Yemeni faction reveals new naval base

The Ghannatha and one of the 14 m catamarans (background left) at the new naval base on the Bab al-Mandab strait. (Southern Giants Brigades)

Yemen's Southern Giants Brigades militia released photographs on 14 July that provided the first clear public view of a previously unreported naval facility on the Bab al-Mandab strait.

The images accompanied an announcement that the group had seized a vessel carrying a consignment of weapons manufacturing equipment through the Bab al-Mandab to Ansar Allah (the Houthis), the Iranian-backed group that controls Yemen's Red Sea coast further to the north.

The base has a new pier built along a breakwater, two tall boat sheds, and a metal lattice tower that could be for communications or radar antennas. While no recent high-resolution satellite imagery of the base is currently available, low-resolution satellite imagery shows the pier and sheds were built on a point that extends into the Bab al-Mandab from Murad.

The photographs and a video released on 15 July showed at least two of the new patrol vessels that were unveiled in May by the National Resistance, a militia led by Tareq Saleh, the nephew of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh.

The Southern Giants Brigades and the National Resistance were until recently backed by UAE, but both groups turned to Saudi Arabia for support after Abu Dhabi announced it was withdrawing from Yemen in December 2025.

The vessels at the base included a Ghannatha, a type made by Abu Dhabi Shipbuilding, that had UAE coast guard-style red stripes on its hull when it was reviewed by Tariq al-Saleh on 21 May.