"Every member of this Council – and especially those with direct channels to Iran – should press Iran’s leaders to stop arming, funding, and training the Houthis," said Ambassador Shea.

In 2015, Iran began to provide Yemen’s Houthi rebel group with “a growing arsenal of sophisticated weapons and training,” including both ballistic and cruise missiles, according to the United States Defense Intelligence Agency and the U.S. Institute of Peace. By 2017, Iran was sending advanced drones to Yemen.

“With materiel and financial support from Iran, the Houthis have launched numerous attacks on civilian infrastructure, fired at U.S. Navy warships dozens of times since 2023, and attacked commercial vessels indiscriminately,” said Dorothy Shea, United States Chargé d’Affaires ad interim to the U.N.

“Iran’s continued and unprecedented provision of weapons components, financial support, and training and technical assistance to the Houthis over more than a decade violates the arms embargo this Council imposed on the group.”

It is the responsibility of the United Nations Security Council, said Ambassador Shea, “to respond to Iran’s flagrant violations of its resolutions and arming of terrorist groups.”

“Every member of this Council – and especially those with direct channels to Iran – should press Iran’s leaders to stop arming, funding, and training the Houthis, without which they would not be able to launch attacks that disrupt navigational rights and freedoms and put innocent civilians in harm’s way. Iran must bear the costs of enabling these reckless and egregious attacks.”

“It is imperative that the international community works together with regional partners to eliminate the Houthis’ capabilities, which continue to threaten international shipping and innocent seafarers,” said Ambassador Shea.

“The Houthis must permanently cease all attacks in the Red Sea and surrounding waterways without exception and immediately release all of the hundreds of detainees,” she said.

“We must also deprive the Houthis of illicit revenues that sustain their attacks and disrupt the growing relationship between the Houthis and other terrorist groups like al-Shabaab, including through the use of targeted sanctions.”

“We reiterate our call for this Council to take steps to strengthen the United Nations Verification and Inspection Mechanism,” said Ambassador Shea. “We call on Member States to do their part by increasing funding that supports long-term planning, recruitment of staff, and critical infrastructure that is needed for enhanced capacity. [The U.N. Verification and Inspection Mechanism] is a key means of preventing Iran and other malign actors from smuggling arms and related illicit materiel to the Houthis.”

VOA