What Is the Axis of Resistance? Iran’s Network of Armed Groups
What is the axis of resistance? Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis and Iraqi militias: who they are, how Iran backs them and what the 2026 war changed.
So what is the axis of resistance? It is the name a network of Iran-backed armed groups across the Middle East uses for itself. The Congressional Research Service (CRS) lists its main members as Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Iraq’s armed Shia militias and Yemen’s Houthis, with Hamas a longtime recipient of Iranian support. This explainer covers who belongs to it, how Iran supports it, and what the wars since 2023 have done to it.
Who is in the axis of resistance?
CRS describes the groups as “distinct in their motives and capabilities,” but says they “collaborate and sometimes refer to themselves as the ‘axis of resistance.'” The U.S. intelligence community’s 2025 Annual Threat Assessment, as quoted by CRS, called the network “a loose consortium of like-minded terrorist and militant actors.”
- Hezbollah (Lebanon). Founded in 1982 by Lebanese Shia militants with critical help from the new Islamic Republic, it is “arguably the most powerful Iranian-backed group” and the one that “most closely represents an Iranian proxy,” according to a 2024 CRS brief. The State Department says Iran provides Hezbollah with “most of its funding, training, weapons, and explosives.”
- Hamas (Gaza). Iran has aided the Sunni Islamist group for decades. The State Department assesses Iranian support at “up to $100 million annually” for Palestinian militant groups, including Hamas, CRS reported.
- The Houthis (Yemen). Also called Ansar Allah, the movement took Yemen’s capital in 2014-2015. Iran has supplied ballistic and cruise missiles and drones, CRS said.
- Iraqi militias. U.S.-designated groups include Kata’ib Hezbollah, Harakat al Nujaba and Asa’ib Ahl al Haq. They have attacked U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria since 2017.
How Iran runs the network
The Qods Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) coordinates Iranian support abroad, according to CRS. A National Counterterrorism Center profile cited in the CRS report on Iran calls the Qods Force the IRGC component “responsible for conducting covert lethal activities outside of Iran.” Both the IRGC and the Qods Force are under U.S. terrorism sanctions.
CRS gives the stated aims as reducing U.S. regional influence, defending Shia communities abroad and projecting power. It adds that supporting armed groups may have looked like “a cost-effective way to project power” for a country lacking modern fighter jets, and that the opaque nature of the aid may let Tehran deny responsibility. Experts disagree on how much control Iran has. Some, CRS says, call the groups “mere appendages,” while others describe “varying degrees of autonomy.”
The axis since October 7, 2023
After the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, a number of Iran-backed groups began attacking Israeli, U.S. and other targets “in unprecedented coordination,” CRS wrote. Houthi forces struck shipping in the Red Sea. A January 2024 attack claimed by Iraqi militants killed three U.S. service members in Jordan.
The network then suffered heavy losses. In 2024, according to CRS, Israel “severely degraded Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza,” and “regime change in Syria removed a longtime Iranian ally.” A May 2026 CRS brief on Yemen says Houthi long-distance attacks on Israel since mid-2025 show the group can still strike beyond Yemen. The Houthis paused those attacks after the October 2025 Gaza ceasefire. They resumed a limited set of attacks in late March and early April 2026 during the U.S./Israel-Iran conflict that began that February. The same brief says the Houthis had not claimed attacks on U.S. targets or neighboring Arab states since that conflict began, and that Iran “has also suffered significant military and economic losses in 2026.”
On April 10, 2026, Houthi leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi said that if Iran’s enemies resumed escalation “against the Islamic Republic of Iran and the countries of the Axis, our position will remain steadfast,” according to the CRS translation of his speech.
What it means: Peter’s World analysis
The record above points to a network that is weaker but not gone. Hezbollah and Hamas have lost much of their capacity, and Syria is no longer an ally, yet the Houthis kept their reach. The 2026 pattern, in which the Houthis largely held back while Iran itself was under attack, suggests the members weigh their own interests first, which matches the “loose consortium” description used by U.S. intelligence. Watch three signals: whether Iran can rebuild supply routes, whether the Houthis widen attacks if talks with Tehran fail, and how far Iraqi militias go in drawing U.S. forces into the fight.
For daily coverage, see the Iran war news hub.
Sources
- Congressional Research Service: Iran: Background and U.S. Policy (R47321)
- Congressional Research Service: Yemen: In Brief (R48942, May 2026)
- Congressional Research Service: Iran-Supported Groups in the Middle East and U.S. Policy (IF12587)
