Iranian Guard Officers Helped Direct Houthi Blitz That Seized Yemen's Red Sea Coast, Officials Say

Revolutionary Guard officers from Iran were embedded with Houthi rebel units during a lightning offensive this month that seized Yemen's entire Red Sea coastline in under 48 hours, according to accounts from ten officials and analysts described in reporting by The Associated Press. The advisers helped plan the operation and coordinated with front-line commanders as it unfolded, the sources said, in what several described as Tehran's most direct battlefield role in Yemen's war since it erupted in 2014.

The offensive gave the Iran-aligned movement uncontested control of the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, the chokepoint at the southern mouth of the Red Sea through which a large share of global trade passes, and left the Saudi-backed government reeling from its heaviest territorial loss in years. The Houthis' capture of the port of Mokha and nearby islands on September 10 opened a new phase of a war that had been largely dormant since Washington and Israel struck Iran directly earlier this year.

A Coastline Lost in Two Days

Houthi fighters swept roughly 115 kilometers (75 miles) down Yemen's southern Red Sea coast in less than 48 hours, capturing Mokha and then pushing on to take Perim Island in the middle of the strait and the Hanish Islands to its north. The National Resistance Forces defending the coast, loyal to Lt. Gen. Tariq Saleh, numbered about 30,000 fighters spread across a roughly 170-kilometer front, facing a Houthi force estimated at 75,000. In the month before the coast fell, the Houthis fired some 130 ballistic missiles and 145 suicide drones at National Resistance positions, according to the force's spokesman, Maj. Gen. Sadiq Dwaid, who put unconfirmed losses at around 500 fighters.

A senior Houthi official told AP that Iranian advisers were "present at all levels" of the operation, including planning tactical maneuvers and working directly with commanders on the ground — a marked shift from their previous role advising only on strategy. Mzahem Alsaloum, a security analyst who tracks the conflict, said the advisers brought communications-intercept and satellite-analysis capabilities the Houthis had previously lacked, helping the group track and outmaneuver National Resistance units whose internal communications had already been compromised.

Tehran's Deepest Involvement Since 2014

The Houthis have fought Yemen's internationally recognized government since seizing the capital, Sanaa, in 2014, and Iran has steadily built the movement into one of its most capable regional partners, supplying missiles, drones and uncrewed attack boats. But the group had stayed largely on the sidelines after the United States and Israel struck Iran directly in February, a lull that held for months. Fighting resumed in July after the Houthis accused Saudi Arabia of striking Sanaa's airport as it prepared to receive a flight from Tehran; officials told AP that the Iranian advisers now on the ground arrived on that same contested flight route in early August, shortly before the Houthis relaunched attacks on government forces.

The war's reignition has already drawn repeated emergency sessions of the UN Security Council, which in a press statement this month condemned "continued Houthi attacks against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, including attacks impacting civilian and energy infrastructure," and reaffirmed the Council's support for UN Special Envoy Hans Grundberg's efforts to broker a Yemeni-led political settlement. The Council also demanded the immediate release of 73 UN and humanitarian personnel it says the Houthis are holding.

Displacement, a Fractured Alliance and Oil Markets

The human cost has mounted quickly. The UN's International Organization for Migration reported at least 46,000 people displaced in the first days of the coastal offensive alone, a figure it said was "alarmingly rising by the hour," with entire villages emptied across three districts of Taiz province and the supply road between Mokha and Taiz severed. A UNHCR emergency update issued this week tracks the crisis still unfolding along the west coast, where humanitarian agencies say needs for shelter, water and protection services are outpacing the funding available to meet them.

• Mokha residents described being abandoned as National Resistance units withdrew; one resident, Issa Gubwani, told AP: "They left us to face our fate."
• Government forces' collapse was compounded by a long-running rivalry between the National Resistance Forces and the rival Giants Brigades, rooted in a wider split between their Saudi and Emirati patrons; the United Arab Emirates withdrew its forces from Yemen in January.
• Saudi Arabia shut down its East-West pipeline, which can carry up to 7 million barrels of crude a day, after a drone strike this month, and the closure combined with the coastal advance helped push oil prices more than 20 percent higher over the month, with Brent crude briefly nearing $109 a barrel, before markets partly stabilized as traders judged the disruption less severe than initially feared. By Wednesday the kingdom had restarted the pipeline entirely and Iran signaled it could reopen the Strait of Hormuz to shipping, a shift another outlet reports has sent crude prices sliding further this week.

Lt. Gen. Saleh, the National Resistance commander, fled to Saudi Arabia as his forces retreated, according to officials briefed on the collapse, while field commanders complained that reinforcements from allied factions arrived too late and without coordination.

"Losing the West Coast is not the end of the battle; rather, it marks the beginning of a fiercer battle," Brig. Gen. Walid Ziyad, a senior National Resistance commander, told the AP.

Washington Weighs In as Houthis Push Inland

The fighting has not stopped at the coast. Yemeni military sources say Houthi units are now pressing into the Kahboub mountain range spanning Taiz and Lahij provinces, high ground that separates the captured coastline from the remaining government-held south, with clashes reported this week around the Wazi'iyah district and the Ras al-Arah area on the Arabian Sea. The push came, according to press reports, after the Trump administration called off planned airstrikes against Houthi forces at the last moment.

Yemen's president, Rashad al-Alimi, appealed to President Trump by phone on September 21 for American support against the advancing Houthis, but two officials familiar with the call said Trump made no direct pledge of military assistance. Trump has said separately that Washington remains in contact with the Houthis, who have told US officials they do not intend to target American shipping — a distinction that has left Saudi Arabia and Yemen's government pressing for firmer backing largely on their own. Analysts note that even without closing the Red Sea outright, the Houthis' hold on its western shore gives them lasting leverage over Saudi Arabia and international shippers alike.

For now, the National Resistance Forces are trying to regroup along the new front line in the highlands, Saudi officials have not publicly explained why air support did not intervene during the coastal collapse, and the Security Council has scheduled further consultations on Yemen as it presses both sides toward the political process Grundberg has spent more than three years trying to revive.