TUNIS, September 29. /TASS/. Having won control over the city of Mokha and other areas near the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, the Houthis from the Yemeni rebel movement Ansar Allah have managed to expand maritime logistics routes between Yemen and the Horn of Africa, Major General Khalid Al-Qamali, Coast Guard chief of the internationally-recognized Yemeni government, told the Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper.

According to Al-Qamali, the recent developments on the Yemeni western coast "have changed the nature of the Houthi threat," which is "no longer limited to direct military actions or freedom of navigation, but has expanded to include smuggling networks and potential ties to armed groups in the region."

"Control over these areas gives the Houthis more opportunities to ensure their security and expand maritime logistics routes between Yemen’s western coast and the Horn of Africa," he stressed, adding that control over new coastal sections and islands makes it possible for the Houthis to "simultaneously use multiple locations for receiving, storing, and further distributing cargoes." Along with weapons, such cargoes, in his words, may include "communications equipment, duel-use technologies, drugs, and military components." These routes run through the Gulf of Aden, the Somali coast, Djibouti, and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, he said.

Apart from that, according to the coast guard chief, vessels used by the Houthis for smuggling are now openly moving along the Red Sea coast and no longer turn off their tracking systems, whereas previously, the crews of such vessels used to turn them off for fear of being detected by the Yemeni Coast Guard. In light of this, he called for integrating surveillance and interception systems along the Yemeni and African coasts and for enhanced information sharing between the Yemeni Coast Guard and the relevant agencies in Somalia and Djibouti.

The armed confrontation between government forces and Houthi rebels has been continuing in Yemen since August 2014. The situation deteriorated dramatically this summer. In early August 2026, Ansar Allah launched an offensive in the country's southwest and took control of the port city of Mokha and territories along the Bab al-Mandeb Strait in western Yemen on September 10-11. Government forces mounted several counterattacks near the strait in the following days.