Iran has threatened to close the Bab al-Mandeb strait — the Red Sea chokepoint linking the Gulf of Aden to the Suez Canal — on top of the existing shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz, raising the prospect of a twin chokepoint crisis that would be the most severe disruption to global shipping lanes since the Second World War.
If Tehran followed through, roughly a quarter of the world’s energy supply and a similar share of global container volumes would be blocked or forced onto long-haul detours around the Cape of Good Hope. The Red Sea–Suez route is the main corridor between Asia and Europe and carries a significant share of Sri Lanka’s apparel and tea exports westbound.
The threat comes days after Israeli strikes on the Asaluyeh petrochemical complex, the killing of an IRGC intelligence chief in Tehran, and the Kharg Island explosions that damaged Iran’s largest oil export terminal. Analysts read the escalation as Tehran testing whether Washington and its Gulf partners are prepared to re-engage at sea.
Bab al-Mandeb is already a hostile environment after more than a year of Houthi attacks on commercial shipping, and insurers have been pricing in a near-total collapse of Red Sea traffic since the April 6 Hormuz shutdown. A second Iranian-backed closure would remove the last practical bypass.
For Sri Lanka, the implications are direct. Colombo Port has absorbed some Red Sea transshipment since the Hormuz closure, and Hambantota has reported a surge in diverted cargo. A parallel Bab al-Mandeb disruption would force even those rerouted flows further south, lengthening voyages by up to two weeks and compounding freight costs already feeding into domestic inflation.
Western sources remain unverified, but the threat — amplified by Tehran’s IRGC commanders — has been picked up across Gulf and Asian newsrooms as the latest marker of an escalation that no longer has a credible de-escalation track.
