Iran’s regime is feeling empowered. The funeral events of the late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei are continuing in the region, and his body is expected to go from Qom to Iraq this week.
Meanwhile, it appears that Iran is also making moves with the Houthis. The Iranian-backed Houthis have been terrorizing the region for years, even trying to take over Yemen in 2015. They then fought a Saudi-backed alliance of countries that included the Yemeni government and have 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, Sana’a, with the Iranian Ambassador to the militia, Ali Mohammad Rezaei. This comes after the Houthis claimed an Iranian civilian aircraft landed in Sana'a. 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 said that “Iran’s envoy to the Houthis, Ali Mohammad Rezaei, appeared in Sana’a 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 by air. There are “clear indications that the recent escalation is being managed directly from the operations rooms of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards,” Al-Ain said.
According to the report, the secretive Rezaei has made only a few public appearances 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 said.
“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 Sana'a as part of what the militias called ‘unity of the squares,’” the report added.
It appears the Houthis want to open a new air route to Sana’a 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, showing that Iran wants to anchor its influence in Yemen even as it has lost out on other fronts.
“The appearance of the governor of Sana’a 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 Khamenei's funeral. “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 said.
Iran still has leverage in the region, as evidenced by the uptick in Houthi operations and threats. It’s worth recalling that back in 2024 Rezaei indicated that the Houthis would support Hezbollah.
A website called 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 Sana’a, Ali Mohammed Ramadhani, whose name has also appeared in some sources as Ali Mohammed Rezaei.”