Houthis received aid from Iran, others for dangerous weapons: UN

• The Houthis possess a considerable arsenal of weapons, including missiles and drones.
• Yemeni rebels could not have done it without foreign aid, according to a new UN report.
• The Houthis have used these weapons to target ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.

The Houthi rebels could not have amassed their dangerous arsenal of weapons without extensive help from Iran and its proxy forces in the Middle East, according to a new report for the United Nations.

In the lengthy report, which was delivered to the UN Security Council last month, a panel of experts concluded that Yemen’s Houthis have received training, weapons, technical assistance and financial support from Iran, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Iraqi armed groups . .

The Houthis are behind a year-long campaign target key commercial shipping lanes in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. They have launched more than 130 attacks – mainly using missiles and drones – against commercial and western naval ships.

The rebels hit a number of commercial ships during their campaign, sinking two of them and hijacking one (nearly a year later, its crew remains detained in Yemen). Four sailors have been killed so far in the attacks.

The expert group said in their report that the Houthis exploited the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and through their attacks sought to enhance their status in Iran’s so-called “axis of resistance,” a band of proxy forces around Middle east.

The Houthis held a military parade in September 2023, during which the group he boasted a formidable arsenal of anti-ship missiles, ballistic and cruise missiles, surface-to-air missiles, aerial drones, naval drones, motor boats, surveillance systems and mines.

However, experts said the Houthis do not have the ability to produce and develop such complex weapons without external assistance. They also said the rebels likely received external assistance in identifying, locating and targeting merchant vessels, as many of them turned off their automatic identification systems before entering the area.

“The scale, nature and extent of transfers of various military materials and technologies provided to the Houthis from external sources, including financial support and training of its fighters, are unprecedented,” the experts wrote in their report.

The US Navy has done it repeatedly intercepted ships trying to smuggle weapons from Iran to the Houthis. One such mission in January resulted in the seizure of parts for ballistic and cruise missiles.

The Pentagon has maintained a naval presence in and around the Red Sea during the Houthi campaign, during which US warships have they routinely intercepted their missiles and drones. In addition, US forces carried out significant air strikes against the rebels in Yemen.

The UN panel of experts said US and British forces together destroyed more than 800 Houthi missiles and drones and took out command posts, radars and weapons caches.