Houthis threaten to block Red Sea shipping lane

Houthis threaten to block Red Sea shipping lane: Houthi rebels in Yemen have warned that they will block the critical Red Sea shipping routes leading to the Suez Canal if the Saudi-led coalition fighting them keeps pushing towards the port of Hodeidah it controls, Reuters reports, citing the Houthi-run SABA news agency. While SABA gave no details on how Houthis would make good on the threat, the narrowness of the straits of Bab Al Mandab (only 20 km wide), where the Red Sea meets the Gulf of Aden in the Arabian Sea, makes hundreds of ships potentially an easy target.