Exclusive: This small island off Yemen is now a strategic prize in the widening Iran war

Stepping on to the Yemeni island of Perim is to relive history.

Its barren sand and rock moonscape feels for all the world like the land that time forgot. Its location, however, has put it at the heart of a very modern conflict.

For Perim Island sits in the Strait of Bab al-Mandab, a geopolitical pinch-point that’s taken on an outsized importance since US President Donald Trump’s war with Iran effectively shuttered the Strait of Hormuz.

To help keep global energy supplies flowing, and prices down, Saudi Arabia diverted its oil exports from Hormuz to the Red Sea.

But now Yemen’s Houthi rebels, Iran’s most powerful regional proxy, have begun an offensive that could land them control of Perim – and with it the ability to prevent ships passing through this narrow gateway from the Red Sea.

On a recent day, an honor guard of Yemeni troops, patiently shuffling in the scorching sun, watched while a weathered officer’s outstretched hand helped arrivals to Perim off an aging gunboat. A CNN crew was among them, granted exclusive access to this dusty outpost.

The tableau, reminiscent of a bygone era, has likely played out here for centuries. The island’s position – at the narrowest point of a strait which brings the Horn of Africa within 12 miles of the Arabian Peninsula – has made it valuable to empires and regional powers for generations. Once a coaling station for ships of the British Empire sailing to India, Perim’s imperial past is still visible in its crumbling ruins.

Bumping along a rocky road to the island’s highest point, the officer – one hand on the wheel of his decrepit army truck – points to Eritrea and Djibouti across the water, on the African side of the strait. A veteran member of a brigade loyal to Yemen’s internationally recognized government, he knows his mission, defending Perim, also known as Mayyun, now carries far greater stakes than before.

For more than a decade, Yemen’s civil war appeared to be a distant regional conflict. But as fighting intensifies and the Iran-backed Houthi rebels launch attacks towards the Red Sea coast, that distinction is disappearing. Yemen, with Perim at the center, is becoming another potential front line in the confrontation between Washington and Tehran, and a reminder that the consequences of its war no longer stop at its shores.

Already, the Houthis control Yemen’s capital, swaths of the country’s northwest, and much of its Red Sea coastline north of the island.

NASA WORLDVIEW/Reuters

Scores wounded as Iran-backed Houthis attack Saudi Arabia in major regional escalation

If history is any guide, Bab al-Mandab – the smaller twin of the Strait of Hormuz and now a crucial alternative to it – could be where Iran, through its proxy, tightens the economic and political screws on Trump next, driving up oil prices and damaging Republican prospects in the US midterm elections in November.

“We told the world that this is an Iranian project, but no one listened to Yemenis back then… It’s geopolitical now,” Tarik Saleh, a vice president in Yemen’s beleaguered, internationally recognized government, told CNN in an exclusive interview.

Saleh, a nephew of the ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh and a former ally of the Houthis, is a rarity among Yemen’s political class: the only leader and military commander who remains inside the country while many others have fled. He says he has survived several assassination attempts and says Iran wants him dead. Meetings with him are arranged at short notice, in random locations, and are over fast.

Speaking to CNN from a tent on a remote Yemeni beach in late August, Saleh said he was receiving no help from the United States, “only talk.” He warned that if the Houthis seized Perim Island and gained control of the Bab al-Mandab Strait, “then a massive (international) force and the navies will be needed” to dislodge them.

Even reaching Perim Island is a lesson in the dangers of this often one-sidedly high-tech war.

As the CNN team set out for the two-mile crossing from the mainland, warnings of an imminent Houthi drone attack forced the gunboat carrying the crew to turn back. Preparing for a possible attack, the gunner fired a heavy-caliber round from his rusting weapon.

Yemen’s civil war began in 2014, when Houthi rebels seized the capital, Sanaa, and drove the internationally recognized government into exile. Saudi Arabia led a military campaign the following year to dislodge the rebels. Iran has supplied the Houthis with weapons and training, and exercises some influence on the rebel group’s decisions.

The result is a fractured country, with the Houthis controlling the capital and the northwest, and the government and allied factions holding much of the south and east. Some 22 million people, roughly half of the population, need humanitarian assistance to this day.

Following the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel and the ensuing war on Gaza, the Houthis joined the conflict. They launched attacks on Israel in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza and targeted shipping in the Red Sea. The US and Israel launched airstrikes on the group that destroyed key assets. The Trump administration designated the Houthis as a terror group in 2025.

The latest Houthi offensive against Yemen’s government began in July. It ruptured a tacit four-year truce between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia and drew Yemen’s conflict into the wider war involving Iran.

In a rare exception to restrictions it has enforced over Yemeni airspace since intervening in 2015, Saudi Arabia permitted an Iranian passenger plane to land in Sanaa. The plane – the first direct air link between Tehran and Sanaa in about a decade – then carried a Houthi delegation to the funeral of Ali Khamenei, Iran’s former supreme leader, who was killed alongside several members of his family in the opening US-Israeli strikes of February 28.

But when the aircraft returned 10 days later, Saudi Arabia denied it permission to land in Sanaa amid concerns that it was also carrying Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps personnel and military equipment. Saudi aircraft struck the airport’s runway, forcing the plane to divert to the Houthi-controlled Yemeni port city of Hodeidah.

The episode became a turning point, unraveling diplomacy that had largely preserved the informal truce and halted Houthi attacks on Saudi territory. Against the backdrop of the collapsing US-Iran ceasefire, the Houthis retaliated by declaring a naval blockade against Saudi Arabia and threatening ships carrying Saudi exports through Bab al-Mandab. They also launched missiles and drones at the kingdom’s oil infrastructure, airports and other civilian sites.

The timing of the new Houthi offensive could benefit Iran by increasing pressure on Trump. Mohammed Al-Basha, a former Yemeni government press officer and Washington, DC-based risk analyst, described the relationship between Tehran and the Houthis as “not a submissive relationship – but they are in bed together.”

Nonetheless, observers caution against framing the Houthis’ recent intervention as merely executing Iran’s regional agenda.

“The Houthis needed a war as diversion from domestic problems. They wanted to say they can fight Saudi Arabia into negotiating with them again. And of course, if it is going to help an old friend, like Iran, which at one point was the only friend they had, then why not?” said Farea Al-Muslimi, a Chatham House think tank research fellow.

The Houthi attacks on Israel, and the weakening of other Iranian allies in the region like Hezbollah in Lebanon, as well as the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, have elevated the Yemeni faction’s standing in the so-called axis of resistance and the Houthis wanted to capitalize on their new position, he added.

Sanaa officials have not responded to CNN’s request for comment. Houthi leaders have maintained in previous statements that their current offensive inside and outside Yemen is in response to “Saudi aggression and blockade.”

Oil flows past Perim have already fallen sharply amid this maritime roulette. Three years ago, about 10% of the world’s seaborne oil trade passed through Bab al-Mandab. Kpler data indicates that volume has since fallen by half, and a sustained Houthi campaign could choke the route further.

Yemen’s fishermen are also victims of Houthi drone attacks. Dozens were evacuated from an island north of Perim after one such attack killed and injured several people, according to Yemeni government officials.

As fishermen wrestled their catches out of flimsy fiberglass boats near a makeshift shoreside market recently, several stopped to talk with CNN, complaining that the war is ruining business.

On normal days, one trader said, “there would be many ships out there,” but “because of the attack of the Houthi there are no ships right now.”

Children played in the Red Sea’s lukewarm waves. Apparently unconcerned about their parents’ worries, they jostled to get into the visiting journalists’ pictures.

But the image that emerges here is of an already war-weary, fragile and poor country being pushed ever closer to a breaking point.

A few miles up the coast, evidence of that is mounting.

The port of Mocha, the most northerly government-held city of significance on the Red Sea, is being hit hard. A few weeks ago, more than 25 Houthi rockets slammed into the sprawling harbor as commercial ships were unloading, according to port director Abdel Malek Al-Sharaabi.

In the water, half-sunk ships lie at improbable angles, while the concrete on land is scarred with holes deep enough to hide a large dog. Heaps of scorched motorcycle frames lie beside piles of semi-melted engines.

Sixteen people were killed and 22 injured that day, the port director told CNN, while six commercial ships were sunk and 14,000 motorcycles lost. The Houthis, he said, want to destroy the economy.

“The port had a big role in development and commerce,” Al-Sharaabi said. “This attack aims at hurting this development and stopping services.”

Over the past year, the Houthis have repeatedly fired at targets as far as Israel, more than 1,000 miles away. They claim to possess hypersonic missiles and have an arsenal that includes long-range, sea-skimming anti-ship missiles designed to evade radar. They also possess surface-to-air missiles capable of downing high-altitude US drones and threatening crewed aircraft.

On Yemen’s front lines, fighting between Houthi and government forces is intensifying. Government troops are flying new, first-person-view, or FPV, quadcopter drones, attacking concealed Houthi bunkers.

“Our troops have improved due to training and new resources like drones,” Saleh told CNN.

But for every step the government takes, officials say, Iran is trying to keep the Houthis ahead. A journey in a vehicle with blacked-out windows to a heavily guarded warehouse at a secret location offered a glimpse of that challenge – and what the government says is evidence of the scale of Iranian support for the Houthis, including the provision of weapons capable of threatening tanker traffic in the Red Sea.

Abdel Nasser El Mamlouh, the director of Saleh’s military media operation, led CNN through what he said was an Iranian-made weapons shipment captured before smugglers could deliver it to the Houthis.

The cache included enormous, 18-foot-long missiles, complex long-range radar systems, drone engines and optical equipment, even bullets hidden inside a truck battery. Everything, El Mamlouh said, had been disguised as commercial equipment to evade detection.

And what they captured, he readily acknowledged, was only a fraction of what is believed to have made it through. Smugglers “confessed that before this one they had smuggled 11 shipments similar in size and content,” he said, amounting to 750 tons.

If the Houthis seized Perim and gained a foothold in Bab al-Mandab, he warned, they would no longer need long-range weapons to threaten shipping.

“They would mine the strait, just like (Iran) did in Hormuz,” he said.

Along Yemen’s government-held stretch of Red Sea coast, officials have little doubt that their civil war has become part of something much larger.

“(We are) fighting this war on behalf of the Arab world and the international community,” Mamlouh said.

Before hurrying away from his tent on the beach, Saleh was asked what would happen if US support never came.

“We will pay a higher price in the future,” to dislodge the Houthis, he replied. And so, he warned, would “the American army, the international community and international trade.”

CNN’s Sarah El Sirgany contributed to this report.

踏上也门佩里姆岛，就如同重温历史。

它那荒芜的沙砾和岩石构成的月球般地貌，仿佛是被时间遗忘的土地。然而，它的地理位置却使它成为一场现代冲突的核心。

佩里姆岛位于曼德海峡，这是一个地缘政治的瓶颈地带，自从美国总统唐纳德·特朗普与伊朗的战争有效地封锁了霍尔木兹海峡以来，该地缘政治的重要性就更加凸显。

为了帮助保持全球能源供应畅通，并降低价格，沙特阿拉伯将其石油出口从霍尔木兹海改道至红海。

但现在，伊朗在该地区最强大的代理人——也门胡塞武装——已经开始了一场攻势，这场攻势可能会让他们控制佩里姆，从而阻止船只通过这条来自红海的狭窄通道。

近日，在烈日下，一支也门仪仗队耐心地列队行进，一位饱经风霜的军官伸出手，帮助抵达佩里姆的士兵从一艘老旧的炮艇上下来。CNN摄制组也在其中，获准独家进入这个尘土飞扬的前哨基地。

这幅景象仿佛诉说着往昔岁月，或许已在此上演了数个世纪。佩里姆岛地处海峡最狭窄处，这条海峡将非洲之角与阿拉伯半岛连接起来，距离仅12英里，使其世世代代以来都对帝国和地区强权至关重要。佩里姆曾是大英帝国驶往印度的船只的煤炭补给站，如今，它残垣断壁间仍可见昔日帝国的痕迹。

沿着崎岖不平的道路，军官驾驶着破旧的军用卡车，一路颠簸地驶向岛上的最高点。他一手扶着方向盘，指向海峡对岸非洲一侧的厄立特里亚和吉布提。作为一名效忠于也门国际公认政府的旅级老兵，他深知自己的任务——保卫佩里姆（又名马云）——如今比以往任何时候都更加重要。

十多年来，也门内战似乎只是一场遥远的地区冲突。但随着战事升级，伊朗支持的胡塞武装向红海沿岸发动进攻，这种界限正在消失。以佩里姆为中心的也门正逐渐成为华盛顿和德黑兰对抗的又一个潜在前线，也提醒人们，这场战争的后果早已超越了其国界。

目前，胡塞武装已经控制了也门首都、西北部大片地区以及岛屿以北的红海沿岸大部分地区。

美国宇航局世界观/路透社

伊朗支持的胡塞武装袭击沙特阿拉伯，造成多人受伤，地区局势急剧升级。

如果历史可以作为参考，那么曼德海峡——霍尔木兹海峡的较小姊妹海峡，如今已成为霍尔木兹海峡的重要替代通道——可能是伊朗通过其代理人，下一步向特朗普施加经济和政治压力的地方，这将推高油价，并损害共和党在11月美国中期选举中的前景。

“我们告诉全世界，这是一个伊朗的项目，但当时没有人听也门人的话……现在是地缘政治问题了，”也门陷入困境、获得国际承认的政府副总统塔里克·萨利赫在接受 CNN 独家采访时表示。

萨利赫是前总统阿里·阿卜杜拉·萨利赫的侄子，也是胡塞武装的前盟友，在也门政界堪称异类：他是也门唯一一位留在国内的领导人和军事指挥官，而其他许多领导人和军事指挥官都已逃离。他声称自己曾多次躲过暗杀，并表示伊朗想要他的命。与他的会面都是临时安排，地点也随机，而且很快就结束了。

8月下旬，萨利赫在也门一处偏僻海滩的帐篷里接受CNN采访时表示，他没有得到美国的任何帮助，“只有空谈”。他警告说，如果胡塞武装占领佩里姆岛并控制曼德海峡，“那么就需要一支庞大的（国际）部队和海军”才能将他们驱逐出去。

即使到达佩里姆岛，也能让人体会到这场往往一边倒的高科技战争的危险性。

当CNN团队准备从大陆渡过两英里外的海域时，胡塞武装即将发动无人机袭击的警告迫使载着他们的炮艇返航。为了应对可能的袭击，炮手用他那锈迹斑斑的武器发射了一枚大口径炮弹。

也门内战始于2014年，当时胡塞武装占领了首都萨那，迫使国际社会承认的也门政府流亡海外。次年，沙特阿拉伯领导了一场军事行动，旨在驱逐胡塞武装。伊朗向胡塞武装提供武器和训练，并对该组织的决策施加了一定的影响。

结果是国家四分五裂，胡塞武装控制着首都和西北部，而政府及其盟友则控制着南部和东部的大部分地区。时至今日，约有2200万人，约占总人口的一半，仍然需要人道主义援助。

在哈马斯于10月7日袭击以色列并引发加沙战争后，胡塞武装也加入了冲突。他们声援加沙的巴勒斯坦人，对以色列发动袭击，并袭击红海的船只。美国和以色列对胡塞武装发动空袭，摧毁了其重要目标。特朗普政府于2025年将胡塞武装列为恐怖组织。

胡塞武装对也门政府的最新攻势始于7月。此次攻势打破了胡塞武装与沙特阿拉伯之间长达四年的默契停火协议，并将也门冲突卷入了涉及伊朗的更大规模战争中。

自2015年介入也门局势以来，沙特阿拉伯一直对也门领空实施限制，但此次却罕见地破例允许一架伊朗客机降落在萨那。这架飞机是近十年来德黑兰和萨那之间的首条直航航线，随后搭载胡塞武装代表团前往参加伊朗前最高领袖阿里·哈梅内伊的葬礼。哈梅内伊及其数名家人在2月28日美以联合空袭中丧生。

但10天后，当这架飞机返回时，沙特阿拉伯以机上载有伊朗伊斯兰革命卫队人员和军事装备为由，拒绝其在萨那降落。沙特飞机撞击了机场跑道，迫使该飞机改道飞往胡塞武装控制的也门港口城市荷台达。

这一事件成为一个转折点，瓦解了此前基本维持非正式停火并阻止胡塞武装袭击沙特领土的外交努力。在美伊停火协议濒临崩溃的背景下，胡塞武装采取报复行动，宣布对沙特阿拉伯实施海上封锁，并威胁要封锁经由曼德海峡运送沙特出口货物的船只。他们还向沙特的石油基础设施、机场和其他民用设施发射了导弹和无人机。

胡塞武装新一轮攻势的时机可能有利于伊朗，因为这会加大对特朗普的压力。也门前政府新闻官、现居华盛顿特区的风险分析师穆罕默德·巴沙将德黑兰与胡塞武装的关系描述为“并非顺从的关系，而是沆瀣一气”。

不过，观察人士提醒不要将胡塞武装最近的干预行动仅仅视为伊朗地区议程的执行。

“胡塞武装需要一场战争来转移国内问题的注意力。他们想借此表明，他们有能力迫使沙特阿拉伯再次与他们谈判。当然，如果这场战争能够帮助像伊朗这样的老朋友——伊朗一度是他们唯一的盟友——那又何乐而不为呢？”查塔姆研究所研究员法雷亚·穆斯利米说道。

他补充说，胡塞武装对以色列的袭击，以及伊朗在该地区其他盟友（如黎巴嫩真主党）的实力削弱，再加上叙利亚阿萨德政权的垮台，提升了也门胡塞武装在所谓的抵抗轴心中的地位，胡塞武装希望利用其新的地位。

萨那官员尚未回应CNN的置评请求。胡塞武装领导人此前曾发表声明称，他们目前在也门境内外发起的攻势是为了回应“沙特阿拉伯的侵略和封锁”。

在这场海上动荡中，途经佩里姆港的石油流量已经大幅下降。三年前，全球约10%的海上石油贸易经由曼德海峡。克普勒的数据显示，这一数字此后下降了一半，而胡塞武装持续的攻势可能会进一步阻碍这条航线的运输。

也门渔民也是胡塞武装无人机袭击的受害者。据也门政府官员称，在一次无人机袭击造成多人伤亡后，数十名渔民从佩里姆北部的一个岛屿撤离。

最近，在岸边一个临时市场附近，渔民们正费力地从简陋的玻璃纤维船上卸下捕获的渔获。有好几位渔民停下来接受 CNN 的采访，抱怨战争毁了他们的生意。

一位贸易商说，平时“外面会有很多船”，但是“由于胡塞武装的袭击，现在一艘船都没有”。

孩子们在红海温热的海浪中嬉戏。他们似乎并不在意父母的担忧，争先恐后地想出现在来访记者的镜头里。

但这里呈现出的景象是一个饱受战争蹂躏、脆弱贫穷的国家，正被推向崩溃的边缘。

沿海岸线往北几英里，越来越多的证据表明了这一点。

摩卡港是红海沿岸最北端的重要政府控制城市，目前正遭受重创。据港口主管阿卜杜勒·马利克·沙拉比称，几周前，25枚胡塞武装发射的火箭弹袭击了这座庞大的港口，当时商船正在卸货。

水中，半沉的船只以匪夷所思的角度横卧着；陆地上的混凝土路面布满了足以藏匿大型犬的深洞。烧焦的摩托车车架堆积如山，半熔化的发动机也散落在旁边。

港口负责人告诉CNN，当天有16人死亡，22人受伤，6艘商船沉没，14000辆摩托车损失。他说，胡塞武装企图摧毁经济。

“该港口在发展和商业中发挥了重要作用，”沙拉比说。“这次袭击旨在破坏这种发展并中断服务。”

过去一年，胡塞武装多次向远至以色列的目标开火，距离超过1000英里。他们声称拥有高超音速导弹，其武器库包括远程掠海反舰导弹，这种导弹旨在规避雷达探测。他们还拥有地对空导弹，能够击落美国高空无人机并对有人驾驶飞机构成威胁。

在也门前线，胡塞武装与政府军之间的战斗愈演愈烈。政府军正在使用新型的第一人称视角（FPV）四旋翼无人机，攻击胡塞武装隐蔽的掩体。

萨利赫告诉CNN：“由于训练和无人机等新资源的出现，我们的部队实力得到了提升。”

但官员们表示，政府采取的每一步行动，伊朗都在试图让胡塞武装保持领先地位。一次乘坐车窗被遮蔽的车辆前往一处戒备森严的秘密仓库的旅程，让我们得以窥见这种挑战——以及政府所说的伊朗对胡塞武装支持规模的证据，包括提供足以威胁红海油轮航行的武器。

萨利赫的军事媒体行动主管阿卜杜勒·纳赛尔·埃尔·马姆卢赫带领 CNN 记者参观了他所说的在走私者将武器运送给胡塞武装之前截获的一批伊朗制造的武器。

这批武器包括长达18英尺的巨型导弹、复杂的远程雷达系统、无人机发动机和光学设备，甚至还有藏在卡车电池里的子弹。埃尔·马姆卢赫说，所有东西都伪装成商用设备，以躲避侦测。

他坦言，他们查获的只是据信已走私入境货物的一小部分。他说，走私者“供认，在此之前，他们已经走私了11批规模和内容类似的货物”，总计达750吨。

他警告说，如果胡塞武装占领佩里姆并在曼德海峡站稳脚跟，他们就不再需要远程武器来威胁航运了。

他说：“他们会在海峡布雷，就像（伊朗）在霍尔木兹海峡所做的那样。”

在也门政府控制的红海沿岸地区，官员们几乎毫不怀疑，他们的内战已经成为更大事件的一部分。

“（我们）是为了阿拉伯世界和国际社会而战，”马姆卢赫说。

在匆匆离开海滩上的帐篷之前，有人问萨利赫，如果美国的支持始终没有到来，将会发生什么。

“将来我们为了驱逐胡塞武装，将付出更大的代价，”他回答说。他还警告说，“美国军队、国际社会和国际贸易也将付出同样的代价。”

CNN的Sarah El Sirgany对本报道亦有贡献。