Yemen's Houthis: Who are the Iran-backed militants?

Yemen's Houthi militia has once more stepped-up strikes against Israel. 

In December, the Iran-backed group fired missiles and drones, that injured almost two dozen civilians in Tel Aviv.

After the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) attacked Yemen's international airport, the IDF intercepted a missile aimed at Israel's international airport the same month. 

The Houthi group — which was redesignated as terror organization by the US in January 2024 — have repeatedly argued that their strikes are in support of the Palestinian cause and the militant Islamist Hamas group in Gaza.

Hamas is categorized as terror organization by the US, EU, Germany, Israel and several other countries.

The Houthis have also targeted international shipping in the Red Sea since November 2023.

While this did boost the group's popularity within Yemen, it also resulted in US and Israeli strikes on Houthi targets.

So far, neither an international maritime task force to protect shipping in the Red Sea nor repeated aerial bombing of areas they control seems to have stopped the Houthis. 

Who are the Houthis?

The Houthis derive from a tribal group out of northern Yemen, near the border with Saudi Arabia.

By religious sect, the Houthis are Shiite Muslims, however, they belong to a specific branch called the Zaydi Shiites.

Zaydi Shiites make up about one-third of Yemen's population.

As such, they have beliefs that set them apart from mainstream Shiite Muslims.

For instance, they do not believe in the return of a messiah-like figure, the 12th imam.

The 12 imams are considered to be the descendants of the Prophet Muhammad, and the 12th imam is considered to have vanished but is expected to return one day.

Nonetheless, the fact that the Houthis are Shiite Muslims is key as this connects them with Iran, the country generally considered to represent Shiite interests in the Middle East.

Houthi ideology 

The Houthis are considered close allies of the government in Iran.

They see themselves as part of the so-called Axis of Resistance, an Iran-led regional alliance that also includes Hamas in Gaza, Lebanon's Hezbollah and various Iraqi paramilitary factions that oppose the US and Israel.

The Houthis' ideology can be deduced from their motto: "God is great, death to the US, death to Israel, curse the Jews, and victory for Islam."

Since the 1990s, successive Yemeni governments have supported calls for Palestinian statehood and an end to the Israeli occupation.

This was in common with most nations in the Middle East, however, the Houthi group has further radicalized this position, and have found the support of many sympathetic locals. 

Houthi rise to power

The contemporary movement was founded by Hussein al-Houthi, a former Yemeni politician who opposed the policies and alleged corruption of former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh, who was himself a Houthi.

The group is named after Hussein al-Houthi.

After the Arab Spring protests of 2011 toppled Saleh's regime, the Houthis increasingly accused Yemen's new government — then headed by a Sunni Muslim — of marginalizing Zaydi Shiites.

They also believed that the central government was too close to the US, and thereby Israel, and that the country's then-leader, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, was also a Saudi stooge.

The Houthis rebelled against Hadi's unpopular government in 2014 and began to take over large parts of the country, including Sanaa. 

The war further escalated in 2015 after a Saudi-led international coalition joined the fight in support of the Yemeni government. 

In 2022, the opponents negotiated a six-month ceasefire.

Even though this has since ended, the situation has remained comparatively calm in Yemen as all parties seemed to have come to the conclusion that they're at a stalemate. 

Meanwhile, the northwest, with its capital Sanaa and around 70% of the population, is under Houthi-control.

"The Houthis have won the civil war in a way over the past few years but they run a very authoritarian and repressive government in northern Yemen," Thomas Juneau, an associate professor at the University of Ottawa and Middle East analyst, told DW. 

"They tolerate absolutely no dissent," he added. 

For the Yemeni population, all of this meant that the past decade was harsh.

The United Nations described the war in Yemen as the world's worst humanitarian crisis. 

This article was originally written and published in German on December 20, 2023. It was updated on December 30, 2024, to reflect recent developments.