Diesel Tops $6 a Gallon as Houthi Gains Tighten Grip on Red Sea Chokepoint
U.S. diesel prices have crossed a painful threshold for truckers, farmers and construction firms, climbing to a record national average of $6.05 a gallon as Houthi advances in Yemen deepen fears about the security of one of the world’s most important shipping corridors.
The latest AAA data show diesel is up more than 60% from $3.71 a gallon a year ago. The fuel is central to trucking, rail freight, construction and agriculture, meaning the increase is likely to bleed into the cost of moving goods and, eventually, into consumer prices. Industry analysts said businesses will have little choice but to pass along higher energy costs if the surge persists.
Behind the price pressure is a rapidly shifting military picture at the southern entrance to the Red Sea. Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels have captured the Red Sea port city of Mokha and the strategic island of Mayun, also known as Perim, according to Yemeni officials and multiple news agencies. On Friday, Houthi forces also seized Greater and Lesser Hanish, the last two islands in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait that had not been under their control, a military official in Yemen’s internationally recognized government told AFP.
"Everything that was under our control on the western coast has fallen," the official said, speaking after the Houthis consolidated their hold over the vital shipping lane. The group’s gains put it in a stronger position to threaten vessels transiting Bab el-Mandeb, a chokepoint for Saudi oil exports and a key alternative route to the Strait of Hormuz.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has repeatedly pressed President Trump to take military action against the Houthis, two people familiar with the matter told CBS News. The two leaders have spoken multiple times in recent days about the escalating situation, the sources said. But Trump has so far declined to commit U.S. forces directly, offering instead intelligence and targeting support, according to officials cited by CBS News and Axios. More than 200 U.S. military personnel are already in Saudi Arabia providing what one official described as "non-kinetic support."
Adm. Bradley Cooper, commander of U.S. Central Command, was in Saudi Arabia on Friday for coordination talks, one source said. A CENTCOM spokesperson declined to comment on his whereabouts. The Saudi push, one person familiar with the discussions said, is part of an effort to build a coalition against the Houthis and shield the kingdom from possible Iranian retaliation. The concern in Riyadh is that any strike on the Houthis could draw a response from Iran.
Axios reported that the crown prince called Trump twice on Thursday—first to warn him about Yemen’s deteriorating military situation and then to urge him to strike the Houthis. Trump declined, but Washington will provide Saudi Arabia with intelligence and targeting data on the Houthis, a U.S. official told Axios.
Houthi control of Bab el-Mandeb, which separates the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, would be a major point of leverage for their allies in Iran. Control of Mokha would make it easier for the Houthis to target Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea, which they have been doing for weeks.
The Houthi offensive has unfolded with unusual speed. The rebels said their operation, dubbed "Allah Is Stronger in Might and Stronger in Inflicting Punishment," began Sept. 3 across several fronts. In a televised statement, military spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree claimed the group had driven Saudi-backed forces from six districts in Taiz and Hodeidah provinces, an area of about 5,400 square kilometers, or 2,000 square miles. He also said Houthi forces had struck seven military divisions comprising 38 brigades and killed, captured or wounded "hundreds" of Saudi personnel. The claims could not be independently verified.
Saree said the Houthis had freed prisoners held by Saudi-backed forces along the western coast "for years." Turning to maritime traffic, he said navigation remained safe for all commercial vessels except Saudi ships, which he said were already subject to a ban. He pledged to continue what the group calls "the equation of blockade for blockade" until the aggression against Yemen ends and the blockade on the country is lifted.
On Friday, six missiles struck the port in Mokha, a local official told AFP, without saying where they came from. Earlier, Houthi media accused Saudi Arabia of launching two strikes on Mokha’s airport, which the rebels seized Thursday in their large-scale offensive against Riyadh-backed Yemeni government forces. There were no immediate reports of damage or deaths. Saudi Arabia has hit Houthi forces with dozens of retaliatory airstrikes in recent days, according to Houthi broadcasts.
Iran welcomed the Houthi gains. Mohammad Mokhber, a senior Iranian official, called the advance a "resounding victory" in a post on X, referring to the Houthis by their formal name, Ansar Allah. Iran’s Vice President Mohamed Aref also congratulated the group, writing that Iran was "delighted with the victories of the heroic Yemeni people."
Tehran’s foreign ministry, meanwhile, said Iran would meet Gulf states in Oman on Monday to discuss the Strait of Hormuz, which it has effectively blockaded during the war. The ministry said the meeting was intended to promote better understanding among regional countries and strengthen shared security. Iraq and other littoral Persian Gulf states will participate, it added.
More than six months into the war, the battle over the strait continues to drive up oil prices. Brent crude, the international benchmark, surged above $105 a barrel this week, while diesel—heavily used in transport and farming—hit a record. Oman and Iran, which both border the Strait of Hormuz, have been discussing for weeks how the waterway will be managed in the future. Before the war, the strait was free to transit; Iran now requires vessels to obtain permission and is considering a mechanism to impose service fees. Ships that do not comply are regularly targeted by Iranian drone or missile strikes, while the United States periodically bombs Iran’s coastline to challenge the Islamic republic’s control.
In recent weeks, the United States has succeeded in loosening Iran’s grip over the Strait of Hormuz while virtually shutting down Iran’s own oil exports, accelerating its economic free fall. But the war launched by the U.S. and Israel in February—intended to last only a few weeks—is still far from over, and the stalemate is costly for both sides. A June agreement quickly crumbled, with no sign of diplomatic progress since. Low-level fighting persists, and Washington does not appear to have an exit strategy.
The mounting economic pressure on Iran has yet to spark an uprising. If its leaders are backed into a corner, they may choose military escalation rather than capitulation. Their Houthi allies in Yemen have stepped up attacks on Saudi Arabia, helping push oil prices back up. Trump has acknowledged that gas prices are likely to stay high through the midterm congressional elections.
"Unfortunately, the U.S. is not winning in the war with Iran despite its limited success in loosening Iran’s grip over the strait and the devastating impact on Iran’s economy," said Mona Yacoubian, a Middle East expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "Iran shows no sign of backing down, and instead has demonstrated a willingness to not only fight back, but escalate wherever it can. The war is likely to be protracted with no clear victor."
The human cost inside Yemen is mounting as well. The U.N. migration agency said at least 46,000 people have been displaced since fighting escalated, more than double the 18,500 it reported Tuesday. The International Organization for Migration said the number was "alarmingly rising by the hour." Displacement has been reported across Yemen’s west coast and Taiz areas, with large numbers of people seen leaving Mokha overnight and others moving north. Entire villages west of Taiz are said to have emptied, and the Mokha-Taiz road, a key supply route, has reportedly been cut.
"As fighting spreads, reaching people with lifesaving assistance is becoming harder," IOM chief Amy Pope said. "We urgently need safe, unimpeded access. All parties must protect civilians and humanitarian workers, and safeguard the supplies, vehicles and facilities we depend on to deliver help."
At the United Nations, special envoy Hans Grundberg warned the Security Council that the renewed war "should alarm us all" and effectively marked the end of the relative calm Yemen had experienced for more than four years since a U.N.-brokered truce. He called on the international community to address a "new and more dangerous phase—one whose consequences, if left unchecked, will not stay within Yemen’s borders."
Yemen’s U.N. ambassador, Abdullah Al-Saadi, called for a single Yemeni state with a monopoly on weapons and sovereignty throughout the country, describing it as "a fundamental guarantee" of security for Yemen, Saudi Arabia and the region. He urged the Security Council to condemn the Houthis’ military escalation and implement measures prohibiting the supply of arms, components, technology and military expertise to the militia. Saudi Ambassador Abdulaziz Alwasil said the kingdom remains committed to peace in Yemen but would "take all measures necessary to deter Houthi attacks," warning that its restraint must not become an opportunity for the militia to threaten the kingdom and the region.
Iran also called for an end to Saudi Arabia’s blockade of Yemen and the immediate resumption of talks in its first public statement since the Houthis entered Mokha. In a statement carried by the state-run IRNA news agency, Iran’s foreign ministry said Yemen’s sovereignty must be respected and its problems cannot be resolved through a blockade or military alliances. Experts say the Houthi gains could give Tehran more leverage in any negotiations with the United States. On Wednesday, a spokesperson for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard called for any negotiated settlement with Washington to include Yemen, the first explicit reference to that front.
The Houthis’ entry into Mokha brought them within roughly 50 miles of Bab el-Mandeb, their biggest territorial gain in years. Their capture of Mayun, a tiny, barren volcanic island about 2 miles off Yemen’s west coast, was confirmed by a senior military official with Yemen’s internationally recognized government and by a Houthi official, both speaking anonymously. Four Yemeni government sources made the same assertion to Reuters.
A member of the Houthis’ politburo sought to calm international shipping concerns. "Freedom of navigation and international trade in the Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb are safe and orderly," Hazem al-Assad told the Al-Araby al-Jadeed news outlet. "There is no cause for international concern, as they face no danger from the Yemeni side."
The conflict has also spilled into the technology sector. Anthropic said a group in Yemen tried to use its Claude chatbot to build guided rockets and missiles, according to a report published Thursday on how the company prevented illegal uses of Claude in several countries. The company said it identified "a cell of threat actors based in northern Yemen running three weapons development programs": a guided rocket using a commodity phone-class flight computer with final-phase homing guidance; a multi-stage ballistic missile with a stated range goal above 2,000 kilometers, or 1,250 miles; and a multi-variant missile that included a hypersonic glide vehicle variant.
The cell used Claude to develop guidance, navigation and control software for the airborne weapons, work that would otherwise have required a team of engineers, Anthropic said. "We do not have evidence the actors succeeded in fielding an operational device; but they did test-fire a guided rocket," the company said. "This field test appears to have failed: within hours, the actors returned to Claude to work out why it failed." Anthropic said it banned the relevant accounts as soon as it detected the activity. The company did not identify the actors, but northern Yemen, including the capital, Sanaa, is largely controlled by the Houthis.
In the Strait of Hormuz, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said Thursday that its navy targeted a U.S. unmanned surface vessel. "The Navy of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps targeted a Saildrone Explorer-type unmanned surface vessel in the Strait of Hormuz area," the guard said in a statement carried by its Sepah news outlet under the headline "Destruction of a US Saildrone in the Strait of Hormuz." The ideological arm of the Iranian military added that the sea drone had been used in the region by the U.S. Fifth Fleet, which is stationed in Bahrain.
Washington has previously used Saildrone Explorer USVs to gather data and images in the Gulf. The sea drones are powered by solar and wind energy and can remain deployed on ocean missions for up to a year. It was not the first time Iran has seized or targeted a U.S. Saildrone Explorer. In September 2022, Iran seized multiple drones but later released them at the United States’ request. On Wednesday, Iran said it captured an unmanned U.S. underwater drone and provided video of the drone being pulled from the water. The U.S. military said one of its underwater drones had "malfunctioned."
For now, the combination of record diesel prices, Houthi territorial gains and the unresolved war with Iran is leaving markets, shippers and governments bracing for more disruption. The next few weeks, analysts say, will determine whether the Houthis’ Red Sea campaign remains a regional fight or becomes another accelerant in a broader energy and security crisis.