Last week, a senior Yemeni Houthi official was buried in Beirut. Mohammed Abdel Malik al-Shami, the spiritual leader of the Houthis, had been critically wounded in the March 20 Islamic State suicide bombing of Al Hashahush mosque in Sanaa. He was airlifted to Tehran for medical treatment, but eventually succumbed to his injuries. On April 13, Shami was interred at Hezbollah’s heroes graveyard in Dahyia, where he will spend eternity in the company of erstwhile military commander Imad Mugniy3h and Hadi Nasrallah, the slain son of the organization’s secretary general.

At first glance, Shami’s journey from Yemen to the Lebanese Shiite militia’s equivalent of Arlington National Cemetery would seem odd. While the Houthis are Zaydi Muslims—a nominally Shiite branch of Islam—Lebanon is far from home and unlike Najaf and Karbala, Iraq, Beirut has little religious burial appeal for Shiites. But to Hezbollah and Iran, Shami was a towering figure, deserving in death of a spot among the pantheon of Shiite martyrs serving the theocratic regime in Tehran.