UNITED NATIONS — Yemen’s Houthi rebels have been transformed from a local armed group with limited capabilities to a powerful military organization with support from Iran, Iraqi armed groups, Lebanon’s Hezbollah militants and others, U.N. experts said in a new report.

The Iranian-backed Houthis have exploited the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and worked to enhance their status in Iran’s self-described “Axis of Resistance” to gain popularity in the region and beyond, the experts monitoring sanctions against the Houthis said in the 537-page report to the U.N. Security Council.

Its analysis of data from the International Maritime Organization, the U.S. and the United Kingdom revealed that at least 134 attacks were carried out from Houthi-controlled areas against merchant and commercial vessels and U.S. and U.K. warships.

“The group’s shift to actions at sea increased their influence in the region,” the U.N. experts said. “Such a scale of attacks, using weapon systems on civilian vessels, had never occurred since the Second World War.”

— The Associated Press