Yemen Says 21 Iranian and Hezbollah Experts Are Running Houthi Operations
Photo: Anees Mahyoub/Reuters via Al Jazeera (damage at a house hit by a Houthi missile in Taiz, Yemen, 21 October 2026)
Yemen's government says 21 experts from Iran's Revolutionary Guard and Lebanon's Hezbollah are now directing Houthi military operations, not just training fighters or supplying weapons. Interior Minister Ibrahim Haidan said on Tuesday that 14 of the group are from the Revolutionary Guard, known as the IRGC, and seven are from Hezbollah, and that their role has grown into what he called a fully fledged general staff.
Al Jazeera reported that Haidan said foreign involvement has moved from financing, arming and training to direct supervision and taking part in planning and running operations, and building military capabilities. The National reported the same breakdown, and noted that the ministry did not name the 21 people or publish evidence to back the claim.
The ministry said the group is spread across six areas. Eight are in Hodeidah, four in Sanaa, four in Saada, two in Hajjah, two in Amran and one in the coastal city of Khokha. Their work, according to the statement, covers command and control, ballistic missiles and drones, electronic warfare, smuggling military parts, coordinating naval operations, picking commercial ships as targets, building explosive laden boats and autonomous submarines, and training fighters in mine laying and siege tactics.
Haidan said the group is led by a Revolutionary Guard officer, who he described as the general supervisor of operations, a strategic adviser and the head of a joint operations room. He said the officer had appeared on camera as the ambassador of a state, without naming the person or the country. Arab News reported that Haidan also accused the experts of backing political and media work meant to build long term Iranian influence in Yemen.
The warning matters most for shipping. Haidan said the activities threaten shipping in the Bab al-Mandeb strait and the Red Sea, and could pass military know-how to other armed groups. He called on the world to designate the Houthis a terrorist organisation, break up their financing and arms networks, and enforce the arms embargo under United Nations Security Council resolutions 2216 and 2624.
The claim lands in the middle of a renewed war. Government forces and Houthi fighters are battling in five provinces, after the Houthis seized the western Red Sea coast and the Bab al-Mandeb area in September. The National reported, citing four military sources, that the Houthis have advanced to within 80 kilometres of Aden, closer than at any point since the early months of the war in 2015. That push broke a relative quiet that had held since a 2022 ceasefire, in a war that began in 2014 when the Houthis took the capital, Sanaa.
Both sides named in the claim have denied the picture Haidan paints. Tehran insists the Houthis act on their own, the Houthis admit an alliance with Iran but deny being an Iranian proxy, and Hezbollah has in the past rejected having a role in Yemen's war. Saudi Arabia, whose airports and oil facilities have come under Houthi attack in recent weeks, has accused Iran of encouraging the escalation. The blog has followed that escalation closely, from Houthi missiles striking Yemen's presidential palace in Aden to the deadly missile attack on a Yemen army training camp in Shabwa, and from Iran setting out five conditions for lasting regional security only yesterday.
Sources
Al Jazeera: Yemen govt accuses IRGC, Hezbollah of sending 21 experts to back Houthis
Arab News: Yemen says Iranian, Hezbollah experts directing Houthi military operations
Watch for any response from Tehran and Hezbollah, and for whether the United Nations acts on the call to enforce the arms embargo.
#Yemen #Houthis #Iran #Hezbollah #MiddleEast #BreakingNews #RedSea
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