In Yemen, Houthi fighters in flip-flops appear to have added artificial intelligence to their arsenal, which already includes Iranian missiles and drones. Moving rapidly, Iran-backed Houthi forces on Thursday seized the strategic Red Sea port city of Mocha after Yemeni troops led by Lieutenant General Tareq Saleh pulled back following intense clashes.
During the offensive, an audio clip resembling Saleh's voice reportedly circulated, instructing his troops to retreat. Saleh's National Resistance Forces accused the Houthis of using artificial intelligence to clone his voice "to confuse soldiers and weaken their morale".
The allegation emerged shortly after Anthropic disclosed that a weapons-development group in northern Yemen had used its Claude AI model to work on software for missile guidance.
Mocha-based satellite broadcaster Aljoumhouriya TV confirmed the claim that Ansar Allah, the official name of the Houthis, had used AI to imitate Tareq Saleh's voice in an attempt to damage the morale of National Resistance Forces troops. However, the channel described the effort as a "failed attempt".
Mocha is located along Yemen's Red Sea coast near the strategically important Bab al-Mandeb Strait, one of the world's key maritime chokepoints. The city's capture represents one of the Houthis' most significant territorial gains since a UN-supported truce in 2022 largely brought the civil war's front lines to a standstill.
Saleh, the nephew of former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, leads the UAE-backed wing of the National Resistance Forces and had established Mocha as its main base. Its capture has brought the Iranian-backed group closer to the narrow passage connecting the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean.
The Houthi push towards Bab al-Mandeb has heightened concerns that the waterway could be disrupted or closed. With the Strait of Hormuz already facing threats, simultaneous disruption at both chokepoints could put additional pressure on global oil supplies and trade between Asia and Europe.
"Heroes, these young men have learnt that the tide can turn in battle. War demands both advance and retreat. Some days favour you and others do not, and there is no shame in that. We have reserves, additional strength and the men to continue fighting," the audio circulated in Saleh's name said in Arabic.
HOW THE DISPUTED AI AUDIO SPREAD
The recording surfaced as Houthi fighters pushed through positions controlled by Saleh's forces along Yemen's western coast. It purportedly featured Saleh ordering or announcing a withdrawal from Mocha.
Yemeni activist Adel al-Hasani, whose account has close to half a million followers, helped spread the recording on social media, according to an assessment shared by Basha Report, an open-source intelligence and conflict-monitoring account on X. Its circulation gave the message considerable exposure at a time when troops were facing battlefield pressure and conflicting accounts were emerging about the condition of Mocha's defences.
"The Houthis fabricated an audio recording using artificial intelligence and attributed it to Major General Staff Tareq Saleh in a failed attempt to mislead public opinion and affect morale," Aljoumhouriya TV, the Mocha-based satellite channel, said in a post on X.
The alleged audio campaign was reportedly accompanied by another psychological operation. According to Basha Report, at around 2 am on September 10, Houthi forces sent messages to soldiers along the western coast offering amnesty if they surrendered their weapons, gave themselves up and returned home.
The audio and messages together appeared intended to convince government-aligned forces that their resistance was collapsing and that surrender or retreat was the safest option. However, the messages and their alleged impact on the troops have not been independently confirmed.
SALEH'S FORCES CALL IT AN AI FABRICATION
The National Resistance's military media later accused the Houthis of creating the audio clip attributed to Saleh, with Aljoumhouriya TV again describing it as "a failed attempt to mislead public opinion and affect morale."
The alleged AI-generated Arabic recording attributed to Saleh stated, "Battle has its advances and retreats, and there is no shame in that. We have reserves, strength and men."
The recording then claimed that after assessing the situation, including what it described as internal betrayal, failures by allies and heavy losses suffered for the homeland and the Republic, all units should leave Mocha so that the enemy could be attacked in open terrain. It repeated the instruction for all units to withdraw from Mocha.
Saleh's media office said any authentic statements or positions from the commander would be issued exclusively through the official military channels of the National Resistance. It warned that any statements attributed to him outside those channels should be considered unverified.
According to Aljoumhouriya TV, the alleged AI-generated recording represented a psychological-warfare tactic aimed at creating confusion and damaging troop morale. By replicating their commander's voice, the Houthis allegedly attempted to convince Saleh's forces to abandon their positions.
HOUTHIS AND THE CLAUDE CONNECTION
The allegations surrounding the fake audio emerged at the same time as separate evidence that groups operating in Houthi-controlled northern Yemen had been experimenting with advanced artificial intelligence.
The Houthis, who have often appeared in frontline videos wearing flip-flops, may also have used Claude, Anthropic's AI chatbot, to help develop guided-missile software, according to a threat intelligence report released by the company. The 154-page report, published on Thursday, examined how governments and non-state groups had used Anthropic's advanced AI models in military activities.
According to the report, the Houthis used Claude Code to work on guidance, navigation and control software for a guided rocket and other missile programmes. The projects reportedly included a guided rocket, a multi-stage ballistic missile with a claimed range of more than 2,000 kilometres, and an R2000 missile family featuring a hypersonic-glide variant.
Anthropic did not explicitly identify the Houthis, but the details outlined in its report pointed towards the Yemeni Shia group.
The capture of Mocha illustrates how fighters equipped with relatively basic battlefield gear can combine a conventional ground assault with digital tactics to create panic, spread confusion and potentially overwhelm better-equipped opponents.
