Houthi forces took Perim Island on Friday, Sep. 11, after Yemeni government forces withdrew a day earlier. Perim sits at the tightest point of Bab el-Mandeb, splits the strait into two shipping lanes, and carries its own airstrip. Saudi-backed forces had spent years keeping it out of Houthi hands. The seizure follows the capture of Mocha on Sep. 10, along with Dhubab and the Hanish islands, and gives Houthi forces a position inside the waterway rather than on its approaches.
Houthi spokesman Yahya Saree framed it as "blockade for blockade and escalation for escalation."
Two chokepoints are now under armed control at once. Hormuz is on Day 197 of closure and running 5 to 11 transits a day against a pre-war 125. Bab el-Mandeb has been the pressure-relief valve for that closure: Saudi Arabia's Red Sea exports route through it, and Saudi crude supply already fell to 6M bpd in August, down 2.3M month-on-month and the lowest in more than three decades, partly on the targeting of ships transiting the strait.
No transit ban has been declared and no vessel has been stopped at Perim. The relevant question is whether armed control converts into a toll, an inspection regime, or a flag-based bar.
Watch: the first Houthi statement setting transit conditions, and whether Red Sea war-risk cover reprices before Monday's Salalah talks.