Tehran, Iran – Iranian officials and state media have welcomed the Houthis’ seizure of territory along Yemen’s Red Sea coast, viewing the advance as a potential source of greater leverage for Tehran against the United States.
The Houthis, a Zaidi Shia-led political and military movement, have fought the Western-backed Yemeni government since taking control of the capital, Sanaa, in 2014.
This week, the group captured a series of coastal cities and islands along the Red Sea, effectively placing the strategic Bab al-Mandeb strait within its sphere of control.
The victories have drawn praise in Iran, where some officials regard them as part of Tehran’s broader confrontation with Washington, which has continued since February 28.
“The victories of Yemen’s Ansar Allah in the western coast is a narrative of a divine triumph and the fruit of years of steadfastness in the most difficult of battlefields,” Hossein Mohebbi, a spokesman for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), wrote on X on Saturday.
Senior Iranian officials have also publicly celebrated the Houthis’ recent successes against Yemen’s fragmented, Saudi-backed forces.
The capture of the port city of Mocha on Friday was a major setback for the Yemeni government, which has now lost direct access to the Red Sea.
Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran’s parliament speaker and chief negotiator with Washington, reposted a 2024 comment by slain Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei stating that Houthi “resistance” would inevitably prevail.
“The brave Yemeni people will certainly triumph, by permission of God Almighty,” Ghalibaf added in Arabic on Thursday.
First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref said Tehran was pleased by the Houthi advances and urged regional leaders to embrace “the rationality of liberation from dependency [from the US and the West], and unity under the banner of Islam”.
The Houthis’ “grand victory” had once again demonstrated that “security is not a commodity that can be bought,” said Mohammad Mokhber, an adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei.
How could the gains benefit Iran?
The Houthis began targeting vessels in the Red Sea that they said were connected to Israel in 2023, seeking to pressure Israel to end what they describe as its genocidal war in Gaza.
Those attacks prompted the United States, United Kingdom and Israel to bomb Houthi positions in Sanaa, Hodeidah and other areas.
Saudi Arabia, which entered the war against the Houthis in 2015, has largely remained on the sidelines during the latest surge of fighting in Yemen.
With its recent territorial gains, the Yemeni movement can now exert greater influence over the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandeb strait.
Control of Yemen’s Red Sea coastline and several islands—including Mayun, also known as Perim, about 3km (1.9 miles) offshore—gives the Houthis close-range access to the strategic waterway.
A video released Friday showed a Houthi commander telling fighters that missiles and drones would no longer be necessary to threaten shipping there. He said artillery positions along the coast could instead be used to fire in multiple directions at vessels.
The Houthis have not announced a closure of the strait, but military spokesman Yahya Saree said Friday that “maritime navigation is safe for all companies except for Saudi vessels.”
Iran’s partial control of the Strait of Hormuz, on the opposite side of the Arabian Peninsula, has likewise served as an important source of leverage for Tehran in its confrontation with the US.
The possibility of restricting passage through that waterway could become a bargaining tool in future negotiations aimed at ending the war with Washington.
Iranian officials are expected to meet Arab regional representatives on Monday to discuss ways to facilitate shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, which Tehran says remains closed.
Tehran has said it supports a collective regional approach to passage through the strategic waterway.
Iran also says it has reached an understanding with Oman, which controls territorial waters in the strait as well.
The US, which has maintained a naval blockade of Iranian ports and tightened sanctions on Tehran, reportedly opposes the proposed arrangement.
Authorities in Tehran have indicated that they will not hold talks with Washington under the current conditions.
“As long as the American side does not accept all of Iran’s conditions, dialogue and negotiation are of no use,” Ebrahim Azizi, head of the hardline-dominated parliament’s national security commission, wrote on X on Saturday.
Iranian press invokes ‘lord of the straits’
As Iran’s workweek began on Saturday, hardline and IRGC-linked newspapers and media outlets celebrated the Houthis’ recent advances.
Keyhan, whose editor-in-chief was appointed by Ali Khamenei, called the gains “the miracle of resistance” and said they had “put the US and Israel in a bind”.
The Quds newspaper, published by the influential Astan-e Quds Razavi in Mashhad, described Iran and the Houthis as “the lord of the straits”.
Despite repeated warnings that shipping through Bab al-Mandeb could face further disruption if the war continues, Iran’s diplomatic establishment did not immediately connect the Houthi advances to Tehran’s current confrontation with the US.
As it has often done, the Iranian Foreign Ministry insisted that the Houthis make their decisions independently and in line with their own interests, including ending Saudi Arabia’s blockade of Yemen.
The ministry called for an end to the Saudi siege of Houthi-held areas, an immediate resumption of negotiations between the group and Riyadh, and respect for Yemen’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
It also rejected suggestions that the Houthis act merely as an Iranian proxy.
“What is happening now in Yemen is the result of the Yemenis losing patience,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei told state television on Friday night.
“It is not fair to ignore the fact that they were under a cruel blockade for years, and concluded that the United Nations and regional mechanisms could not resolve the issues.”