Houthis: The high-altitude insurgency that took the Middle East by storm

Illustration: TBS

Once routinely dismissed by international commentators as a ragtag mountain militia in sandals, Yemen's Houthis have spent two decades dismantling that stereotype with remarkable efficiency. 

Today, from their command centres in Sanaa, they flank the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, trade blows with regional heavyweights and project power across the Middle East. 

Their rapid advance down Yemen's Red Sea coast in September has shattered a fragile domestic peace and placed them at the pivot point of global energy security and regional geopolitics.

To understand how a movement born in the rugged, impoverished mountains of northern Yemen became a formidable military force, able to challenge regional powers and threaten international trade, one must look beyond standard military calculus. 

Mountain revivalists in the capital

Officially titled Ansar Allah (Supporters of God), the group widely known as the Houthis originates from Yemen's northern Saada Governorate. 

They draw their identity and leadership from the Zaidi Shia minority, a distinct branch of Shia Islam whose followers ruled Yemen, intermittently, through a thousand-year imamate until it was overthrown in 1962. 

Zaidis make up roughly a third of Yemen's population and are historically concentrated in the northern highlands, while Sunnis form the majority in much of the south and east.

Under the leadership of Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, the movement has expanded far beyond its traditional tribal enclave. Following their capture of Sanaa in September 2014, the Houthis established a de facto parallel state, complete with its own military, administrative apparatus and media networks. 

While they control between a quarter and a third of Yemen's territory, that land holds an estimated 70% or more of the country's population of more than 30 million. Critics frequently label them an exclusively sectarian faction or an outright proxy of Tehran. 

The Houthis, however, view themselves as a sovereign, anti-imperialist national resistance movement capable of uniting Yemenis against foreign intervention and domestic corruption.

From summer camps to armed rebellion

The Houthi movement traces its origins to 1992 in the mountainous valleys of Saada, where religious leaders founded the Shabab al-Mu'mineen (Believing Youth). Conceived as a peaceful educational and cultural movement, its primary aim was to spark a revival of Zaidi identity and intellectual heritage. 

This revivalism arose as a defensive reaction against state-sponsored Salafism, an austere Sunni ideology backed by Saudi financial and religious funding, which had begun establishing centres in traditional Zaidi strongholds. 

By the mid-1990s, tens of thousands of young students were reportedly attending Believing Youth summer camps, absorbing lectures on Islamic theology alongside political commentary.

The movement's political radicalisation accelerated sharply after the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. Influenced by Lebanon's Hezbollah, charismatic Zaidi cleric and former parliamentarian Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi mobilised young people to protest against the authoritarian government of then president Ali Abdullah Saleh. 

Hussein accused Saleh's regime of systemic corruption, deep marginalisation of northern tribes and subservience to American and Saudi geopolitical interests. 

It was in this period that the group adopted its official slogan, known as the Sarkha (The Scream): "God is the Greatest, death to America, death to Israel, a curse upon the Jews, victory to Islam."

Alarmed by the group's growing popularity and anti-government rhetoric, the Saleh administration issued a warrant for Hussein's arrest. When he resisted, heavy fighting erupted in the northern mountains. 

Hussein was killed by Yemeni forces in Saada in 2004, but rather than quashing the movement, his death ignited the Houthi insurgency. Over the next six years, his younger brother Abdul-Malik took command and led the movement through six consecutive, bloody wars against Saleh's military, transforming a local militia into a battle-hardened guerrilla army.

Local hegemony and global clout

At its core, the Houthi movement is driven by a mix of religious conviction, Yemeni nationalism and pragmatic state-building ambitions. 

Ideologically, its worldview rests on what scholars describe as the Quranic Way and a belief in the divine right of Ahl al-Bayt (the descendants of the Prophet Muhammad) to provide moral and political leadership. In practice, however, its political platform has proved populist and opportunistic.

Domestically, the Houthis seek control over all of Yemen, full political recognition and an end to foreign blockades. They demand a direct share of Yemen's oil and gas revenues, principally located in regions such as Marib, to pay public-sector salaries and fund their government in Sanaa. 

Beyond domestic governance, they aim to eradicate Western, Israeli and Saudi influence from the Arabian Peninsula. 

In recent years, these ambitions have broadened significantly. 

The Houthis now actively seek international legitimacy and a permanent seat at the geopolitical table, using their position along crucial maritime lanes to extract concessions from regional neighbours and global powers alike.

Arsenal, adaptation and foreign alliances

The transformation of the Houthis from a light-infantry mountain force into a formidable military power is one of the most striking evolutions in modern irregular warfare. 

Their strength rests on mass mobilisation, absorbed state infrastructure and technology transfers. Recent reports put their fighting force at around 350,000 personnel, a figure that is difficult to verify and reflects aggressive recruitment campaigns across northern governorates and widespread conscription of young men.

When the Houthis captured Sanaa and overran government military bases between 2014 and 2016, they inherited large stockpiles of conventional weaponry from the Yemeni armed forces, including Soviet-designed ballistic missiles, Soviet- and Chinese-designed anti-ship and air-defence systems, tanks and heavy artillery. 

They also absorbed trained officers and engineers from the former state military, instantly raising their technical proficiency.

This conventional foundation was greatly expanded through their partnership with Iran and its Lebanese ally, Hezbollah. 

According to US and UN reporting, operatives from Hezbollah's Unit 3800 and officers from the Quds Force of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), including the veteran general Abdolreza Shahlaei, provided tactical training, strategic advice and operational planning. 

Through smuggling networks using dhows in the Arabian Sea and overland routes, Iran has transferred missile components, guidance systems and drone engines to Yemen despite a UN arms embargo.

Over time, the Houthis developed considerable domestic assembly and modification capabilities. Rather than relying solely on imported, fully assembled weapons, Houthi engineers began assembling missiles from imported kits, retrofitting Soviet-era surface-to-air missiles into anti-ship weapons and manufacturing long-range suicide drones. 

Their arsenal includes medium-range ballistic missiles such as the solid-fuel Palestine-2 and the Toufan, long-range Quds cruise missiles, and Samad attack drones with an estimated range of 1,500km or more, enough to reach Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Israel. 

In naval warfare, they have pioneered the use of remotely controlled, explosive-laden drone boats, such as the Tawfan and Shark-33 series, alongside anti-ship cruise missiles.

The group has also embraced modern software tools. In a September 2026 threat report, Anthropic said a cell of threat actors based in northern Yemen, an area controlled by the Houthis, used its Claude models, including Claude Code, to help build guidance, navigation and control software for a guided rocket and other missile programmes. 

Anthropic did not name the Houthis. It said it had no evidence that the actors fielded an operational weapon, that a test-fired guided rocket appeared to have failed, and that it had banned the accounts involved. 

Separately, the Wall Street Journal has reported that the group has obtained Chinese dual-use components, and there have been reports of Russian targeting assistance, demonstrating an ability to navigate global procurement networks.

What is their quarrel with Saudi Arabia?

The conflict between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia is rooted in decades of religious friction, border disputes and strategic rivalry. 

The Houthis have long viewed Riyadh's export of Salafism as an existential threat to Zaidi cultural survival in northern Yemen. Saudi Arabia, for its part, regards an armed, Shia-led movement on its long and porous southern border as an unacceptable security threat and a dangerous outpost for its rival, Iran.

The friction erupted into full-scale war in March 2015. Alarmed by the Houthi takeover of Sanaa, Mohammed bin Salman, then defence minister and deputy crown prince, assembled a coalition of Arab states to launch Operation Decisive Storm. 

The air campaign aimed to crush the Houthis and restore the internationally recognised government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi. Instead, the conflict ground into a seven-year stalemate that the UN called the world's worst humanitarian crisis, leaving hundreds of thousands dead, directly and indirectly, by UN estimates, and millions hungry.

Far from being defeated by Saudi airstrikes, the Houthis made Saudi Arabia a primary target. Between 2017 and 2022, according to Saudi and coalition counts, the group launched more than 4,000 missiles and drones at the kingdom, striking infrastructure, civilian airports in Abha and Jizan, and Saudi Aramco oil facilities in Yanbu and Riyadh.

A UN-brokered truce took effect in April 2022. Although the formal truce lapsed that October, a de facto calm largely held for more than four years, allowing Riyadh to focus on ambitious domestic economic projects. 

That calm broke in July 2026. On 13 July, forces of the Yemeni government, in coalition with Saudi Arabia, struck the runway at Sanaa airport to stop a Mahan Air flight from Tehran from landing. 

The Yemeni government and Riyadh feared it was carrying IRGC personnel and military equipment. The Houthis blamed Saudi Arabia and fired ballistic missiles at Abha airport, and on 20 July, they declared a naval blockade of Saudi Arabia. They have since launched further missile and drone attacks on Saudi targets and claimed strikes on Saudi-linked vessels.

Shaking the global economy

In September, the Houthis carried out a rapid military campaign that sent shockwaves through global energy markets. Advancing down Yemen's Red Sea coastal plain, the Tihama, their forces seized the strategic port city of Mokha on 10 September, followed by the islands of Mayyun (Perim), Greater Hanish and Lesser Hanish.

The advance has placed the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, the narrow southern gateway linking the Gulf of Aden to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal and about 18 miles wide at its narrowest, within range of Houthi artillery, missiles and drones. The timing is critical. 

With the wider war between the US, Israel and Iran severely disrupting traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, global oil trade had come to rely heavily on Saudi Arabia's East-West Pipeline, which carries crude to the Red Sea port of Yanbu for export.

The Houthis say they are enforcing a blockade only on Saudi-linked shipping and that passage is safe for other vessels, a claim that has not been independently verified. Even so, the threat has raised insurance premiums and pushed some traffic towards longer routes. 

Drone strikes on 10–11 September, reportedly launched from Iraq, knocked out pumping stations on the pipeline and forced it offline, and the Houthis have since claimed missile and drone strikes on Yanbu. 

Together with the Hormuz disruption, these events helped lift Brent crude above $100 a barrel, peaking at around $109 on 14 September. Saudi Arabia has since resumed exports through the pipeline, according to reports, but concern persists that attacks could resume.

Simultaneously, the Houthis have confirmed their status as one of the most active arms of Iran's Axis of Resistance. As Israeli and American strikes battered other regional allies, they stepped forward to open a western front against Saudi Arabia and Red Sea shipping, which analysts say gives Iran leverage against Washington and its allies without Tehran expending its own direct military assets. Tehran has downplayed any role in the Houthis' recent gains.

Where they might go from here

As the dust settles over their latest territorial gains, the Houthis find themselves in a position of unprecedented strength but face an increasingly precarious landscape.

In the short term, the group is intent on locking in its military gains and converting battlefield dominance into formal political recognition. It is using its position at Bab al-Mandeb to pressure Saudi Arabia back to the negotiating table on Houthi terms, demanding international legitimacy, an end to airspace restrictions and long-term Saudi funding for its administration in Sanaa. 

Should talks fail, the Houthis could launch a renewed offensive towards oil-rich Marib or push south towards Aden, although analysts caution that government forces now hold more favourable mountainous terrain with air support and that a repeat of September's rapid advances is not expected.

Looking further afield, the Houthis are developing transnational ambitions. They have reportedly built networks across the Red Sea into the Horn of Africa, forming transactional ties with the Somalia-based militant group al-Shabaab, exchanging weaponised drones and tactical training for hard currency and smuggling routes. 

Houthi advisers have also reportedly been deployed in Sudan, suggesting an intention to build a cross-border network extending well beyond Yemen