Mideast Wars Yemen

Officials say Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels have captured a strategic island at the southern entrance to the Red Sea. The advance opens a new front in the Iran war and further threatens oil exports from Saudi Arabia, which shut down a major pipeline after it was attacked. The Houthis made their biggest territorial gains in years along the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, one of the world’s key shipping lanes. The gains could boost Iran’s strategy of driving up world oil and gas prices to pressure the United States. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia said it had shut down the East-West pipeline as a precaution after it was attacked the day before.