How Iranian weapons are smuggled to the Houthis

The governor of an area in Yemen has “revealed” how Iranian weapons arrive by sea to the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen, UAE-based Al Ain news site reported. This is important because the Gulf Cooperation Council has been discussing the Houthi threat to shipping and Gulf-Yemen ties in recent days. The Houthis have also increased their attacks on shipping.

According to the report, ships enter Houthi-controlled ports in Yemen without inspection. There are “renewed talk about the flow of Iranian weapons to the port of Hodeidah,” the report said, adding that the legitimate government of Yemen, and not the Houthi rebels, has confirmed and monitored the “movement of Iranian ships directly from the port of Bandar Abbas to the port of Hodeidah recently, while the British government documented the entry of 500 ships over the past 8 months, and for the first time since 2016, into ports controlled by the Houthis without being subject to the UN inspection mechanism.”

The UN was supposed to implement a resolution that bans smuggling of weapons to the Houthis, the report said. Considering the role of the UN in Gaza and Lebanon, where the UN watched as Hamas and Hezbollah became exponentially more powerful, the role of the UN in Yemen, watching arms flow to the Houthis, should not be surprising.

“The governor of Hodeidah in the internationally recognized government, Al-Hassan Taher, confirmed that ships coming from Iran, carrying various quantities of weapons, had already arrived at the vital port controlled by the Houthi militias, without being inspected by the mechanism. Internationalism,” Al Ain reported.The governor said the Iranian ships are loaded with weapons, and they arrive in a dangerous manner to Hodeidah, violating UN Security Council Resolution 2216.

Accusing Western countries of not preventing weapon flow to Iran proxies

According to the report, the official is “accusing the United Nations and the Western countries influential in the Yemen file of ‘complicity in facilitating smuggled arms deals.’

”This is serious because it is another example of Western countries not preventing weapons flowing to Iranian-backed groups that destabilize the region. Weapons flow to Hezbollah, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and they also make their way to Syria and Iraqi militias.

The UN resolution is not being implemented, the report said, adding that this “amounts to joint UN-Western collusion to fuel the coup plotters supported by Iran.”

The arms are fueling attacks on ships, which the Houthis began last November. The Houthis back Hamas. The US, the UK, and others have sought to respond to the attacks. Around 12% of global trade passes through the Red Sea.“Experts say that the Houthi arsenal includes ballistic missiles with a range of 1,600 to 1,900 kilometers, and Iranian-made drones that can fly up to 2,000 kilometers,” the report said.

The report by Al Ain illustrates another piece of evidence of how Iran is fueling war throughout the region. Tehran is able to exploit the weakness of the international community and the West to accomplish this. 

Seth Frantzman is the author of Drone Wars: Pioneers, Killing Machine, Artificial Intelligence and the Battle for the Future (Bombardier 2021) and an adjunct fellow at The Foundation for Defense of Democracies.