Saudi Arabia reports missile defence – the shipping risk remains

The military coalition led by Saudi Arabia reported on Sunday, 25 October 2026, that it had intercepted ten ballistic missiles. According to its spokesman Turki al-Malki, they were fired by the Houthis in Yemen at the south of the kingdom and destroyed. The state Saudi Press Agency published the statement. No independent verification of the number or of the interceptions is available.

For commercial shipping this does not automatically close the Red Sea. The situation report published the same day by the Joint Maritime Information Center, JMIC for short, distinguishes between the war on land and confirmed incidents at sea. That distinction also matters for Swiss companies that ship goods through the corridor between Asia and Europe.

Ten missiles are not ten ship attacks

The Saudi statement names the southern region as the target area, not a merchant vessel. Anadolu reproduces the same account from the coalition and notes that figures on injuries or damage are missing. A second report on the statement is therefore not a second independent observation of what happened.

The Houthis can threaten targets on land as well as at sea with their weapons. That must not be taken to mean, however, that every report from the Saudi-Yemeni conflict proves a new maritime attack. Nor does the claimed successful defence prove that all ships along the Yemeni coast would be safe.

Open passage, considerable danger remains

The JMIC report, with information current as of 25 October, 13:00 UTC, reports no confirmed attacks or disruptions in the southern Red Sea and at Bab el-Mandeb in the preceding 72 hours. The strait is open to commercial traffic but remains unpredictable. The threat level is unchanged at "Substantial": under the centre's definition, a further attack is considered a serious possibility.

The report counts a total of 58 transits at Bab el-Mandeb from 22 to 24 October. As a historical comparison it cites around 61 per day in 2023. The current figure covers three days and must not be read directly as a daily value. The underlying count covers cargo-carrying ships of more than 1,000 tonnes deadweight, not every vessel at sea.

The US Maritime Administration, MARAD, warns in its active advisory 2026-013 in particular of risks for ships with Saudi links. In its assessment, calls by other ships in the same company fleet may also be relevant. The flag alone therefore does not fully describe the possible risk profile.

A quieter run of reports in one section is also no all-clear for the whole region. The same JMIC report lists an attack on an LNG tanker near the Strait of Hormuz. That strait lies at the entrance to the Persian Gulf, not at Bab el-Mandeb. Anyone who adds the two corridors together or equates them shifts the danger onto a geographically wrong route.