---
title: "Mahan Air flights and submarines: how Iran arms Yemen’s Houthis, by the numbers"
description: "IRGC officers, drone parts and missile kits moved through Yemen in July, coalition intelligence says, as the Houthis took a strait and hit Riyadh’s airport 20 times"
author: "Luis Goa"
published: 2026-10-19T10:49:23Z
modified: 2026-10-19T16:05:59Z
url: https://rews.cc/a/mahan-air-flights-and-submarines-how-iran-arms-yemen-s-houth-1ea8f4
language: en
tags: ["iran", "yemen", "houthi", "war", "security", "mideast", "world"]
publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)"
---

# Mahan Air flights and submarines: how Iran arms Yemen’s Houthis, by the numbers

*IRGC officers, drone parts and missile kits moved through Yemen in July, coalition intelligence says, as the Houthis took a strait and hit Riyadh’s airport 20 times*

By Luis Goa · October 19, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/mahan-air-flights-and-submarines-how-iran-arms-yemen-s-houth-1ea8f4

## In brief

- Coalition intelligence says July Mahan Air flights carried IRGC officers, drone parts and missile-guidance kits into Houthi Yemen
- Iran reportedly shifted weapons smuggling from fishing boats to submarines after US/Israeli strikes hit boat routes
- Houthis seized the Bab al-Mandeb strait in September 2026, a route carrying 12% of world trade, 11% of oil, 8% of LNG
- Houthi strikes on Saudi airports since October 1 have killed at least 19-20 people and wounded over 360, coalition and CBS tallies say
- Saudi Arabia activated its August 7 defence pact with Turkey and Pakistan on October 5 after the attacks intensified

In July, flights operated by Iran’s Mahan Air landed in Houthi-held Yemen carrying Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) paramilitary officers, drone parts, missile-guidance kits and impact detonators, according to people familiar with Saudi-led coalition intelligence, as [Al Jazeera reported](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/10/19/iran-support-for-houthis-probed-as-yemen-war-re-erupts-and-saudi-cities-hit), citing the Wall Street Journal. IRGC officers were also on the front lines, the reporting says, directing the Houthi attacks that followed: a September offensive that handed the Houthis the whole of Yemen’s Red Sea coast, and the most sophisticated missile and drone campaign the group has run against Saudi Arabia since its war with Yemen’s government began in 2014.

None of this is new in kind. Iranian support for the Houthis goes back more than a decade, moving mostly by fishing boat, with IRGC personnel training Houthi crews to assemble and fire missiles and drones. What has changed is the method: after US and Israeli strikes disrupted boat shipments, Iran shifted precision components to submarines, according to the same coalition-intelligence account relayed by Al Jazeera. Major-General Turki al-Maliki, spokesperson for the Saudi-led coalition, confirmed an unnamed “external state actor” behind the Houthis’ upgraded arsenal, which he said has made the group the first nonstate armed force to field ballistic missiles, offensive and suicide drones, and explosive-laden fast boats together. Iran and the Houthis deny the IRGC link.

## The smuggling shift

> It indicates that Iran focuses on the Houthis as the centre of military and security gravity south of the Red Sea and, therefore, provides them with these weapons, ammunition, expertise and information in anticipation of a battle that may break out in the Strait of Hormuz.

That is Ali al-Dahab, a military and strategic-security analyst, speaking to Al Jazeera. He says the submarine route is new for the Houthis, who previously relied on dhows, the traditional wooden sailboats used across the Red Sea, to slip past naval patrols; joint forces controlling the Mocha coastline down to Bab al-Mandeb intercepted smuggled shipments on that route before the Houthis took the area in September. Ibrahim Jalal, a Yemen-focused analyst, points to the same pattern going back further: the 2021 killing of Hassan Irlu, Iran’s envoy to Houthi-run Yemen, after the Houthi assault on Marib, and the Mahan Air flights that preceded this year’s escalation.

**The alleged Iran-to-Houthi supply chain** As described in Saudi-led coalition intelligence relayed by the Wall Street Journal

| From | To | How |
| --- | --- | --- |
| IRGC, Tehran | Mahan Air flights *(July 2026)* | officers, drone parts, guidance kits |
| IRGC, Tehran | Smuggling submarines *(after boat routes hit)* | precision components |
| IRGC, Tehran | IRGC officers in Yemen | deployed |
| Mahan Air flights *(July 2026)* | Houthi forces |  |
| Smuggling submarines *(after boat routes hit)* | Houthi forces |  |
| IRGC officers in Yemen | Houthi forces | targeting, tactics |
| Houthi forces | Bab al-Mandeb strait | seized Sept 2026 |
| Houthi forces | Targets in Saudi Arabia | missiles, drones |

![The alleged Iran-to-Houthi supply chain. As described in Saudi-led coalition intelligence relayed by the Wall Street Journal](https://rews.cc/img/f40903910b726cb7a48f85e9632b1d49e2a8bcf4.webp)

Based on [Al Jazeera, citing Saudi-led coalition intelligence and Wall Street Journal reporting](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/10/19/iran-support-for-houthis-probed-as-yemen-war-re-erupts-and-saudi-cities-hit)

## What the arms bought

The payoff showed up fast. The United Arab Emirates withdrew its forces from Yemen’s Red Sea bases in January, and by September 10-13 Houthi units had taken Hays and al-Khawkhah in Hodeidah, the port of Mocha, and the islands of Mayyun (Perim) and the Hanish group, as [Al Jazeera reported](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/9/11/houthis-take-control-of-yemens-red-sea-coast-key-shipping-route). That put Houthi positions 20 kilometres from the African coast and gave the group effective control of Bab al-Mandeb, the strait separating the Red Sea from the Gulf of Aden. Yemen’s government later claimed it had retaken Mocha and Dhubab, as reported in [an earlier account](https://rews.cc/a/yemen-s-government-declares-it-will-retake-everything-starti-86d1ab); control of the strait remains contested.

The strait is not symbolic terrain. It carries 12 percent of global trade by volume, 11 percent of seaborne oil and 8 percent of liquefied natural gas, according to [trade data reported by Al Jazeera](https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2026/9/13/red-sea-nations-watch-as-houthis-seize-bab-al-mandeb-strait). Al-Dahab’s reading is that Iran is building a second chokepoint to match the one it already holds, discussed in [an earlier account of Hormuz strategy](https://rews.cc/a/iran-s-leverage-over-hormuz-depends-on-the-strait-staying-sh-2a8e07): “the Houthis play a supporting role for them in the Bab al-Mandeb strait.”

**What transits Bab al-Mandeb** Share of world trade by category, %

|  | Share (%) |
| --- | --- |
| Global trade | 12 |
| Maritime oil | 11 |
| LNG | 8 |

Source: [Al Jazeera](https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2026/9/13/red-sea-nations-watch-as-houthis-seize-bab-al-mandeb-strait)

## The airport war

The current round of airport strikes has its own origin point: July 13, when Yemen’s government bombed Sanaa airport’s runway to stop an Iranian aircraft landing with a Houthi delegation returning from the funeral of Iran’s late Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, killed at the start of the US-Israeli war on Iran on February 28. The plane diverted to Hodeidah, where Saudi warplanes struck the airport too, according to [Xinhua’s reporting](https://english.news.cn/20260713/10b062d2d0574c9081e0f2c26daec414/c.html). The Houthis retaliated with a ballistic-missile salvo at Abha airport, which the coalition said it intercepted, and threatened, in the words of Houthi official al-Bukhaiti, to impose “a siege” on Saudi airports, as [Al Jazeera reported](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/7/14/leading-houthi-threatens-siege-on-saudi-arabia-after-yemen-airport-attack). Yemen’s government shut all its airports to civilian traffic the same week.

By October, the campaign had moved to Riyadh. Three people were killed at King Khalid and Abha airports between October 6 and 8; the October 10 strike on King Khalid killed 13, including an Egyptian flight attendant, and wounded more than 300, the single deadliest attack of the campaign, according to [CBS News](https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/iran-war-us-trump-saudi-arabia-houthi/). Intercepted-missile debris injured four people and damaged 15 homes in Riyadh on October 13. Al-Maliki told reporters the Houthis had launched 20 attacks on King Khalid airport alone since October 1, and that strikes on Saudi airports overall had killed 19 and wounded 364, as [The National reported](https://thenationalnews.com/news/mena/2026/10/18/egypt-pledges-support-for-saudi-arabia-as-houthis-warn-cairo-against-military-intervention). That coalition tally sits slightly below CBS’s independent count of at least 20 killed across Saudi airports over the same week, including a US national - the kind of discrepancy that is routine in a shooting war with no neutral scorekeeper, not evidence either side is wrong.

The Houthis have widened their target list beyond airports: a ballistic-missile strike on the Al-Ma’ashiq presidential palace in Aden, seat of Yemen’s Saudi-backed government, killed two security guards and wounded six. US President Donald Trump said he was weighing joining Saudi strikes on the Houthis, telling reporters “we may. We’re gonna look at it,” and that the group had “emerged again, probably at the behest of Iran.” A Houthi spokesperson warned of “a swift and painful response targeting the US and all its interests in the region” if Washington joined the fight, and the group has threatened Saudi Aramco’s Dammam headquarters and a refinery by name.

![A runway shaped like a large black missile stretches across a red background toward a passenger airplane and an airport control tower.](https://rews.cc/img/dfcbffd3203c55beb05f1bfc3ea86a412301f644.webp)

## Alliances, real and nominal

Riyadh’s answer has been to widen its own coalition rather than deepen it. Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan signed the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement on August 7, treating an attack on any one state as an attack on all three, and Riyadh invoked it on October 5; Pakistan said it would send “agreed military forces” to the kingdom, detailed in an earlier account of the pact. What those forces are and when they arrive remains unstated.

The Saudi-Iran track looks worse by comparison with its own paperwork. China brokered a restoration of diplomatic relations between Riyadh and Tehran in Beijing on March 10, 2023, and Riyadh reportedly made Iran halting incitement of, and weapons transfers to, the Houthis a precondition, according to [reporting at the time](https://www.npr.org/2023/03/10/1162562242/saudi-arabia-iran-relations-china-analysis). The Mahan Air flights described in coalition intelligence this July are hard to square with that precondition holding.

> That isn’t a breach you can take to a lawyer. It’s keeping two files apart, and it works until someone says it out loud. That’s what’s changed.

Hesham Alghannam, a Carnegie Endowment fellow in Riyadh, told Al Jazeera he never read the 2023 deal as true reconciliation, only as a way of lowering the temperature while Yemen stayed a separate, unresolved file. His deeper point is about agency, not paper: “the deeper question was never whether Tehran signs. It’s whether anything Tehran signs reaches the people holding the launchers.” Hassan Ahmadian, a political scientist at the University of Tehran, frames Iran’s model as deliberately different from Washington’s arms-client relationships: Iran transfers the technology to build and produce weapons to its allies, he told Al Jazeera, rather than keeping them dependent on repeat purchases, a pattern he says holds from Yemen to Gaza. If that is the design, the Houthis’ submarines and ballistic missiles are the proof of concept. Whether Riyadh’s new defence pact can field troops faster than Iran can field submarines is the number nobody has yet published.

## See also

- [2026 Iranian strikes on Saudi Arabia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Iranian_strikes_on_Saudi_Arabia) — en.wikipedia.org · Running timeline of the 2026 Saudi-Iran escalation
- [Bab al-Mandab Strait crisis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bab_al-Mandab_Strait_crisis) — en.wikipedia.org · Background on the strait's seizure and shipping impact
- [Mecca Joint Defence Agreement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mecca_Joint_Defence_Agreement) — en.wikipedia.org · Text and institutional detail on the Saudi-Turkey-Pakistan pact
- [Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Pakistan sign joint defence pact](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/8/7/turkiye-saudi-arabi-pakistan-sign-joint-defence-agreement-whats-in-it) — aljazeera.com · Al Jazeera's account of what the pact commits each state to
- [Yemen Monitor on the WSJ report](https://www.yemenmonitor.com/en/Details/ArtMID/908/ArticleID/185223) — yemenmonitor.com · Further detail on the alleged IRGC role in Houthi operations