Coverage spread: 2 sources — 1 left · 1 international
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Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi militia has escalated attacks on Saudi Arabian shipping in the Red Sea, striking at least two Saudi oil tankers exiting the sea last week and firing missiles into southern Saudi Arabia, according to Deutsche Welle. The Houthis have also launched what the Guardian describes as a blockade of Saudi shipping through the Bab al-Mandab strait, the narrow passage forming the southern gateway to the Red Sea. The escalation has triggered two distinct but related stories: a diplomatic dilemma for Pakistan over whether to back its ally Saudi Arabia militarily, and a fresh energy crisis for Asian economies already strained by an earlier closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
Pakistan’s Balancing Act
Deutsche Welle reports that Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry condemned the Houthi attacks and warned that any threat to Pakistani maritime interests in the Red Sea could be met with “lawful use of force.” The warning stems from a mutual defense agreement Pakistan and Saudi Arabia signed last September, which includes a “collective security” clause treating an attack on either country as an attack on both. After the Houthi missile strikes on southern Saudi Arabia, Islamabad reaffirmed its “unwavering commitment” to that pact.
The article notes that Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have a long history of military cooperation, with Pakistani generals and advisers having assisted the kingdom for decades. Farea Al-Muslimi, a Yemen expert at Chatham House, told DW that Pakistani troops are already present in Yemen supporting Saudi forces with “security and training-related duties,” though a Pakistani official DW spoke with categorically denied this. Michael Kugelman of the Atlantic Council said Saudi Arabia, feeling growing security pressure after being struck directly by Iranian-backed forces, may increasingly look to Islamabad for military assistance given the two countries’ defense pact.
Complicating matters, Pakistan has simultaneously been rebuilding relations with Iran after the two countries traded cross-border missile strikes in 2024, and Islamabad has played a mediating role between Tehran and Washington in efforts to end the broader Iran conflict. Ayesha Siddiqa, a Pakistani military analyst at King’s College London, described the Pakistan-Iran relationship as one of “tactical gains” calculated by both sides, but said Pakistan has repeatedly warned Iran that it would back Saudi Arabia in the event of a conflict. DW frames this as potentially one of the most complicated foreign policy tests Islamabad has faced in years, caught between a formal defense obligation to Riyadh and a fragile, recently repaired relationship with Tehran.
Asia’s Second Energy Shock
The Guardian’s coverage focuses less on the diplomatic fallout and more on the economic consequences for Asian importers. It reports that Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and Thailand — countries that depend on Middle Eastern oil for as much as 90% of their imports — are scrambling to secure supplies now that the Houthi blockade threatens the Red Sea route, leaving the Suez Canal as the only fully open corridor for Gulf oil movement. This comes just months after Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz in March forced the same countries to compete for shrinking supplies of Middle Eastern crude.
Ahmed Helal of the Asia Group, a geopolitical risk consultancy, told the Guardian that countries are “scraping at the bottom of the barrel” in terms of global reserve capacity, with very little inventory cushion remaining. Japan has already been spending heavily on fuel subsidies to keep petroleum costs down, and South Korea moved quickly to extend fuel tax cuts after the Houthi announcement. Rising import costs have also fed inflation pressures in major economies including Japan and Indonesia.
The Guardian explains that after Hormuz closed in March, Saudi Arabia had rerouted much of its oil exports from its eastern Gulf coast to the western Red Sea port of Yanbu, which now handles more than 70% of Saudi crude exports and had become a critical lifeline for China — the largest buyer of Saudi oil — as well as India, Japan and South Korea. The new Houthi threat to that Red Sea corridor undermines this workaround. Some Japanese and South Korean refiners are reportedly considering rerouting shipments through the Suez Canal and around Africa instead, but the Guardian notes this is a costly and complicated option: the largest tankers, known as VLCCs, cannot pass through Suez fully loaded, forcing partial offloading via Egypt’s Sumed pipeline, while the alternative route around the Cape of Good Hope would more than double voyage times and add substantially to freight costs.
Comparing the Coverage
The two outlets approach the same underlying crisis from different angles. Deutsche Welle centers on the geopolitical and military stakes for Pakistan, drawing on regional security analysts to explore whether Islamabad will be drawn into direct confrontation with the Houthis and, by extension, Iran. The Guardian instead emphasizes the economic ripple effects across Asia, quantifying import dependency and detailing the logistical costs of rerouting oil shipments. Neither article contradicts the other; together they illustrate how a single Houthi campaign against Saudi shipping is simultaneously testing alliance commitments in South Asia and straining energy security across East and Southeast Asia, compounding a crisis that began with the Strait of Hormuz closure earlier in the year.
Sources
Featured photo: U.S. Air Force photo via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)