Listen to this article:

Yemen’s Houthi rebels have seized the strategic islands of Greater and Lesser Hanish in the southern Red Sea, bolstering the Iran-backed rebels’ ability to control a key maritime shipping route.

Houthi officials said Monday (September 14) that rebels had taken over the two islands just as Saudi-backed government forces tried to claw back territory from the rebels’ swift advances around the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a crucial shipping alternative to the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz – through which a fifth of the world’s traded oil and gas transits in peacetime – in the........

© The Wire