Yemen just accused Iran of running its war from the inside
1 hour ago · 9 November 2026Share
A military official addresses the media at a press conference. File photo. Petty Officer 2nd Class Kilho Park · Public domain
Yemen just told Iran, in public, to get out.
Its Foreign Ministry issued the demand a few hours ago. It went up on X early this morning. And it came as a direct reply to Iran's own Foreign Ministry, which had just accused Saudi Arabia of violating Yemen's sovereignty.
So Yemen hit back. Stop arming the Houthis. Pull out your military experts. Stop interfering in our country.
And here's what's new. For years, Yemen's government has said Iran arms and trains the Houthis. General terms. Today it went further.
It says Iran isn't just funding and training the Houthis anymore. It says Iran is directly planning and running their military operations.
The ministry's own words: the Iranian and Hezbollah presence in Yemen now amounts to a fully-fledged general staff. Not advisers. A command structure. Supervising, planning and directing the fighting itself.
Now, the number behind this isn't new. Yemen's Interior Minister, Major-General Ibrahim Haidan, gave this figure five days ago. 21 foreign experts. 14 from Iran's Revolutionary Guard. Seven from Hezbollah.
He said they're spread across six provinces. Eight in Hodeidah. Four in Sanaa. Four in Saada. Two in Hajjah. Two in Amran. One in Al-Khawkhah.
And he said the whole network is run by an IRGC officer living in Yemen under diplomatic cover, posing as an ambassador.
Today's statement leans on that same figure. No new count. And it's worth saying plainly: the 21-expert figure hasn't been independently verified. It comes from Yemen's own Interior Ministry, and nowhere else.
Hezbollah has already denied all of it. Its Media Relations Office called the claim entirely baseless, four days ago.
Yemen's Foreign Ministry also pointed to two UN Security Council resolutions, 2216 and 2624, which put an arms embargo on the Houthis.
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Sana'a, Yemen. File photo. Rod Waddington from Kergunyah, Australia · CC BY-SA 2.0
And the ministry did not hold back. It says Iran's regime has given the Yemeni people nothing across twelve years of war except missiles, suicide drones, explosive-laden boats and what it calls experts of destruction.
That's Yemen's government, on the record, calling Iran's entire role in this war destruction dressed up as support.
Now the timing. Yemen's statement answers something Iran said one day earlier. Iran had called Saudi-led air strikes on Yemen war crimes, including a strike on the Al-Hadara market in Taiz on 6 November. Iran says that strike killed 33 people, including 13 children. It says a separate strike on Al-Shariyah village, east of Sanaa, killed 33 more, including women and children.
Yemen's Foreign Ministry rejected Iran using those numbers at all. It says its own authorities have already called for independent investigations into alleged Houthi violations.
But here's the part that isn't settled. Who actually hit that market?
The Houthis blame Saudi Arabia. Yemeni provincial authorities in Taiz, the ones loyal to the internationally recognised government, blame the Houthis themselves. Yemen's Foreign Ministry doesn't say who it thinks did it. It only objects to Iran using the deaths to make its case.
So three different parties, three different stories, and nobody fully resolving it.
Iran's Foreign Ministry, in that same earlier statement, also called for the war between Saudi Arabia and Yemen to end through dialogue, based on a roadmap both sides had already agreed.
Iran has not responded to Yemen's new demand yet.
This war goes back to 2014, when the Houthis took Sanaa and forced Yemen's recognised government out of the capital.
So what happens now? Nobody knows if Iran will answer this formally. Nobody knows if Yemen will take it to the UN Security Council. And nobody knows if other Gulf states will say, publicly, that they stand behind Yemen on this.
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