Iran and Gulf states prepare for talks on the Strait of Hormuz while the Houthis control Bab al-Mandab and threaten navigation

The Iranian Foreign Ministry said that Iran and several Gulf countries will hold talks next Monday regarding the disputed Strait of Hormuz. The Ministry reported today, Friday (September 11, 2026), that the Sultanate of Oman will host the meeting.

According to the Iran Nuance news portal, the foreign ministers of Iran, Iraq, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia are expected to participate in Monday's talks.

The Iran Nuance portal report indicated that Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and his Omani counterpart Badr al-Busaidi will brief government representatives on developments in the negotiations. The two countries have been negotiating for weeks to establish a mechanism to regulate shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a major waterway for the global trade of oil, gas and fertilizers.

According to informed sources, the Sultanate of Oman is seeking to bring together the foreign ministers of the GCC countries and Iran next Monday in the city of Salalah, south of the Sultanate, according to Bloomberg News Agency. The Omani Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not immediately respond to a request for comment, while the Financial Times was the first to publish a report on this meeting.

Houthi fighters have completed their control over the Bab al-Mandab region after deploying on the strategic Mayon Island located in the middle of the strait, according to what a local government official and witnesses reported. The government official said, "The Houthis have completed their control over the Bab al-Mandab region and Mayon Island, located in the middle of the strait." He explained that "boats carrying Houthi militants arrived on Mayon Island after government forces withdrew from it yesterday."

Witnesses said that Houthi militants "are deployed on Bab al-Mandab beach and have military vehicles moving around." Mayon Island is strategic as it is located in the middle of the Bab al-Mandab Strait off the coast of Yemen in the southern Red Sea.

The local official said that the numbers of militants on the island are "not large," noting that they are likely interested in "positioning themselves on the hills overlooking the strait."

The International Organization for Migration announced the displacement of at least 46,000 people as a result of the battles in southwest Yemen.

Government military sources told AFP that the Houthis are besieging government forces on the Greater and Lesser Hanish Islands. The sources said, "We do not know the fate of our forces, which consist of more than two thousand members on the islands... and according to our knowledge, the Houthi enemy asked them to surrender." A senior military official told Agence France-Presse that the besieged forces appealed to the authorities "to rescue them, send food and water, and lift the siege on them, but the matter requires air support."

Meanwhile, Houthi media reported that Saudi air strikes targeted Mokha Airport, which is controlled by the Houthis in Yemen, a day after the Houthis entered the city of Mokha, located on the Red Sea, enabling them to continue their advance towards the Bab al-Mandab Strait, which constitutes a major sea corridor, especially for Saudi oil exports.

Reuters quoted two Iranian sources as saying that Tehran asked the Houthis last week to escalate their attacks on Saudi Arabia, a close ally of the United States, and promised them more funding, weapons, and senior officers to help them do so.

While Iran describes the Houthis as an ally, it publicly denies providing any military guidance to them, saying they are “not agents” of it.

The same agency quoted a diplomat familiar with the region as saying that a number of senior Revolutionary Guard commanders had already traveled to Yemen to supervise the Houthi attacks directed against Saudi Arabia and its leadership, after weeks of discussions about the military strategy.

Iranian meetings with the Houthis?

A third source, an Iranian official, told the agency that Tehran held several meetings with its allies, including the Houthis, and that the move to control Mokha was a Houthi decision, not an Iranian one. However, the official said the move helped Iran by putting pressure on oil prices and hurting the United States and Saudi Arabia.

Based on information gleaned from intercepted communications and accounts from Houthi prisoners, Yemeni military sources said they believed the Iranian efforts were being led by Abd al-Rida Shahlai, a senior commander in the Revolutionary Guards. Iranian sources have not yet been able to confirm this, but were described by Shahlai, a member of the Quds Force, as having spent some time in Yemen in the past few years.

New weapons arrive for the Houthis

Iranian sources reported that the Revolutionary Guard is still able to transfer weapons and personnel to and from Yemen despite the air and sea blockade imposed on Houthi areas. The sources did not go into details about how they did this.

“If we look at their attack on the west coast, it is not something that was planned just last week or last month,” said Ahmed Naji, Yemen analyst at the International Crisis Group, describing the control of Mokha as a milestone in the war.

He added, "The development of the Houthis occurred primarily because of the new weapons they obtained, whether through the Iranians directly or through the various smuggling networks on which they rely," referring specifically to their use of drones in the most recent attack.

Riyadh was keen to avoid escalation with the Houthis

Two other Yemeni officials said that the Yemeni government requested more air support and other assistance from Saudi Arabia as the Houthis began advancing towards Mokha last week.

The two officials stated that the government was seeking to have Saudi Arabia launch an air campaign against Houthi targets in their strongholds, including Sanaa, and key strategic sites such as oil depots.

But the Kingdom limited itself to providing logistical, intelligence, and weapons support, while launching limited air strikes that focused on the fighting fronts north in Al-Jawf Province and Ma’rib, two areas that the government considers less important.

The two officials concluded that Riyadh was keen to avoid a major escalation with the Houthis for fear of pushing them to launch more severe air strikes with drones on Saudi territory.

Saudi officials have not yet responded to requests from Reuters to comment on Riyadh's military focus on the northern front and not the Red Sea coast and other key Houthi targets.

The head of the Yemeni Leadership Council, Rashad Al-Alimi, said during his meeting with the Egyptian ambassador to his country, Ihab Abu Saree, that “protecting the Yemeni coast and restoring the state’s control over its lands, ports, and territorial waters represent a common Yemeni, Egyptian, Arab, and international interest.”

Two sources in the Yemeni government stated that the Houthi group, allied with Iran, reached the Greater and Lesser islands of Zaqar and Hanish in the southern Red Sea off the coast of Eritrea after taking control of the coastal city of Mocha in a strategic development that may threaten the Bab al-Mandab Strait, one of the most important global shipping routes.

According to the official news agency "Saba", Al-Alimi warned that "the recent escalation by the Houthi militias, especially on the western coast of Taiz Governorate, is linked to Iranian efforts to give the militias the ability to influence Bab al-Mandab and the Red Sea."

He added, "This would allow the pressures facing Tehran to be transformed into a cost for the region, trade, and global markets."

Al-Alimi pointed out that "the Houthis are seeking to change the military equation on the west coast," warning that any threat to Bab al-Mandab, as a vital international corridor, will directly affect the security of the Red Sea, the Suez Canal, and the global trade movement.

Houthis: Navigation is safe and regular

For their part, the Houthis said that navigation and international trade in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab remain safe and regular for all companies except for the previous ban on Saudi ships.

In a post on the

“If the aggression against Yemen stops and the siege is lifted, the current operations will stop.”

Two senior Iranian sources and three other people familiar with the matter said: Iran used a barter-like arrangement to circumvent sanctions imposed on its oil sales and purchase billions of dollars worth of goods from China, including military equipment.

The sources, who requested to remain anonymous, said that the secret trade mechanism, which allowed the exchange of Iranian oil with funds designated to finance Chinese imports, provided Tehran with a financial lifeline in the past few years, at a time when the United States escalated economic and military pressure on Iran because of its nuclear program.

She added that this mechanism also helped China, the world's largest importer of crude oil, to continue purchasing Iranian oil at reduced prices, while protecting banks and companies that export goods to the Islamic Republic from international scrutiny or sanctions.

Decreased ship traffic in the Strait of Hormuz

On the other hand, preliminary data tracking ship movement showed that the number of ships that crossed the Strait of Hormuz yesterday, Wednesday, fell to seven ships, compared to 12 ships the previous day. These levels were also below the 10-day average of 14 ships.

According to the data available today, Thursday (September 10, 2026), four ships left and three ships entered. Some ships sail through the waterway with their transmitters and receivers turned off, and therefore these ships are not included in the census operations.

One of the ships that left was the very large crude oil tanker (Finland Prosperity), which was loaded with nearly two million barrels of crude oil.