The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a U.S.-designated terrorist organization and formal arm of the Iranian military, denied on Tuesday that it was playing any role in aiding the Shiite Houthi terrorists of Yemen in their attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea.
The commander of the IRGC Navy, Rear Admiral Ali Reza Tangsiri, appeared to be responding to reports surfacing this weekend that the IRGC and members of the Iran-linked Lebanese terrorist organization Hezbollah were “on the ground in Yemen” helping the Houthi attack commercial ships. According to anonymous sources speaking to Reuters in a report published on Sunday, the Iranian government “has provided advanced drones, anti-ship cruise missiles, precision-strike ballistic missiles and medium-range missiles to the Houthis,” while the IRGC is “providing know-how, data and intelligence support” to help the Houthis choose targets.
“Iran is clearly funding, they’re resourcing, they are supplying and they’re providing training,” Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, the U.S. Navy’s top commander in the region, told the Associated Press in an interview. “They’re obviously very directly involved. There’s no secret there.”
The Houthis, a group formally calling itself “Ansarullah,” its religiously, ideologically, and politically allied with Iran. It seized control of the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, in 2014 and has waged a civil war against the legitimate government of that country since. In response to an international, Saudi-led alliance to aid the Yemeni government, the Houthis have also bombed neighboring Saudi Arabia and threatened both American and regional Sunni powers. Its official slogan is “Allahu Akbar, Death to America, Death to Israel, Curse on the Jews, Victory to Islam.”
Things are heating up in the Red Sea. https://t.co/Q5XDuU2o2L
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) December 31, 2023
“Ansarullah” is an ally of the Sunni jihadist terrorist group Hamas and formally declared war against the state of Israel shortly after Hamas’s unprecedented atrocities against Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023. As part of that war, Houthi terrorists have vowed to attack all ships transiting around the Bab el-Mandeb strait into and out of the Red Sea. While Houthi leaders claim they will only attack ships with ties to Israel, multiple strikes have targeted Bahamian, Panamanian, Norwegian, and other ships with no overt relationship to Israel.
Those attacks, Tangsiri, the IRGC commander, claimed were directed by Houthi leaders with no input from Iran.
“Yemen is an independent state that has a powerful army and a strong leader, which acts independently and does not take orders from any party,” the IRGC-linked Tasnim News Agency quoted Tangsiri as saying on Tuesday. Tangsiri emphasized that the Houthis were acting “of their own volition.”
Iran falsely recognized Ansarullah as the government of Yemen.
In reality, the Houthis have long depended on Iranian support to wage their civil war and expand their terrorism beyond Yemen’s borders.
“Iran’s support to the Houthis is quite significant, and it’s lethal,” US Special Envoy for Yemen Tim Lenderking told the House Foreign Affairs Committee during a hearing in 2021. “What I see is continued aiding and abetting an army of Houthis by the Iranians so that they can continue attacking Saudi Arabia, and unfortunately those attacks have risen quite strongly in the last couple of months.”
‘Prosperity Guardian’ Fail: India Rescues U.S.-Owned Ship from Houthi Attack https://t.co/qpsTYx2pUL
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) January 18, 2024
The national security publication War on the Rocks described in a report published that year the Iranians as offering aid to the Houthis as long ago as 2009, though greatly escalating it after the fall of Sana’a in 2014.
“In many cases, Iran uses complex smuggling and procurement networks to provide more technologically advanced parts that the Houthis then combine with other locally acquired or produced ones,” the outlet explained, directly accusing the IRGC of helping “assemble these parts into working weapons.”
“This approach has allowed the Houthis to now field short and long-range drones and an increasingly diversified fleet of missiles capable of striking deep inside Saudi Arabia,” it added.
The U.S. Treasury issued sanctions on multiple entities and individuals in late December accused of helping funnel Iranian money to the Houthis.
“Among those designated today is the head of the Currency Exchangers Association in Sana’a, and three exchange houses in Yemen and Türkiye,” the sanctions announcement read. “These persons have facilitated the transfer of millions of dollars to the Houthis at the direction of U.S.-designated Sa’id al-Jamal, who is affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF).”
The IRGC is a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organization, but Ansarullah is not. As one of his first actions in office, the administration of leftist President Joe Biden removed the Houthis from the list, arguing that the sanctions made it difficult for human rights and charity organizations to offer Yemenis trapped in Houthi areas humanitarian aid. As a result of the civil war the Houthis began, Yemenis have faced years of famine and pestilence and the vast majority rely on international aid for food and medicine. The situation for Yemeni civilians has not improved in the years since, but the Houthis have greatly expanded their ability to raise resources and engage in terrorism in the region.
Biden has refused to restore the Houthis to the list, telling reporters on January 19, “it’s irrelevant whether they’re designated.”
