Houthis enter US 'kill box' after seizing Red Sea 'cork,' former Pentagon official warns

Iran-backed Houthi rebels captured Perim Island in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait Sept.11, opening a new front at a vital global shipping chokepoint as a former Pentagon official warned Sunday the militants had entered a "kill box."The island's capture came after a month-long offensive along Yemen’s western coast that killed more than 1,500 soldiers and forced Yemen’s government to acknowledge a "painful" defeat, according to The Associated Press."With Perim, they have gained what we could call the cork in the Red Sea bottle," Morgan Murphy, a former Pentagon press secretary and retired Navy captain, told Fox News Digital."But they've put themselves into a kill box.

They're nowhere near the capability of the United States and if the president so chooses, he can wipe them off the face of that rock pretty easily," Murphy warned.SAUDI ARABIA TELLS TRUMP NOW IS THE TIME FOR MILITARY ACTION AS IRAN-BACKED HOUTHIS ADVANCEThe Houthis reached the strategic island of Perim in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait on September 11 in a move to tighten their grip on a vital global shipping route.(Reuters)Despite Perim sitting in the middle of the narrow maritime passage, Murphy detailed how the Houthis had effectively placed themselves in an area that is vulnerable to concentrated fire."Perim cuts that chokepoint right in half, and it's only 18 miles wide there," Murphy said.He said the island has served as a pivotal maritime vantage point for hundreds of years, previously targeted for control by French forces and held by the British Empire for over a century.Perim — a desolate volcanic island also known as Mayun — also sits roughly 20 miles off the Horn of Africa, placing it in proximity to Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti, home to one of the largest U.S.

military installations on the continent."We have incredible firepower in that region, and that's a little rock in the middle of that strait.It's a volcanic rock.

It doesn't have any water.It's uninhabitable," Murphy warned."There's no veg...