DUBAI, January 17. /TASS/. Iran does not provide the Houthis with military aid, nor does it send weapons, Muhammad Abdel Salam, spokesman for the Yemeni rebel movement Ansar Allah, said.

"We have heard allegations of Iran’s military aid and arms shipments. This couldn’t be further from the truth despite the Americans’ claims, as there are neither maritime nor air routes between Iran and Yemen," he said in an interview with the Al Jazeera television channel.

According to the Semafor news website, US and Middle Eastern officials believe that several advisors and commanders of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC, an elite force within the Iranian Armed Forces) are currently in Yemen to aid the Houthis in delivering strikes on ships in the Red Sea. The officials claim that Iran has sent drone and missile instructors and experts to Yemen, while IRGC representatives allegedly assist with intelligence gathering at a tactical level.

Following the escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the Gaza Strip, the Yemen-based Houthis warned that they would carry out strikes on Israeli territory and would bar any ships associated with the Jewish state from sailing across the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait until the operation in the Palestinian enclave ended. According to estimates from the US Defense Department’s Central Command (CENTCOM), the Yemeni rebel group has attacked more than 20 civilian ships in the Red Sea since mid-November 2023.

Early on January 12, US and UK aircraft, naval ships and submarines delivered joint strikes on Ansar Allah sites in some Yemeni cities, including Sanaa and Hodeidah. US President Joe Biden said the strikes were carried out in response to Houthi attacks in the Red Sea and were defensive. Houthi missile sites, drones and radiolocation systems were targeted.