Houthi rebels seize Perim Island in Red Sea 'kill box,' 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.