Eleonora Ardemagni
The United States and its allies are stepping up efforts to curb the smuggling of Iranian weapons for the Houthis (aka Ansar Allah) in Yemen. US President Donald Trump’s redesignation of the Houthis as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) on just the third day of his presidency, combined with the reinstated “maximum pressure” sanctions policy against Iran, aim to target pro-Iran financial and weapons’ networks. The FTO executive order states “it is now the policy of the United States to cooperate with its regional partners to eliminate the Houthis’ capabilities and operations, deprive them of resources, and thereby end their attacks on U.S. personnel and civilians, U.S. partners, and maritime shipping in the Red Sea.” These goals dovetail with the Yemen Maritime Security Partnership, launched in November by the United Kingdom with US backing, to support the Yemen Coast Guard (YCG).
These choices signal that the United States is focused on countering the Houthis’ weapon supply chains, while also suggesting that the White House is keeping the political door open for a possible stronger military engagement against the Iran-backed group. For the United States, a stronger maritime partnership with Yemen’s government and allied forces in southern Yemen can be the first step to curb armed groups’ rising offensive capabilities in the Red Sea region. This would support Yemeni institutions to restore a degree of sovereignty in the country; weaken the emerging, weapons-driven cooperation among the Houthis, al-Shabaab, and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP); and would make it more difficult for Russia to develop game-changing military relations with the Houthis.
In a break from the past, the main international and regional stakeholders (the United States, the European Union, the Gulf Cooperation Council states, Israel) now share converging perspectives on the global threat emanating from Houthi-controlled areas. Degrading their offensive capabilities is widely perceived as the only viable option left, as the Yemeni government is calling for international support to regain Houthi-held territories, starting from the coastal Red Sea area.
Supporting the Yemeni Coast Guard
When empowered through equipment and training, which increased in the final months of the Biden administration, and also with regular payment of their salaries, the YCG can tackle the arrival of smuggled weapons to the Houthis. Task forces of the US-led Combined Maritime Forces have often seized dhows carrying Houthi-destined weapons in international waters, while the YCG could effectively complement the effort within Yemeni territorial waters.
As part of the US-endorsed Yemen Maritime Security Partnership, the United Kingdom will provide boats, training, and assistance to the YCG to protect Yemen’s coasts and freedom of navigation in the Red Sea; the United Kingdom will also fund training programs for the Coast Guard via the Technical Assistance Fund for Yemen. In December, then-US ambassador to the United Nations (UN) Linda Thomas-Greenfield stated that Washington “will continue to work” with the YCG “to control illicit activity along the country’s coastline.” In early February, a senior Yemeni official visited US Central Command to discuss how to counter Houthi threats and propaganda.
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In recent months, the YCG has increased the interception of Iranian-provided weapons bound to the Houthis. For instance, on February 13, the YCG intercepted a cargo vessel carrying a substantial number of weapons that had departed from Djibouti towards the Houthi-controlled port of Al-Salif in Hodeida. The interception occurred in coordination with the National Resistance Forces, the armed group led by Tareq Saleh, whose fiefdom is in Mocha, close to the Bab-el-Mandeb strait, and whose forces control the Red Sea division of the YCG. The nephew of the former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, the younger Saleh isn’t part of the government but one of eight members of the Presidential Leadership Council (PLC).
According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, most of the Coast Guard’s vessels operate in the Red Sea, not in the Arabian Sea. This is the case even though much of the Houthis’ smuggled weapons enter Yemeni territory through the Arabian Sea (Hadhramaut and Mahra) and the Gulf of Aden because of transhipment off the Somali coast.
However, routes have partly changed since Yemen’s 2022 national truce. Although the truce is no longer technically in place, the United Nations Verification and Inspection Mechanism (UNVIM) continues to inspect ships arriving at Hodeida to prevent weapons and munitions from being transferred to the Houthis, in compliance with the UN arms embargo. But the UNVIM now has to deal with more vessels than before, in particular container ships that previously couldn’t dock at the Hodeida port, increasing the risk that inspections are not accurate. Therefore, a stronger and better-organized presence of the YCG in the Arabian Sea would help Yemen to be more effective against weapons smuggling in territorial waters.
Preventing the expansion of a smuggling network
In the Red Sea region, the smuggling of weapons goes beyond the Houthis, but the Houthis—with Iran’s backing—increasingly are the actor driving this trade. The rise of instability on both shores of the Red Sea (Yemen, Sudan, and Somalia), with non-state armed groups developing growing offensive capabilities, makes the task of curbing arms smuggling even more urgent for the United States and regional allies. It starts with going after the financing.
Since late 2023, the Houthis’ attacks against shipping and Israel have allowed the group to increase its visibility and influence and to shape new alliances in the Red Sea. While weapons provided by Iran are key to these tactical alliances, the Houthis are using these alliances to carve out a network of financing, supply, and support that is autonomous from Tehran.
According to the UN, the Houthis established an “opportunistic alliance” with AQAP in Yemen, providing drones to the Sunni terrorist group. Furthermore, what the UN described as “increased smuggling activities” between the Houthis and al-Shabaab (the Somali terrorist group affiliated with AQAP) are taking place via Somalia’s Puntland State, as previously warned by US intelligence.
A more proactive stance by the United States against weapons smuggling off the coast of Yemen would also reduce risks of strengthened military ties between the Houthis and Russia. According to several media reports, the Iranian-backed group has been in talks with Moscow for the provision of weapons, a development facilitated by the Russian-Iranian strategic partnership. Russia’s military intelligence personnel have reportedly been spotted in Houthi-held areas of the country, and Moscow reportedly recruited Yemenis through Houthi intermediaries to join the battlefield in Ukraine. However, a de-escalation between the United States and Russia on Ukraine likely would limit—at least in the short term—Moscow’s appetite for stronger military cooperation with the Houthis aimed at damaging Western interests.
Strengthening Yemen’s government and institutions
The more the United States supports Yemeni forces to curb the Houthis’ smuggling activities, the more Yemen’s government and allied forces in the southern and southwestern regions can try to restore a degree of institutional presence in the country. Since the Houthis started attacks against maritime vessels, the Yemeni government and allied forces have increasingly called for US and international support to regain Houthi-held territories.
Speaking at this month’s Munich Security Conference, PLC Chairman Rashad al-Alimi stated that the Yemeni government “must be empowered to exert full control over its territory” and this can be achieved only with “international support,” enforcing measures to prevent the flow of Iranian weapons to Yemen.
Previously, at the Rome MED Dialogues in November, Yemeni Foreign Minister Shaya Mohsin al-Zindani explicitly asked the United States and international partners to enhance the capabilities of Yemen’s security and military forces, especially the Coast Guard.
As the Trump administration’s Yemen policy takes shape, it is clear that choking off the Houthis’ weapons routes is a central part of the president’s strategy, and US partners in Yemen are eager to play an active role. The benefits of a strong, holistic strategy to disrupt these networks would reverberate across the region—and on global maritime traffic.
Eleonora Ardemagni is an expert on Yemen and the GCC states, a senior associate research fellow at the Italian Institute for International Political Studies, and an adjunct professor at ASERI (Graduate School of Economics and International Relations, Milan).
Further reading
Image: Houthi-aligned armed tribesmen fire a machine gun during a gathering to show support to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and defiance to Israel and U.S.-led coalition, in the northern outskirts of Sanaa, Yemen January 16, 2025. REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah