What is the origin of the Yemeni Houthi rebels who "blockade the Red Sea"?

On December 26, Yemen's Houthi rebels admitted to firing missiles to attack a container ship sailing in the Red Sea, which belongs to the Mediterranean Shipping Company. After the outbreak of the current round of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the Houthis, who frequently attacked ships passing through the Red Sea, became the target of global attention. What kind of organization is the Houthi rebels, who claim to have the ability to turn the Red Sea into a "graveyard," what kind of organization is it, what is its political program, what role does it play in regional politics, and what goals do they want to achieve? These series of questions have become hot topics for the media in various countries. Notably, while the Houthis now control several parts of Yemen, they were designated a "terrorist organization" by the UN Security Council in 2022. In addition, with the advent of a wave of reconciliation in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia and Iran have resumed diplomatic relations, while relations between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia have also eased. However, the organization's "blockade of the Red Sea" will inevitably bring variables to regional security and stability.

Anti-government organizations arise from the interaction of multiple factors

On the streets of Sana'a, Yemen's capital, many cars are draped with Palestinian flags or slogans of solidarity with the Palestinian people. In the Houthi-controlled city, which has been used by the population to express its attitude in this peaceful way, the Houthis have shown their support for Palestine in a violent way since the outbreak of a new round of Palestinian-Israeli conflict in October, attacking "Israeli-linked vessels" sailing in the Red Sea.

According to Israel's Jerusalem Post, eight ships have been attacked from October 7 to December 20, and the Mediterranean Shipping Company's Union 8 merchant ship on December 26 is the latest to be attacked. As of December 26, the operations of 185 commercial vessels had been affected by Houthi operations, according to data from Project 44, a U.S.-based logistics research company, according to Japan's NHK television station. It is estimated that 157 of them were forced to make a detour to the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa.

"Who (and what organization) are the Houthis?" has recently been raised by mainstream media in many countries, including CNN, Reuters, The Hindu, and other mainstream media. According to Time magazine, PBS and other media outlets, the Houthis are Yemeni anti-government organizations founded in 2004 as a group called Young Believers. The formation of the group is closely linked to Yemen's history, as well as political factors.

According to PBS and other media outlets, there has been a state in northern Yemen ruled by leaders and politicians of the Zaidist sect, the Shiite branch of Islam, since about the 9th century, but in 1962, some Yemeni military officers overthrew the former monarchy in the north and established the Yemeni Arab Republic. Because of their relationship with the old regime, they were seen as a threat to the new government and were suppressed. About 30 years later, in 1990, North and South Yemen were reunited to form the Republic of Yemen, but the differences between the two sides remained. According to a 2010 CIA estimate, 65 percent of Yemenis are Sunni and 35 percent are Shia, and most of these Shiites are Zaid. Although the Zaydites are in the minority in terms of the total population of the country, they are still the majority in northern and western Yemen and Sana'a. In order to weaken the dominance of the Zaydites in the north, the Yemeni government at the time encouraged two Sunni branches linked to Saudi Arabia – the Salafis and the Wahhabis – to settle in areas where the Zaydists were the majority. According to Times magazine and other media reports, the Zaydites believe that a growing number of Wahhabis and Salafis are influencing their culture. Some scholars say this sparked the Zaide religious revival movement, which was led by the Young Believers. The group later became a political group critical of the Yemeni government's ties to the West.

The reason why the Young Faithers later changed their name to the Houthis and launched an anti-government insurgency was linked to the killing of the group's leader, the Houthis. After the outbreak of the Iraq war in 2003, "young believers" staged mass demonstrations against the pro-American policies of the Yemeni government at the time, which were suppressed. The following year, Yemeni government leaders invited the Houthis to Sana'a for talks, but the latter rejected the invitation, after which the Yemeni government arrested him and the Houthis launched a rebellion. In September of that year, the Houthis were killed by government forces, and the "Young Faith" was later renamed the "Houthis", now known as the Houthis.

According to an article on the website of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, an American think tank, after the Houthi death, the Houthis launched a number of anti-government rebellions. The group signed a ceasefire agreement with the Yemeni government in 2010, but the Arab Spring erupted in 2011, after which the Houthis renewed their anti-government insurgency. In September 2014, the Houthis captured Sana'a and later occupied the southern part of the country, forcing then-Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Hadi to seek refuge in Saudi Arabia, according to UN News. Fighting in Yemen escalated in 2015 when a Saudi-led multinational coalition launched a military operation against the Houthis. Since then, under the mediation of the United Nations and other countries, the Yemeni government and the Houthis have reached several temporary ceasefire agreements, which have been interrupted ever since.

Li Yanan, deputy director of the Institute of Middle East Studies at the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, said that the Houthis have gone through two key nodes in the development process, and their development has been accompanied by the expansion of Saudi Wahhabis in the region, the US military intervention in the Middle East, and the failure of Western "democratic reforms" in the Middle East. The first was the 2003 U.S. war in Iraq, when "young believers" became politically radical and began to promote anti-American and anti-Jewish slogans when the U.S. and the West launched the Iraq War in 2003, and in 2004, the group accused Saleh's government of being too close to the U.S. and had multiple rounds of armed conflict with the government, which lasted until a ceasefire agreement was signed in 2010. The second milestone was the 2011 Arab Spring that swept through the Middle East, when Yemen's Saleh government collapsed amid a wave of domestic opposition and a transitional government was formed. The Houthis have also been involved in the campaign against Saleh's government and have seized the opportunity to gain momentum by demanding a split of power in Yemen after the transitional government. As their specific demands were not met, the Houthis attacked Sana'a in 2014, triggering Yemen's second civil war.

Some scholars published an article on the American Medium news network, saying that the emergence of the Houthis was produced by the interaction of historical, political, social, and religious factors, including sectarian strife between Sunnis and Shiites, with Saudi Arabia funding Sunnis and their Salafist branches, and Iran funding Houthis as representatives of Shiite groups in Yemen.

With about 100,000 people, they are regarded by the West as members of the "axis of resistance" in the Middle East

A 2015 report by the U.N. Security Council estimated that the Houthis included 75,000 armed men, who could range in size from 100,000 to 120,000 if civilian loyalists were included, PBS reported. A 2017 report in the Yemen Post put the Houthis at about 100,000. The group now controls several parts of Yemen, including the capital, Sana'a, and the Red Sea port of Hodeidah. The Yemeni government controls the southern port city of Aden and the less populated eastern region.

Mohsin, a researcher at Egypt's Pyramids Center for Political and Strategic Studies, said that the poor social environment and religious devotion in northwestern Yemen have contributed to the development of the Houthis. The organization's anti-American and anti-Israeli slogans cater to the local people's antipathy towards the United States and Israel. At the same time, the Houthis have met part of the needs of the population in a number of areas.

Li Yanan said that the Houthi operational capabilities can extend to the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and the Red Sea, and because the Red Sea shipping lanes play an important role in global energy and trade transportation, the Houthis have the ability to influence the security of global shipping lanes. This time, it attacked and harassed "Israeli-related ships" in the Red Sea, and it also made full use of its geographical advantages and asymmetrical tactics to gain a large amount of money with a small amount, which affected the stability of the global market. Wang Jin, an associate professor at Northwestern University's Institute of Middle East Studies, said the Houthis are a very important actor in the regional game. In the past Yemeni civil war, the Houthis have regularly crossed borders to attack Saudi military and civilian targets, as well as the United Arab Emirates.

"What are the political claims of the Houthis?" According to an article on the website of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the Houthis do not promote coherent ideology, and their political platforms are vague and even contradictory. The Houthis' Zayde genes do not necessarily determine their political orientation. The group's leaders claim that they are not trying to revive the Zaidets, but rather seeking greater political inclusion. Since 2011, the Houthis have used nationalist and populist language in their messaging, rather than defining themselves as strictly a Zaidist movement. The group has also cultivated a series of Sunni political allies.

Li Yanan believes that the Houthis are inextricably linked to Iran, which is also Shia, in terms of religious ideology, and in the context of the Middle East sectarian struggle represented by the Saudi-Iranian rivalry, the Houthis are usually regarded as "regional proxy forces" supported by Iran, like Allah in Lebanon and Shiite militias in Iraq. Coupled with the geographical reality of northern Yemen's proximity to Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia has long been highly vigilant about the development and growth of the Houthis, believing that the Houthis are a "wedge" planted by Iran on its borders and can be used by Iran to threaten Saudi Arabia's national security. However, the reconciliation process between Saudi Arabia and Iran has continued this year, which has led to a thaw in relations between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia, and negotiations on the peace process in Yemen have also advanced.

In April, senior Houthi leaders held consultations with Saudi Arabian and Omani representatives in Sana'a on ending hostilities. Representatives of the Houthis were in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, in September to negotiate a potential deal that could pave the way for an end to the conflict in Yemen, according to sources in Al Jazeera. According to the New York Times, Saudi Arabia kept a low profile about the United States organizing a multinational joint fleet to "escort" ships in the Red Sea, because for Riyadh, peace near the southern border is more important.

Qatar's Al Jazeera reported that some analysts believe that the Houthis have never been proxies of Iran and that they have their own unique history and political agenda. Pasi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Statecraft, a U.S. think tank, said the Houthis have fewer ties to Iran than Allah in Lebanon, they are not controlled by Iran and operate largely autonomously. In addition, while the United States and other countries accuse Iran of providing missile and drone technology to the Houthis, Zunes, a professor at the University of San Francisco, said that the vast majority of Houthi weapons are seized or purchased on the black market, not from Iran.

Li Yanan said that the basic ideology of the Houthis is anti-American, anti-Israel, and anti-Western, which determines that its hostility to the United States and Israel is long-term. Because of their firm opposition to US and Western interference in Middle East affairs, the Houthis are also regarded by the US and Western countries as members of the "axis of resistance" in the Middle East, and are the main factor and force influencing and containing the United States in advancing its regional strategy. The nature of the Houthis is destined to play a special role in the geopolitics of the Middle East, in the relations between the United States and the Middle East, and in the international situation.

The failure to accept hard and soft poses a challenge to the US Middle East policy

"What do the Houthis want?" said Juno, an assistant professor at the University of Ottawa in Canada, as saying that the Houthis inevitably want international recognition, "and they will not be able to achieve this goal in the foreseeable future...... In the context of the war in Gaza, they want to prove themselves as key members of the Iranian-led 'axis of resistance' by expressing their support for the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), so I expect their actions to disrupt maritime traffic in the Red Sea will continue."

After the Houthi "blockade of the Red Sea", some of the world's largest shipping companies were forced to change the routes of their ships at a fairly high cost, while the United States organized "escort" operations. Li Yanan analyzed that at present, the Houthis are carrying out "low-cost attacks" in the Red Sea through drones and missiles, while the "defense cost" of the escort fleet led by the United States is very high, and the extent to which it can achieve the expected results depends on the subsequent developments. At present, the possibility of the United States and Europe directly firing at the Houthis cannot be ruled out, but this possibility is relatively small, because the strategic goal of the United States to reduce military investment in the Middle East for three consecutive administrations will not change, and Europe has also been dragged down by the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Li Yanan believes that with the situation in the Red Sea at stake in the interests of all parties, it may take more diplomatic efforts to find a good way to meet the demands of the Houthis and curb their actions. If there are further military moves, it will mean a serious spillover of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, which the whole world does not want to see.

Zou Zhiqiang, a researcher at Fudan University's Center for Middle East Studies, told the Global Times that the Houthis' current actions in the Red Sea have seized the soft underbelly of regional security and become a new factor affecting the direction of the regional situation. Whether from the perspective of supporting its ally Israel or maintaining regional security dominance, this poses a challenge to US Middle East policy and international prestige. The dilemma for the United States is that the Houthis are not willing to accept hard and soft forces, cannot negotiate with them, and cannot solve the problem by force, so they can only take defensive measures.

Source: Global Times