For two months the word Houthi has become a permanent presence in the media. But who are they, who leads them, what is their organization and what are their objectives? The Houthis are a Yemeni rebel group allied with Hamas and supported by Iran. Since mid-November they have launched twenty-seven attacks on ships crossing the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, a crucial route for global trade, considering that 12% of world trade passes through here.
UPDATED United States and Great Britain attack Houthis in Yemen. Sanaa hit. Pro-Iranian positions targeted by our correspondent Alberto Simoni 12 January 2024
The boss
Their leader is called Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, also known as Abu Jibril, a Yemeni politician and cleric. Born in Saada, in the north of Yemen, in 1979, the son of a religious man, Abdul-Malik is the youngest of eight brothers, from a family which also included a representative of the Yemeni Parliament, Hussein, considered the true founder of the movement Houthis. Then he was killed and Abdul-Malik took his place.
The enemies
The movement has built its ideology on opposition to Israel and the United States, becoming part of a triad, called the “axis of resistance” which brings together Hamas, in the Gaza Strip, and Hezbollah, in Lebanon. In 2014, a military coalition led by Saudi Arabia intervened in the country to restore the original government after the Houthi movement took over the capital. The clash had started the civil war which led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. In April, negotiations between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia seemed to have fueled hopes for peace, with the recognition of the Houthis’ right to govern the north of the country.
Evolution
This movement was originally poor, made up of a few rebels, but over the years it has received millions of dollars in funding, especially from Iran, which has allowed the Houthis to equip themselves with long-range drones and, as the President of the United States himself recalled United Joe Biden in the statement a few hours ago, the use “for the first time in history” of anti-ship ballistic missiles.
Why the Red Sea?
When the war between Israel and Hamas began on October 7, the Houthis publicly declared their support for the Palestinian movement and announced that they would strike every ship heading to or leaving from Israel. Yahya Sarea, a spokesperson for the movement, explained several times that the group attacks ships to protest the “murder, destruction and siege” of Gaza, and to fight alongside the Palestinian people. The latest attack was launched at 2am on Thursday, when a missile grazed an American commercial ship. The most daring operation so far was the one conducted on November 19, when armed men seized a ship called Galaxy Lander and diverted it towards the Yemeni port, holding the twenty-five crew members, mostly Filipinos, hostage.