Hou, what and why
A history of Yemen.
Welcome to this week’s Not in Dispatches, in which we provide a brief background on the Houthis – the Yemeni group responsible for re-routing global trade with its recent attacks in the Red Sea.
Media coverage of the Houthis can create misleading impressions: of a band of pirates, a ragtag militia, or a mere puppet of Iran (the phrase “Iran-backed” almost always precedes their name in the Western media).
But the Houthis are much more than that. And while they may have only recently made front page news, they are far from new – and they are hardly strangers to fighting. Here’s a primer.
All politics is tribal.
The Houthis come from Yemen’s Zaidi sect, a minority branch of Shia Islam, which has been the dominant religious force in the northern mountainous parts of Yemen for over a thousand years.
Zaidi Imams not only ruled Yemen spiritually, but they also governed temporally for centuries. Their rule, characterised by distinct theological interpretations often closer to the Sunni branch of Islam than what is today practised in Iran, was a synthesis of religious authority and tribal power. For most of Yemen’s history, Zaidi rule has been the norm, not the exception.
Zaidi rule of Yemen came to an end with the overthrow of the Imamate in the revolution in 1962 and the establishment of the Yemen Arab Republic in North Yemen.
And in the subsequent decades of Sunni rule, the Zaidis became increasingly politically marginalised and economically neglected.
Governance shifted from traditional Zaidi rule to a republican form. New political ideologies like Arab Nationalism and the spread of Salafism and Sunni Islam swept the country. And the areas where the minority Zaidi predominantly lived were not afforded the same economic benefits as the majority Sunnis.
It was after the new state of Yemen was created in 1990 that the country witnessed a Zaidi revival. And leading that revival was the Houthi family, in particular the charismatic Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi, after whom the Houthis are named. Hussein successfully coalesced the Zaidi population and created what became known as the “Houthi movement”.
A violent turn.
Initially, the Houthis began as a moderate and peaceful movement. But in the late 1990s and early 2000s, they became increasingly extremist, intolerant, and violent, adopting broader politico-religious, anti-imperial and anti-Zionist sentiments.
By the early 2000s, the Houthis had become an armed insurrection focused on deposing Yemen’s long-time republican president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, whom the Houthis accused of discrimination, corruption and being backed by the United States (and, much later, Saudi Arabia).
The Houthi movement’s complexion changed significantly after the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, which served to reinforce its anti-imperialist convictions, radicalise its members and turn them even more against Saleh, who sided with America in the War on Terror.
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During this time, and under the influence of Hezbollah – who, more directly than Tehran, became their mentors and patrons – the Houthis adopted a much broader anti-Western agenda. Their slogan, written on their flag in Arabic, became “God is great, death to the US, death to Israel, curse the Jews, and victory for Islam”.
While the Second Iraq War raged (2003-2011), the conflict between the Yemeni government and the Houthis escalated into a series of confrontations, known as the “Six Wars”. The first began in 2004, when the government tried to arrest Hussein al-Houthi. The last, fought against Saudi forces, ended with a fragile ceasefire in 2010.
The Houthis adeptly exploited the Arab Spring of 2011, which saw mass protests leading to the ouster of Saleh and the creation of a power vacuum. Capitalising on the weakened state apparatus, the Houthis expanded their influence beyond their traditional strongholds while the new Yemeni president, Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, oversaw efforts to draft a more inclusive federal constitution.
But the Houthis were not interested in sharing power. And in 2014 – with the help of their former enemy Saleh – they seized the capital, Sanaa, effectively transforming from a regional insurgency into a national powerbroker.
Arab Winter.
The Houthi takeover of Sanaa and their subsequent expansion triggered the Yemeni Civil War, which over the next eight years caused extraordinary humanitarian suffering – with almost 400,000 deaths, 20 million people relying on aid, and more than 4 million displaced.
The Yemeni Civil War also quickly became a proxy struggle along the broader Sunni-Shia divide.
Saudi Arabia entered the fray on the Sunni side. The Saudis considered the Houthis as an increasingly dangerous Iranian proxy on their doorstep. And it was particularly concerned that if the Houthis controlled Yemen, they could act in concert with the Iranians to close off its ocean access through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait (the Yemeni side) and the Strait of Hormuz (the Iranian side), both maritime trade routes essential for its oil exports and therefore its economic survival.
And so in 2015, a Saudi-led coalition – composed mostly of Gulf states but funded and armed by the United States – launched a military intervention aimed at restoring the Hadi government.
After the Saudis entered the civil war, Iran also became much more involved, ramping up its support for the Houthis, arming them with small arms, drones, ballistic missiles, and other kinds of advanced weaponry – and, according to some reports, providing training, intelligence and tactical support.
Over the course of the next seven years, the Saudis pummelled the country, flying over 25,000 airstrikes over Houthi-controlled territory and killing more than 10,000 civilians. The country’s infrastructure was all but been levelled, sometimes more than once. Much of the population starved. And yet the Houthis not only survived – they effectively won the war, which came to a halt with a truce between the warring parties in 2022.
Today, the Houthis control the Yemeni capital of Sanaa, the populous northern third of the country home to between 25 and 30 million, and the now-infamous Red Sea coast, including the critical port of Hudaydah. Compared to Hamas, which ruled 2 million in the Gaza Strip, or Hezbollah, which partially controls areas of Lebanon home to 1.8 million, Houthi Yemen is more a state than terrorist enclave. Indeed, if it were a recognised country, it would be bigger than Israel, Jordan and the UAE combined.
Seeing red in Gaza.
The Houthis’ attacks on ships in the Red Sea are, first and foremost, aimed at cementing themselves as a power in Yemen.
The Houthis, despite having de facto control over much of the country, are not internationally recognised as the legitimate government, which remains in exile in Saudi Arabia.
By attacking first Israel-connected and then American ships, the Houthis are attempting to create leverage in peace talks with Saudi Arabia and discussions about who gets to lead Yemen. As was always feared, shutting one end of the Red Sea corridor increases the cost of Saudi oil exports.
Ratcheting up tensions creates pressure on Saudi Arabia and the United States, which have a strong interest in stability across the region. And by attacking ships in the name of the Palestinian cause, the Houthis are effectively appealing to Arab publics across the region, many of whom have been disappointed at weak responses from their own governments.
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The Houthis are positioning themselves as the Arabs who stood up.
Their most important audience, however, is in Yemen. The country has been riven with divisions for the past two decades and, despite recent peace, remains fractured along sectarian, tribal and political lines – with perhaps the Palestinian cause being the only issue that resonates with and unites all Yemenis. Launching attacks in solidarity with the Palestinians is as much about garnering domestic political support as it is about actually helping the Palestinians.
But it’s not just posturing. The Houthi movement’s ideology is deeply rooted in antisemitic, Islamic fundamentalist, and anti-Americanism. The Houthis have a deep hatred of Israel. And they have consistently attacked it with missiles and suicide drones since the Gaza war began, even though these have all been intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome.
Many of the Houthis’ actions are aligned with Iran’s interests – and they do form part of the so-called Axis of Resistance, the informal anti-Israeli and anti-Western political and military coalition led by Iran.
But the Houthis are acting out of their own interests: creating leverage in peace talks, boosting domestic popularity, and gaining greater standing and legitimacy as a leader of the Arab world. All of which suggest that the Houthis have little interest in de-escalation until they achieve their objectives.
And the battle-hardened Houthis, with their control of vast swathes of Yemen, knowledge that the West and the Saudi/UAE coalition are loathe to risk any escalation in the region, and cheap asymmetric tools, will be difficult to dissuade without giving them what they want.
Nice overview