Behind the Houthi arsenal: How Iran built the force threatening the region
According to a report by Erem News, based on Yemeni sources, Tehran has helped for years to turn the Houthis from a local force into an organization equipped with long-range missiles and UAVs, alongside smuggling networks and ties that extend beyond Yemen's borders.
The Houthis, who began their path more than two decades ago as an armed movement with limited influence in the Saada mountains of northern Yemen, have gradually become a force possessing long-range missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles, and global smuggling networks. According to a report on the Erem News website, based on government sources in Yemen, Tehran has worked for years to prepare the Houthis for war in Yemen and to provide Iran with a foothold on the Arabian Peninsula and in the Red Sea.
According to the sources cited in the report, the Iranian involvement began as early as the early 90s, when Houthi fighters were recruited for training through the Lebanese Hezbollah and the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria. Hundreds of activists, it is claimed, underwent military training in southern Lebanon and in Iran. The goal, according to the sources, was not only to assist a local force in its struggle against the government in Yemen, but to build a force that Tehran could use later as an instrument of regional influence.
As disputes within the Yemeni government deepened and government forces struggled to resolve the conflict in Saada, the Iranian involvement, according to the report, became more visible. Military experts from the Revolutionary Guards and Hezbollah arrived in the region and assisted in managing operations and developing combat methods. At the same time, weapons flowed into the province bordering Saudi Arabia.
Support expanded even further during the political crisis that preceded the Houthi takeover of Sanaa. According to the sources, it included weapons, training, and military knowledge. After the conquest of the capital, the Houthis were also required to deal with the management of state institutions. Erem News reported that Iran financed the sending of more than 2,500 professionals to Damascus for training in the management of government institutions — a move presented in the report as part of the transition from an armed rebellion to an attempt to establish an alternative government.
From training to missiles and UAVs
With the outbreak of the war in 2015, according to the report, the nature of the aid also changed. Alongside training and military knowledge, more advanced weapons began to reach the Houthis, primarily long-range missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles. A senior officer in the National Resistance forces in Yemen claimed to the site that the UN mechanism for inspecting ships arriving at ports controlled by the Houthis left loopholes that allowed for smuggling. According to him, some of the shipments were transferred using small commercial vessels.
Weapons smuggling networks for the Houthis through sea routes and logistics systems have also been documented by official American entities over the years. The US Treasury Department described systems of shipping and logistics companies that were used to transfer military equipment and dual-use components to the Houthis, and the US Central Command previously reported on the seizure of weapons shipments that were on their way from Iran to Yemen.
The network expands to Africa
According to the Yemeni sources cited in Erem News, the Houthi activity did not end with receiving weapons and transferring them to Yemen. The report claimed that the organization created ties with Al-Shabaab in Somalia and established a camp in areas under its control in northern and western Yemen, where fighters from the Horn of Africa were trained before being sent back to the other side of the Gulf of Aden. Some of them, according to the same version, participated in smuggling Iranian weapons to the Houthis and others were trained for activity in Somalia.
The US Treasury Department also previously described Houthi logistics operatives who were involved in smuggling operations through Somalia, as part of the organization's broader procurement and transport networks.
Missiles with a range of about 2,500 kilometers
After taking over camps of the Yemeni army, the Houthis got their hands on large quantities of weapons, including dozens of Scud missiles. However, according to the sources cited in the report, from 2017 a significant change began in the nature of their arsenal, with the appearance of more advanced systems, including missiles whose range reaches, according to the sources, about 2,500 kilometers, as well as more advanced UAVs. The sources claim that the Revolutionary Guards oversee the weapons transfer networks to areas under Houthi control.
The picture presented by the report is of an organization that has undergone a profound change within about two decades: from an armed movement that focused on an internal conflict in northern Yemen to a force possessing an arsenal of missiles, UAVs, unmanned naval vessels, and smuggling networks and ties that extend beyond the country's borders. According to Erem News, this process is at the basis of the Houthis' ability to threaten today not only their rivals in Yemen, but also countries in the region and shipping routes in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.
