The image comes from the Al-Masirah television company controlled by the Houthi movement. It allegedly shows Saudi Arabia’s attacks on the airport in Sanaa on July 13, 2026. Photo: Al-Masirah TV/AP/TT
From local Islamist insurgency to an authoritarian and militarized global player.
The Iran-backed Houthi movement in Yemen has undergone an astonishing development.
– In practice, it is the closest thing Yemen has to a government, says Middle East analyst Aron Lund.
In recent weeks, headlines about attacks between the Houthi movement and neighboring Saudi Arabia have been pouring in. Riyadh has tried to keep the Iran-allied militia on the carpet for over a decade. But military interventions, Western-backed alliances and reports of Saudi bribes have not stopped the rise of the fundamentalists, who profess Zaydi Shia Islam.
– It is an Islamist revivalist movement originating from northern Yemen, says Aron Lund, who works at the Swedish Defence Research Institute (FOI).
A shaky ceasefire
Since Yemen's formation in 1990, the country has been plagued by poverty, famine and civil war. Division, corruption and armed power struggles are ongoing. The Houthi movement took control of the capital Sanaa in 2014 and has since expanded and consolidated its power.
– The state collapsed completely, Lund notes.
There is now a fragile ceasefire between Saudi Arabia, the Saudi-backed central government and the Houthi movement. But due to the Iran war, deadly attacks between the parties have flared up.
– Now they are fighting, now they are shooting at each other. And the starting point for this is the Saudi bombing of the airport in Sanaa, says Aron Lund.
He is referring to what Saudi Arabia claims was a preemptive attack just over a month ago. Then the Houthi-controlled airport in Sanaa was attacked. The Houthi movement responded with a declared naval blockade of Saudi oil exports.
It is clear that Sunni Saudi Arabia has historically underestimated the militia, says Lund:
- Saudi Arabia probably thought when they invaded in 2015 that they could handle it with their left hand. It is disputed how close the Houthi movement was to Iran from the start, but the more they argued with the Saudis, the more useful they became to the Iranians.
The Gaza war meant a shift
The Hamas attack on Israel in 2023, labeled a terrorist attack, was also crucial for the militia.
– The movement realized that it could exploit the Gaza war and became enamored with its new regional image, says researcher Maysaa Shuja al-Deen at the Sana'a Center think tank, according to the Reuters news agency.
The reasoning has been condemned by the Houthi movement as an “American-Zionist” aggression.
However, the movement’s role in the Iran war has been more cautious – until recently.
– The other Iranian client movements in the region have been crushed, one by one: Hamas, the Assad government fell, Hezbollah is badly damaged. But the Houthis have become more important to Iran – in that they have the ability to block the Bab el-Mandeb Strait (the entrance to the Red Sea), says Lund.
After the repeated closures of the Strait of Hormuz, Saudi Arabia has redirected much of its oil exports westward to Bab el-Mandeb.
Facts
The Houthi Movement
The Houthi movement rules the areas it controls in Yemen with an iron fist. According to testimonies, food distribution is conditioned on, among other things, militia recruitment.
Anyone who refuses the Houthi movement's ideological indoctrination risks imprisonment or torture. Propaganda rallies in which the population is expected to participate are held regularly. Arbitrary arrests occur.
A number of UN employees in the country have been kidnapped and imprisoned.
Iran has partly financed the movement's militarization. Its weapons arsenal consists of drones and ballistic missiles, among other things.
In addition to the fundamentalist and ideological affiliation with Iran, there are personal ties: the Houthi movement's leading figure, Hussein al-Huthi, and his family are said to have been close to Iran's former supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.
Sources: Reuters news agency, Sana'a Center For Strategic Studies (Sana'a Center).
Facts
Yemen's humanitarian crisis
The conflict in Yemen, one of the world's poorest and most war-torn countries, has hit the civilian population hard. The UN has described the situation there as the most widespread humanitarian crisis in the world.
In 2014, a civil war broke out in Yemen, where the Houthi movement forced the removal of long-time president Ali Abdullah Saleh. By 2021, more than 380,000 people had been killed as a direct result of the war, according to the UN.
Over 14 million people in Yemen are currently assessed to be in need of urgent humanitarian assistance. Over three million people have fled their homes and five million are at risk of famine. Cholera outbreaks have affected over one million people.
All parties to the conflicts in Yemen are assessed to have violated human rights and international humanitarian law.
Inga kommentarer:
Skicka en kommentar