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!" 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.
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