After three years of relative quiet, Iran-backed forces are surging across the Middle East. New fronts could reshape regional security and economic risks.
After three crisis years, Tehran-loyal armed formations are once again active in the Middle East, increasing Iran’s influence in the conflict with the United States and Israel.
For decades, these groups have played a key role as a powerful deterrent to direct strikes against Iran. The so-called Axis of Resistance – an anti-Israel and anti-Western bloc of regional formations backed by the Islamic Republic – was significantly weakened by Israel’s large-scale response to Hamas’s attacks in 2023 and the consequences that followed.
Today several armed groups closely tied to Iran are once again pressing its enemies, opening new fronts and complicating the overall conflict, given the threat to the global economy.
The Axis of Resistance has worked very well for more than two decades, helping to deter attacks on Iran while these groups expanded their influence in their territories.
– Trita Parsi
The Return of Iran’s Allies to New Fronts
After a long period of pressure, isolation was increasing, but now, according to experts, Iran’s regional allies are reactivating, restoring activity and re-shaping the battlefield, using new routes and hubs of influence.
It does not disappear, but it changes, – noted Deni Citrinovich, former head of the Iranian unit of Israeli military intelligence, in an interview with CNN.
It does not disappear, but it changes.
– Denny Citrinovich
Tehran has for many years pursued a pan-revolutionary strategy, exporting the values of the 1979 revolution to Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq, Syria, and Gaza.
After Hamas’s attack in 2023, Israel launched a campaign to eliminate Iran’s supporters, among whom Yahya Sinwar – one of the architects of the events of October 7 – and Hassan Nasrallah – the leader of Hezbollah who wields significant influence in the region – were killed.
Israel has also stepped up actions against Iran-backed formations in Iraq and has occasionally engaged in exchanges of fire with Yemeni Houthi rebels. There were also reports of an attack on the former supreme leader of Iran – Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – as part of attempts to force regime change, but this strategy has not yet yielded the desired result.
Three years after the conflict began, Tehran’s regional allies are once again activating, adapting to new circumstances and increasing Iran’s influence at the regional level.
The Axis of Resistance lives on; it does not disappear, but evolves.
– Denny Citrinovich
“These groups have different identities and interests, but are also tightly intertwined with Iran, as they share deep ideological and geopolitical interests,” explained Ali Ahmadi, a staffer at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy and the Swiss Middle East Institute, in an interview with CNN.
According to Ahmadi, some of them depend on Iran to a greater extent, but currently the Yemeni-Houthi rebels are likely the most autonomous.
In recent days, the Yemeni rebels opened another front in the war against Iran, opposing Saudi Arabia, a key US ally. The group accused Saudi Arabia of striking the Sanaa airport to prevent the arrival of a delegation after returning from celebrations in Iran; the Saudi government said its forces carried out the strike.
This flight aimed to unblock the long-standing air link between Sanaa and Tehran – the first since the coalition’s intervention in 2015.
Last weekend the Houthis fired missiles at two Saudi oil-refining complexes on the Red Sea coast. Satellite imagery and video footage confirm significant damage to one facility in Jazan near the border with Yemen. Such actions followed an attack on two Saudi vessels in the Red Sea after the announcement of a blockade of shipping near the Bab al-Mandeb strait.
According to experts Nadvi al-Davsari and Arman Mahmudian of the Middle East Institute in Washington, this points to increasingly coordinated use of the Axis of Resistance to turn periods of confrontation into opportunities to consolidate gains, reassess the actual state of affairs, and strengthen Iran’s regional influence.
For Iran, the Houthis’ influence significantly strengthens their role in the regional balance, while the rebels see a chance to open airspace that Saudi Arabia had previously kept closed.
As a sign of loyalty to Hezbollah, Iran placed the cessation of Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon as a key condition in cooperation with Washington. “These groups never disappeared, and Hezbollah in particular returned faster than Israel had counted on,” said Trita Parsi.
Over the weekend, Iran’s new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei confirmed support for Hezbollah in a letter to its leader Naim Qassem, calling the group the first line of Iran’s resistance against Israel and noting that Hezbollah’s defense remains one of the Islamic Republic’s strategic policies.
Ultimately, Iran’s allies adapt to the new conditions and expand their influence: The Axis of Resistance does not leave the region, but merely adapts to the new landscape, strengthening regional stability and Tehran’s growing influence.