Fuel prices in Germany rise amid Houthi offensive near Bab el-Mandeb Strait

BERLIN, September 13. /TASS/. Fuel prices at German gas stations have risen sharply amid escalating tensions around the Bab el-Mandeb Strait due to an offensive by Yemen's Houthi rebels from the Ansar Allah movement, the Bild newspaper reported.

According to the newspaper, at 12:00 p.m. local time (1:00 p.m. Moscow time) on Saturday, the average price of a liter of diesel across Germany rose to 2.56 euros. It had previously been around 20 cents lower. Price spikes of this magnitude can also occur on other days, but prices usually fall quickly afterward. On Saturday, however, they remained high. Citing the fuel price comparison portal clever-tanken.de, the newspaper added that a liter of diesel cost around 2.8 euros at one Berlin gas station on Saturday.

A day earlier, diesel had already reached a new monthly high, with the average daily price exceeding 2.38 euros, according to statistics from the consumer portal benzin.jetzt. The all-time high, according to the German Automobile Club, stands at 2.446 euros and was recorded on April 7. There is no clear-cut answer to whether motorists should fill up despite such high prices, the newspaper said. Leading agricultural trade publication Agrarheute expects prices to rise as high as 3 euros per liter due to the maritime blockade and the resulting increase in demand for biodiesel.

Earlier on Saturday, Huzam al-Asad, a member of the political bureau of Yemen's Ansar Allah rebel movement, confirmed to TASS that the Houthis had completed an operation to establish control over territories with access to the Bab el-Mandeb Strait in western Yemen. He assured TASS that vessels were passing through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait as usual and that there were no security threats.

The situation in Yemen escalated sharply in early September, when the Yemeni rebel movement launched an offensive in the southwest of the country. Alongside the ground offensive, the Houthis began carrying out missile and drone strikes on coastal areas of the Red Sea and the outskirts of the city of Taiz in an effort to cut off routes to Mocha and advance toward areas near the strategically important Bab el-Mandeb Strait. On Friday, Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said that Ansar Allah forces had launched an operation on Yemen's western coast on September 3 aimed at driving Saudi forces out of the area. According to him, the operation was prompted by "attacks by Saudi-backed forces on residents, villages and areas of the western coast that have continued for years." Saree said Saudi forces had been driven out of six districts in the Taiz and Hodeidah governorates covering a total area of 5,400 square kilometers.