Iranian and Hezbollah commanders helped plan and carry out the Houthi offensive that seized the Red Sea port of Mocha this month, a former Houthi spokesman told MBN, calling it the first battle in which they played a direct part. Yemeni government officials, the Associated Press and Reuters also describe Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as helping direct the offensive.
The deeper involvement of Iran’s IRGC, which the U.S. State Department has designated a foreign terrorist organization, suggests Tehran has moved beyond supplying weapons and training to a more direct role in battlefield decisions. This has strengthened the Houthis’ ability to threaten Saudi oil exports through the Red Sea, contributing to higher global fuel prices and giving Iran another source of leverage in its broader confrontation with the United States.
Ali al-Bukhaiti, a former Houthi spokesman who later defected from the group, told MBN that the battle for Mocha on the western coast and the Bab al-Mandab Strait represented “a shift in the nature of Iran’s role” and said it was “the first battle in which Iranians and Hezbollah leaders participated in planning and directly in its execution.”
In mid-September, Houthi fighters took less than 48 hours to seize the strategic port of Mocha and a chain of islands, allowing them to threaten shipping lanes in the southern Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandab Strait.
Since then, fighting has intensified between government forces and the Houthis, which the U.S. has designated as a foreign terrorist organization, in the strategically important Numan and Kahbub mountains in southwestern Yemen, overlooking the western coast and the strait. The area controls key supply routes toward Lahj province, home to Al-Anad, Yemen’s largest air base, and Aden, the internationally recognized government’s capital since the Houthis seized Sanaa.
Al-Bukhaiti said Iranian and Hezbollah experts had penetrated the communications systems of the National Resistance Forces led by Tareq Saleh, nephew of Yemen’s former president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, allowing them to track their movements. They later disrupted communications between commanders and troops, he said, prompting their withdrawal from Mocha. Within hours, the Houthis had seized the city and advanced toward the Bab al-Mandab Strait. Official Yemeni government sources say Iran has committed significant resources to the fighting along the western coast.
Fahd al-Sharafi, an adviser to Yemen’s information minister, told MBN that the government had received information indicating that Iranian experts were involved in directing military operations in Al-Wazi’iyah, Al-Barh, Maqbanah and Hays, areas on the western-coast front and its surrounding territory.
James Jeffrey, a former U.S. diplomat and deputy national security adviser under President George W. Bush, told MBN that Iran was using the Houthis to harass Saudi Arabia and disrupt energy markets to put pressure on the United States and the wider international community.
As the war with Iran has dragged on and the U.S. economic blockade weakened Iran’s already weak economy, Iran began deepening its involvement and helping the Houthis escalate their attacks.
In July, Yemeni government forces bombed the runway at Sanaa airport to prevent an Iranian aircraft that the government said was carrying military equipment and advisers from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard from landing. The aircraft ultimately landed at Hodeidah airport in territory controlled by the Houthis.
Al-Sharafi said Iranian forces had been in Yemen before the battle for Mocha. Abdul Reza Shahlai, a commander in the Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Force, was in Saada in 2014, shortly before the Iran-backed group seized control of Sanaa, he said.
A 2024 report by the United Nations Panel of Experts on Yemen documented the Houthis’ receipt of technical assistance, training, weapons and financial support from Iran, Iraqi armed groups and Hezbollah. Citing confidential sources, the report said Shahlai and his deputy had played a role within the Houthis’ command-and-control structure and that the Iranian commander had provided strategic and military advice and assistance to Houthi leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi.
The U.N. panel’s follow-up report in 2025 said Shahlai had visited Sanaa, the Houthis’ unofficial capital, leaving behind specialists in missiles and drones from the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah.
Hezbollah personnel had worked alongside the Houthis for years, but al-Sharafi said Tehran began relying more directly on Iranian experts following the setbacks suffered in Lebanon by the Iran-backed group.
Iran denies providing direct military support to the Houthis, instead describing them as a political ally within what Tehran calls the “Axis of Resistance,” an alliance opposed to the United States and Israel.
According to al-Sharafi, the Houthis are increasingly tied to Iran, including at the operational command level. The return of prominent Iranian figures to Yemen indicates Tehran is seeking to strengthen its influence over Houthi decision-making, he said.
Adapted and translated from the original Arabic.
