Mysterious airstrip appears on a Yemeni island as Houthi attacks threaten region

DUBAI: A mysterious airstrip being built on a remote island in Yemen is nearing completion, satellite photos analyzed by The Associated Press show, one of several built in a nation mired in a stalemated war threatening to reignite.
The airstrip on Abd Al-Kuri Island, which rises out of the Indian Ocean near the mouth of the Gulf of Aden, could provide a key landing zone for military operations patrolling that waterway. That could be useful as commercial shipping through the Gulf and Red Sea – a key route for cargo and energy shipments heading to Europe – has halved under attacks by Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi militias. The area also has seen weapons smuggling from Iran to the militias.
While the Houthis have linked their campaign to the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, experts worry a ceasefire in that conflict may not be enough to see the militias halt a campaign that’s drawn them global attention. Meanwhile, the Houthis have lobbed repeated attacks at Israel, as well as US warships operating in the Red Sea, raising fears that one may make it through and endanger the lives of American service members.
A battlefield miscalculation by Yemen’s many adversarial parties, new fatal attacks on Israel or a deadly assault on an American warship easily could shatter the country’s relative calm. And it remains unclear just how President-elect Donald Trump, who will be inaugurated on Monday, will handle the emboldened militia group.
“The Houthis feed off war – war is good for them,” said Wolf-Christian Paes, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies who studies Yemen. “Finally they can live up to their slogan, which famously, of course, declares, ‘Death to America, death to the Jews.’ They see themselves as being in this epic battle against their archenemies and from their view, they’re winning.”
Satellite images show airstrip nearly complete
Satellite photos taken Jan. 7 by Planet Labs PBC for the AP show trucks and other heavy equipment on the north-south runway built into Abd Al-Kuri, which is about 35 kilometers in length and about 5 kilometers at its widest point.
The runway has been paved, with the designation markings “18” and “36” to the airstrip’s north and south respectively. As of Jan. 7, there was still a segment missing from the 2.4-kilometer-long runway that’s 45-meters wide. Trucks could be seen grading and laying asphalt over the missing 290-meter segment.
Once completed, the runway’s length would allow private jets and other aircraft to land there, though likely not the largest commercial aircraft or heavy bombers given its length.
While within Houthi drone and missile range, the distance of Abd Al-Kuri from mainland Yemen means “there’s no threat of the Houthis getting on a pickup truck or a technical and going to seize it,” said Yemen expert Mohammed Al-Basha of the Basha Report risk advisory firm.
The United Nations’ Montreal-based International Civil Aviation Organization, which assigns its own set of airport codes for airfields around the world, had no information about the airstrip on Abd Al-Kuri, spokesman William Raillant-Clark said. Yemen, as a member state to ICAO, should provide information about the airfield to the organization. Nearby Socotra Island already has an airport declared to the ICAO.
It’s not the only airfield to see an expansion in recent years. In Mocha on the Red Sea, a project to extend that city’s airport now allows it to land far larger aircraft. The airfield also sits on a similar north-south path as the Abd Al-Kuri airstrip and is roughly the same length.
Other satellite photos from Planet Labs show yet another unclaimed runway currently under construction just south of Mocha near Dhubab, a coastal town in Yemen’s Taiz governorate. An image taken by Planet for the AP on Thursday showed the runway fully built, though no markings were painted on it.
Smuggling route passes by the island
A new airport on Abd Al-Kuri could provide a new, secluded landing zone for surveillance flights around Socotra Island. That could be vital to interdict weapons smuggling from Iran to the Houthis, who remain under a UN arms embargo.
A report to the UN Security Council said a January 2024 weapons seizure by the US military took place off Socotra near Abd Al-Kuri. That seizure, which saw two US Navy SEALs lost at sea and presumed killed, involved a traditional dhow vessel that US prosecutors say was involved in multiple smuggling trips on behalf of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard to the Houthis.
Disrupting that weapons route, as well as the ongoing attacks by the US, Israel and others on the Houthis, likely have contributed to the slowing pace of the militias’ attacks in recent months. The US and its partners alone have struck the Houthis over 260 times, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Next week, Trump will be the one to decide what happens to that campaign. He has experience already with how difficult fighting in Yemen can be – his first military action in his first term in 2017 saw a Navy SEAL killed in a raid on a suspected Al-Qaeda compound. The raid also killed more than a dozen civilians, including an 8-year-old girl.
Trump may reapply a foreign terrorist organization designation on the Houthis that Biden revoked, a reimposition that the UAE backs. Marco Rubio, who Trump has nominated to be secretary of state, mentioned the Houthis several times when testifying Wednesday at his Senate confirmation hearing alongside what he described as threats from Iran and its allies.
Any US move could escalate the war, even with the Houthi’s enigmatic supreme leader, Abdul-Malik Al-Houthi, pledging Thursday night to halt the militias’ attacks if a ceasefire deal is reached in Gaza.
“I don’t see a way in 2025 that we have a de-escalation with the Houthis,” said Al-Basha, the Yemen expert. “The situation in Yemen is very tense. An outbreak in the war could be a reality in the next few months. I don’t foresee the status quo continuing.”