Iran's 'new Hezbollah:' How powerful are the Houthis now?

After recent events in Yemen, a small crowd marched down an Iraqi street holding signs that were almost identical to those seen not too long ago further south.

The signs said, "death to America" and insulted Saudi Arabia and Israel, with slogans very similar to those used by the Houthi rebel group in Yemen. The men in the Iraqi video are members of one of Iraq's Shiite Muslim paramilitary groups.

Both the Iraqi paramilitaries and the Houthi group in Yemen are part of what is known as the "axis of resistance" in the Middle East, groups supported by Iran that often act at Iran's behest. Other members are Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.

After the US and Israel began attacking Iran in late February 2026, "axis of resistance" members responded by targeting sites associated with the US or Israel. But up until recently, the Houthi group had remained more or less on the sidelines.

However their latest military campaign, which has seen Houthi fighters take further control of the Yemeni coast and several islands in the Red Sea, "sets up conditions to establish… an axis of resistance-controlled body of water as part of [an] effort to assert control over regional oil exports," US-based research organization the Institute for the Study of War explained last week.

Iran and the US are already fighting for control over the Strait of Hormuz, another important waterway for oil exports and trade.

In Iran, hardline regime-supporting newspapers published laudatory articles about the Houthis' territorial gains.

The gains "greatly increased the weight of Sanaa [the Yemeni capital, under Houthi control] as a branch of resistance in the ongoing regional war," one of Iran's most conservative newspapers, Kayhan, wrote.

Supporters of the Iranian government have been holding nightly gatherings in major cities across the country since the US-Iran war began and this week, at the 200th such event, crowds chanted "you are my soul, O Yemen!"

The 'new Hezbollah?'

This was the kind of praise previously lavished on another "axis of resistance" group, Hezbollah. But Hezbollah's armed faction, degraded by recent Israeli attacks and the loss of their base in Syria, looks less intimidating these days.

And the Houthis now appear to be doing things that Hezbollah couldn't — for example, bringing down a Saudi F-15 fighter jet this week using a missile the group said it modified itself. Hezbollah has managed to shoot down large Israeli drones and has targeted fighter jets but never hit any.

Could the Houthis be taking Hezbollah's place as the potentially most important and possibly even more dangerous force in the "axis of resistance?"

The Houthis haven't had to fight Israel — they are too far away geographically.

"But I think they [the Houthis] have become more valuable than Hezbollah could ever be," says Farea al-Muslimi, a research fellow focused on Yemen at UK think tank Chatham House. "Of course, Hezbollah had decades of experience and was the one who built the Houthis' capacity over years. But the Houthis have now exceeded them."

The Houthis are "increasingly performing a similar strategic function for Iran [as Hezbollah] and in some respects a more useful one," confirms Andreas Krieg, a senior lecturer at the School of Security Studies at King's College London.

"Hezbollah gave Tehran deterrence against Israel from Lebanon. The Houthis give Iran leverage over Saudi Arabia, Israel and global shipping," he told DW. "So I think their strategic importance to Tehran has risen sharply as Hezbollah has come under much greater pressure."

Al-Muslimi notes that Houthi leaders, including current chief Abdul Malik al-Houthi, were devoted fans of Hezbollah leader Nassan Hasrallah, killed by Israel in 2024 and seen as a hero because of his organization's part in forcing Israel to withdraw from Lebanon in 2000.

"You can see how he even tries to imitate Nasrallah in his speeches," al-Muslimi, who co-founded the Sanaa Center for Strategic Studies, told DW. "And now Abdul Malik al-Houthi has more leverage than Nasrallah ever had."

Nasrallah was once seen as "the fixer" for the "axis of resistance," he notes, a leader who acted as a conduit between the different factions, giving orders to Iran-supported fighters in Lebanon, Yemen and Syria.

Al-Houthi is likely moving into that role now, al-Muslimi believes, pointing to the fact that one recent attack on Saudi pipelines actually came from Iraqi axis members.

Iranian proxy or ally?

Unlike with Hezbollah though, there's still disagreement over exactly how much control Iran has over them.

A review of press by the Iraq-based outlet Amwaj showed that while Iranian media celebrated Houthi gains as a victory for Iran's "axis of resistance," Houthi-run channels were more focused on their own fight against Saudi Arabia, which has set up a blockade on Houthi-controlled territories.

Krieg believes the biggest difference between the Houthis and Hezbollah is autonomy.

"The Houthis… have their own leadership, ideology, domestic constituency and territorial project," he pointed out. "Tehran can enable them, arm them and benefit from their actions, but it cannot necessarily switch them on and off at will."

Other observers note that in the past, the Houthis moved ahead with certain military plans despite objections from Iran. Tehran has also denied having anything to do with this latest campaign. 

But al-Muslimi isn't so sure. He says that over the past two years, the Houthis have come a lot closer to Iran. There are regular reports of Iran sending sophisticated weaponry to the Houthis. In July, sources inside Iran told Reuters news agency that Iranian leadership had discussed with the Houthis having them close off the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

"Even as Houthi leaders frame their actions in local terms, their alignment with Tehran appears to have tightened," Allison Minor, previously the US deputy special envoy for Yemen, said in Foreign Affairs magazine last week.

Can the Houthis be beaten?

The one thing everyone does agree on is that the Houthis will be hard to rein in. Past military campaigns by Saudi Arabia, the US and other countries have failed. Sanctions and economic pressure tend not to impact either because the Houthis don't operate within the international financial system.

The Houthis take a "zero sum approach," al-Muslimi explains. They collect taxes but don't pay salaries or provide public services; everything goes towards fighting. The group's founding father argued that contemporary Muslim societies were too "soft," and that poverty and hardship are a divine test. 

That's very different from Hezbollah: The Lebanese group also has a political branch at home, and offers social welfare services. It must also carefully balance relationships with other demographic groups in Lebanon.

The Houthis have none of those restraints.

"They don't care if the Israelis bomb the airport or the US bombs a hospital," al-Muslimi says. "It actually serves them very well because their ideology is all about martyrdom and sacrifice."

Which, he suggests, makes them potentially more dangerous than Hezbollah, especially for Yemeni civilians.

"They are a major international threat," he agrees, "but they're the biggest threat ever to the idea of a republic and citizenship in Yemen's history."