Iran has made private requests to Yemen’s Houthis to “cool tensions” in the Red Sea, according to Reuters. The report states that two senior Iranian officials said Iran sent a message to the Houthis’ envoy in Tehran to de-escalate the ongoing conflict with the US and requested that Oman “convey a similar message to the group.”
US Central Command (CENTCOM) began a large-scale operation against the Houthis, the Iranian-backed terrorist group officially known as Ansar Allah, on March 15 and has carried out daily strikes since. The Trump administration’s goal for the operation is “to restore freedom of navigation and reestablish American deterrence,” according to Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell. The Houthis have carried out hundreds of attacks against commercial and US military vessels in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden since 2023. The group’s operations have been in support of Hamas during its war with Israel in Gaza that began after Hamas’s terrorist attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
Publicly, Brigadier General Hossein Salami, the chief commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), recently distanced the regime from the Houthi rebels.
“The Yemenis are an independent and free nation in their own land, with an independent national policy,” Salami remarked. He also dismissed claims that Tehran explicitly supports Houthi attacks, insisting, “We [Iran] publicly announce responsibility for any military operation or support we provide.”
Tehran’s military support for Houthi terrorists
Despite Iranian officials downplaying ties with the Houthis, the steady flow of weapons from Tehran suggests otherwise. In January 2024, CENTCOM intercepted an Iranian shipment carrying “over 200 packages that contained medium-range ballistic missile components, explosives, unmanned underwater/surface vehicle (UUV/USV) components, military-grade communication and network equipment, anti-tank guided missile launcher assemblies, and other military components.”
Efforts to disrupt this supply chain escalated in October 2024, when the US Treasury Department sanctioned Iranian and Chinese entities facilitating Houthi weapons procurement. The Office of Foreign Assets Control targeted “key procurement operatives and suppliers located in Iran and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) that have enabled the Houthis to acquire dual-use materials and components needed to manufacture, maintain, and deploy an arsenal of advanced missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) against U.S. and allied interests.”
Iranian leaders’ public statements regarding recent US attacks on the Houthis have also been defiant. “Wars have consistently brought disgraceful military defeats for Global Arrogance and the United States, yet they have still not learned their lesson. […] We warn all enemies that we will confront any threat and will respond even more forcefully,” Salami stated.
US President Donald Trump continues to emphasize Iran’s support for the Houthis and promised repercussions for the Islamic Republic should its proxy group continue its attacks. “Every shot fired by the Houthis will be looked upon, from this point forward, as being a shot fired from the weapons and leadership of IRAN, and IRAN will be held responsible, and suffer the consequences, and those consequences will be dire!” Trump stated in a post published on Truth Social and X.
Iran-Houthi relations: From ally to proxy
During the initial stages of the Houthis’ war against Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in 2014, Tehran reportedly advised the group against seizing Sanaa, Yemen’s capital. The Houthis’ defiance of this warning suggested they operated independently of Iran at the time, acting more as an ally than a proxy of the Islamic Republic.
Houthi leader Abdul-Malik al Houthi initially hesitated to align publicly with Iran’s “Axis of Resistance,” the Tehran-backed network consisting of Iraqi militias, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, and Gaza’s Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. When asked about the Houthis’ ties with Hezbollah, the Houthi leader acknowledged the sensitivity of the issue, stating, “This issue is raised with great sensitivity.” He further remarked, “We often make it clear that we are starting our relations in the Islamic arena, foremost of which is the resistance,” carefully avoiding full identification with the Iran-led axis.
However, as the Houthis’ war against Persian Gulf states intensified, so did their reliance on Iranian arms. By 2023, Houthi government head Abdulaziz Bin Habtour confirmed the group’s status as an official Iranian proxy, declaring, “We are part of the Axis of Resistance.”
Tehran recalculating its proxy doctrine
Iran’s calls for the Houthis to temper their actions seem to reflect a broader recalibration of its proxy strategy. After Trump won the US election, a leader of the Iran-backed Iraqi Al Nujaba militia—a US-designated terrorist group—disclosed to Lebanon’s Al Akhbar on December 23 that factions within Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) had agreed to halt attacks on Israel and would remain silent on Syria.
Esmail Ghaani, the commander of the IRGC-Quds Force, which is tasked with the regime’s external operations, met with PMF leaders in February to discuss restructuring their command hierarchy and refining operational priorities, signaling a shift in Tehran’s approach to its regional proxies.
Ghaani also instructed the PMF to cease attacking US forces in Iraq during his February visit. “Without Qaani’s direct intervention it would have been impossible to convince Kataib Hezbollah to halt its military operations to de-escalate the tension,” a senior commander of an Iran-backed militia told Reuters in February.
