New footage from Al-Masirah shows Houthi journalists walking straight through the airbase on Mayyun Island, and the location alone makes this footage matter. Mayyun sits directly in the middle of the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, one of the most critical shipping chokepoints on the planet, the narrow gateway linking the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and, ultimately, the Suez Canal. Ansarallah, as the Houthis formally call themselves, seized the island earlier this month, and now they are showing off what they took. The base itself is no small find either, its runway stretches roughly 1.85 kilometers, long enough to handle attack aircraft, surveillance planes, and transport flights.

What makes the base especially interesting is its backstory, construction on the facility was linked to the United Arab Emirates years ago, though the Saudi-led coalition later said it had taken over control of the site. Now it belongs to neither of them. A tiny volcanic island most people outside the region had never heard of has suddenly become one of the most consequential pieces of real estate in the entire Middle East, a place capable of shaping oil flows, shipping routes, and military posture far beyond Yemen's borders. Whoever holds Mayyun holds real leverage over one of the busiest waterways on earth, and right now, that leverage belongs to the Houthis.