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.