by one account at more than two thousand, on the Hanish islands. The movement claims six districts and 5,400 square kilometres. A Houthi politburo member states that navigation and trade in the Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb are safe and orderly and that the exception remains Saudi shipping; a Houthi commander says that with the fall of Mokha the strait can be considered under the movement's administration. Al Jazeera reported no official Houthi announcement of control over the strait.
Quick actions
System access
Where this record connects into the rest of Vigil. Each row is here because this organisation actually reaches it.
Assessed as of — 2026-09 Last reviewed — 2026-09-09
See this force in the structure Interactive: select this record and follow what connects to it.