Yemen Warns It Could Close Bab al-Mandeb, Sending Oil to $200 a Barrel
An Ansarullah official says Sana'a is ready to shut the strait if Saudi Arabia keeps striking Yemeni infrastructure, and accuses Washington of provoking Riyadh
A senior Yemeni official has warned that the country’s armed forces are prepared to close the strategic Bab al-Mandeb Strait — sending oil prices soaring to $200 a barrel — if Saudi Arabia persists in its aggression against Yemen’s vital infrastructure.
Mohammed al-Farah, a member of the political bureau of the Ansarullah resistance movement, said on Monday that Washington was provoking Riyadh into striking Yemen, and cautioned that such incitement would never serve US interests.
Should the situation deteriorate further, he warned, the Bab al-Mandeb Strait and the Strait of Hormuz would be closed together in a coordinated operation, driving oil prices up to $200 a barrel in what he described as a dreadful shock to global markets. Sana’a’s response to any clear act of aggression by Saudi Arabia or its proxy forces, Farah added, would be decisive and would target sites deep inside the kingdom.
A vital chokepoint
The Bab al-Mandeb is one of the world’s most important shipping lanes, linking the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and funnelling maritime traffic toward the Suez Canal. At its narrowest point it is just 29 kilometres wide, restricting vessels to two lanes for inbound and outbound traffic — a geography that hands effective control of the passage to Yemen’s Red Sea coastline. Coming on top of the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, any shutdown of the Bab al-Mandeb would threaten a large share of the oil and gas that reaches Europe and Asia through the region.
Strike on Sana’a airport
Farah’s warning followed a Saudi strike on Sana’a International Airport, which came after a period of relative de-escalation. Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, a member of Yemen’s Supreme Political Council, held the United States and Saudi Arabia fully responsible for the renewed aggression and siege against the Yemeni nation, and for the bombardment of civilian facilities including the airport.
The attack, he said, amounted to a clear violation of international humanitarian law, and formed part of a pattern of daily war crimes committed against the Yemeni people through siege and starvation.
Reference: PressTv