The Houthis

The Houthi movement traces its origins to 1992, when Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi founded the Believing Youth (Muntada al-Shabab al-Mu'min) as a cultural and religious organisation in the Saada governorate of northwestern Yemen. The group sought to revive Zaydi Shia Islam — a minority sect historically dominant in the region — in the face of encroaching Salafi and Sunni Islamist influence promoted by Saudi-funded institutions inside Yemen. Throughout the 1990s, the movement attracted tens of thousands of young followers across northern Yemen and developed a distinctly anti-American and anti-Israeli political identity.

The turning point came in 2003–2004. As anger over the US invasion of Iraq swept the Arab world, Hussein al-Houthi and his followers began openly challenging the government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, accusing it of being a tool of American imperialism. The Yemeni government launched a military campaign against the group in June 2004. Hussein al-Houthi was killed in September 2004, transforming him into a martyr and cementing the movement's militant trajectory under the leadership of his father, Badr al-Din al-Houthi, and later his brother, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, who has led the group ever since.

Between 2004 and 2010, the Houthis fought six rounds of war against the Yemeni government — conflicts that drew in Saudi Arabia, which launched its own cross-border offensive, Operation Scorched Earth, in 2009. The group survived each campaign, expanding its military capacity and territorial footprint in Saada and adjoining governorates. When the Arab Spring destabilised the Saleh government in 2011, the Houthis capitalised on the resulting power vacuum. Allying opportunistically with their former enemy, ex-president Saleh, the Houthis swept south from their Saada stronghold, reaching Sanaa in September 2014 and seizing the capital entirely by January 2015.

The seizure of Sanaa prompted the Saudi-led coalition to intervene in March 2015, launching Operation Decisive Storm. A decade of war followed: over 150,000 people killed — including more than 14,500 civilians directly — and what the United Nations has described as one of the world's worst humanitarian catastrophes, with millions pushed to the brink of famine. Despite the coalition's overwhelming air superiority and a comprehensive naval blockade, the Houthis consolidated control over northwestern Yemen and steadily developed their missile and drone arsenal — supplied and upgraded by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — to strike deep into Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

The Houthis are rooted in Zaydi Shia Islam — a moderate branch of Shia Islam historically dominant in northwestern Yemen — but under Abdul-Malik al-Houthi's leadership have grafted onto it a revolutionary political ideology heavily influenced by the Islamic Republic of Iran and Lebanon's Hezbollah. The result is a hybrid doctrine that combines Yemeni religious nationalism with anti-American and anti-Israeli pan-Islamic revolutionary politics. The group's slogan — "God is great, death to America, death to Israel, a curse upon the Jews, victory to Islam" — captures this fusion of Islamist populism and Iranian-style resistance ideology.

Unlike al-Qaeda and ISIS affiliates that pursue transnational caliphate projects, the Houthis are fundamentally a state-capture organisation. Their primary objective has been to seize and govern Yemeni territory — a project substantially achieved in the north. In areas under their control, the Houthis run a parallel government: collecting taxes and customs revenues, operating courts and prisons, conscripting fighters, managing ports, and administering public services. This governance capacity, combined with their demonstrated willingness to use extraordinary violence against dissent, has made them the most entrenched armed actor in Yemen despite a decade of Saudi-led counter-insurgency.

The Houthis maintain a deeply repressive internal governance regime. In areas they control, political opposition is crushed; journalists, civil society activists, and perceived dissidents are routinely arrested, tortured, and disappeared. The group forcibly conscripts fighters, including boys as young as 15. It imposes severe restrictions on women's movement and employment. Ethnic and religious minorities — particularly the Baha'i community — face systematic persecution, with members imprisoned and, in some cases, sentenced to death on charges of apostasy and espionage.

Organisationally, the Houthis are structured around Supreme Leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, who exercises near-absolute authority. Below him are a Supreme Political Council, military commanders, provincial governors, and a deep network of tribal and religious networks embedded across northwestern Yemen. The IRGC Quds Force provides weapons systems — including ballistic missiles, anti-ship missiles, armed drones, and naval mines — as well as training and intelligence support, integrating the Houthis into Iran's broader regional proxy network alongside Hezbollah, Hamas, and Iraqi Shia militias.

The Houthis have conducted thousands of attacks since 2004, ranging from ground offensives and artillery bombardments to sophisticated precision drone and missile strikes on regional capitals, critical infrastructure, and international shipping lanes. Their operational reach has expanded dramatically with Iranian military support, transforming a local insurgency into a regional strategic threat.

The Houthi insurgency and its decade-long war with the Saudi-led coalition have produced one of the world's most severe humanitarian crises, with catastrophic consequences for civilians across Yemen and serious knock-on effects for regional security and global trade.