Iran’s regime is feeling empowered. The funeral events of the late supreme leader Ali Khamenei are continuing in the region, where his body is expected to go from Qom to Iraq this week.
Meanwhile, it appears that Iran is also making moves with the Houthis, who have been terrorizing the region for years.
The Houthis tried to take over Yemen in 2015 and then fought a Saudi-backed alliance of countries that included the Yemen government. They have also attacked Israel and shipping in the Red Sea.
According to reports over the last several days, it appears that the Houthi Deputy Foreign Minister, Abdulwahid Abu Ras, met in the Houthi capital of Sanaa with the Iranian Ambassador to the militia, Ali Mohammad Rezaei.
This also comes after reports of an Iranian plane landing in Sanaa. The Houthis claim an Iranian civilian aircraft landed. The Saudis apparently sought to prevent the aircraft from continuing, and the Houthis have now threatened to attack Saudi Arabia.
This is the context of a new article in Al-Ain media in the UAE that is titled “the Tehran-Sanaa line: Iran’s envoy leads the Houthi escalation in Yemen.”
The report says that “Iran’s envoy to the Houthis, Ali Mohammad Rezaei, appeared in Sanaa nearly two years after he was appointed ‘military governor’ of the city, in a move that reflects Iranian tutelage.”
The IRGC is said to be directly managing 'recent escalations'
The report says that Rezaei appeared on Sunday as the Houthis have announced new supplies arriving from Tehran via flights. There are “clear indications that the recent escalation is being managed directly from the operations rooms of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards,” Al-Ain says.
According to the report, the secretive Rezaei has only made a few appearances in public at official events over the last several years. He works under the guise of being an ambassador, but just as Iran uses its ambassador in Lebanon to back Hezbollah, so it does the same in Yemen.
It should be recalled that Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon was wounded in the pager attacks in 2024. Lebanon has tried to get the Iranian ambassador to leave, but Iran refuses to withdraw him.
“Since Rezaei’s appointment, whose movements are shrouded in secrecy by the Houthi militias, he has overseen an integrated mechanism designed by Tehran specifically to help its Houthi proxies circumvent US sanctions, in coordination with high-ranking figures from both the Iranian and Houthi sides,” Al-Ain says.
“The reappearance of Rezaei, an Iranian Revolutionary Guard officer working in Yemen, alongside security leader Abdulwahid Abu Ras, represents a further escalation following the militias’ announcement of opening an air bridge from Tehran to Sanaa as part of what the militias called ‘unity of the squares,’” the report says.
It appears the Houthis want to open a new air route to Sanaa from Tehran. This would challenge international sanctions. “This comes just two days after an Iranian plane carrying more than 200 people arrived at Sanaa airport, on a flight that the Yemeni government said violated the country’s sovereignty and breached the arrangements regulating air travel.”
Rezaei's appearances aim to 'seize control of what remains of Iran's axis' in Yemen
Rezaei has appeared in public apparently to make the Houthis feel less isolated. This shows that Iran wants to anchor its influence in Yemen even as it has lost out on other fronts.
“The appearance of the governor of Sanaa also comes within the framework of Iran’s attempts to seize control of what remains of its axis in the region, represented by the Houthi militias, after the violent blow that its regime suffered from the Israeli-American attack and the liquidation of the first-tier leaders of this regime,” an expert told Al-Ain media. The incident coincides with the funeral of Khamenei.
“Holding the reins of what remains of the Iranian axis is the most important factor for the cohesion of what remains of the Iranian regime, and its continuation to wage the battle of negotiation with America, which is no less fierce than the military battle,” the analyst says.
Iran still has leverage in the region. This is clear from the new uptick in Houthi operations and threats. It’s worth recalling that back in 2024 Rezaei indicated that the Houthis would support Hezbollah.
A website calling itself Sheba Intelligence noted on July 4 that “according to the information, a special operations room has been formed to manage the escalation. It is reportedly supervised by a senior figure linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, believed by sources to be Abdul Reza Shahlai, alongside Iran’s new representative or ambassador to the Houthis in Sanaa, Ali Mohammed Ramadhani, whose name has also appeared in some sources as Ali Mohammed Rezaei.”