The Houthis: 10 Facts

Since November 2023, Houthis in Yemen have launched hundreds of attacks on ships in the Red Sea, targeting ships with links to over 40 nations. Who are the Houthis and why are they disrupting international shipping? What are their links with Hamas whom they claim to support?

Here are 10 key facts about the Houthis including their history, their ideology and what they want.

1. Today’s Houthis follow a fanatical branch of Islam.

The Houthis are a tribe in Yemen from which today’s Houthi movement is largely drawn and by whose name it is widely known. The official name of the Houthi movement is Ansar Allah (“supporters of God”).

There are two main branches of Islam – Sunni Islam, which has a greater number of adherents worldwide, including in Yemen, and Shi’ite Islam. The Houthis are a part the Shi’ite branch but they are not mainstream Shi’ites, but Zaydiyyah – those who revere Zayd bin Ali, an 8th Century Muslim leader, a martyr who is admired as representing pure Islamic rule. Houthis, like other Zaydiyyah, have traditionally viewed rooting out political corruption as a key priority.

Houthis vied in Yemen’s complex power struggles for hundreds of years. Between 1918 and 1962, Houthis ruled northern Yemen before losing power to an Egyptian-backed Sunni revolution. They gained greater cohesion - and the nickname “Houthis” in the 1990s, when they were led by the fanatical and pro-Iranian politician Hussein al Houthi. He sought to build a political movement modeled both “religiously and ideologically” on Iran. A protege of Iran’s Shi’ite theocrats, al Houthi was bitterly opposed to Yemen's long-time and broadly pro-American leader Ali Abdullah Saleh. After al Houthi was assassinated on Saleh’s orders in 2004, the present-day Houthi group renamed their movement the “Houthis”.

2. Houthis are committed to fighting Jews, the United States and Israel.

In 2003, in the aftermath of the US’s invasion of Iraq, the Houthis became even more radical. They began comparing themselves to Hezbollah, Iran’s proxy army in Lebanon, and built up their military arsenals with Iranian support. They also started to call themselves the Ansar Allah (“God’s supporters”), seeing themselves as a holy, divinely appointed army.

Houthis’ rallying cry: “God is great. Death to the US. Death to Israel. Curse the Jews. And victory for Islam.”

They also adopted a new slogan: “God is great. Death to the US. Death to Israel. Curse the Jews. And victory for Islam.” That declaration remains the Houthis’ rallying cry and central tenet today.

On January 17, 2024, the United States returned Ansar Allah to the country’s terror list, after a hiatus of two years.

3. The Houthis largely rule Yemen today.

The Houthis, in addition to other opposition forces in Yemen, attacked Sana’s government in 2011. It was part of the heady Arab Spring movement. For three long years, Houthi forces fought Sana’s government army. It was a complex time: during this period of turmoil and violence, the Houthis at times fought alone, as part of a broad rebel alliance, and also brokered and broke secret agreements with Ali Abdullah Saleh, their erstwhile enemy.

A fighter, loyal to Yemen's Houthi rebels, stands guard during a protest following US and British forces strikes, in the Houthi-controlled capital Sanaa on January 12, 2024.

In 2015, the Houthis, as part of a coalition of anti-government forces, captured Yemen’s capital city, Sanaa. Houthi fighters soon after captured Al Hodeidah, Yemen’s fourth largest city and a major port on the Red Sea. Houthi fighters began moving to the city of Aden, considered the capital of Yemen’s south, and a major port on the Indian Ocean. In the cities which they controlled, Houthis immediately made their friendship for Iran known. They opened direct flights between Sanaa and Iran’s capital Tehran and Iran publicly promised to supply their new ally Yemen with subsidized oil.

Facing an Iranian proxy state in Yemen, Saudi Arabia - with which it shares a 1,307 km border with Yemen - assembled a coalition of countries to fight Houthi and other rebels and restore the previous government to power. The United States, Britain, United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain all supported Saudi Arabia’s intervention in Yemen to install and prop up Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi, Yemen’s previous vice president and a Sunni Muslim. The bitter civil war of the past nine years has caused untold suffering and has so far failed at dislodging Houthi forces.

A 2022 truce cemented the Houthis' position. Houthis continue to control Sanaa, Yemen’s capital city, as well as large areas of the country.

4. Yemen’s Civil War has been a humanitarian disaster.

Before the UN declared Gaza the “worst ever” humanitarian disaster, that dire appellation was routinely applied to Yemen under Houthi near-rule. Over 370,000 Yemenis died between 2015 and 2022, a number that is likely even higher today. Houthis have mined in the Red Sea, preventing fishing, and stealing food aid. The financial system in the country has largely collapsed. A 2021 UN report called Yemen “the world’s worst humanitarian crisis,” and reported that “nearly 80% or more than 24 million of its people nee(d) humanitarian assistance and protection and more than 13 million (are) in danger of starving to death. Over half of Yemenis, it was estimated, were at risk of starvation.”

Since 2015, Iran has sought to send arms and other goods to Yemen; in response Saudi Arabia (aided at times by the United States) has maintained a ruthless naval blockade. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have carried out over 25,000 airstrikes on Houthi areas, killing over 19,000 civilians. In 2021 and 2022, Houthi fighters carried out airstrikes on Saudi targets. For nearly a decade, aid agencies have found it difficult to import life-saving food into Yemen.

In December 2023, the UN’s World Food Program announced it was suspending operations in Yemen due to Houthis’ and other groups’ inability to ensure that food was distributed to those who need it.

5. The Houthis engage in torture and slavery.

A 2018 United Nations report painted a dire picture of life under Houthi rule, as well as under the rule of other warring factions vying for power in Yemen. “The Government of Yemen, the United Arab Emirates and Houthi-Saleh forces have all engaged in arbitrary arrests and detentions, carried out enforced disappearances and committed torture. The Houthis have summarily executed individuals, detained individuals solely for political or economic reasons and systematically destroyed the homes of their perceived enemies. The Houthis also routinely obstruct humanitarian access and the distribution of aid.” (Cited in the letter 26 January, 2018, from the Panel of Experts on Yemen mandated by Security Council resolution 2342 [2017] addressed to the President of the Security Council)

The US State Department reported similar horrors in a 2022 report, citing a Yemeni organization that documented 17,638 cases of torture in Houthi prisons between 2015 and 2021, “including the mistreatment of 587 children and 150 women” and 178 prisoners - including 10 children - who were tortured to death by Houthis.

The State Department also estimates that over 3% of Yemen’s population are currently slaves, and that while Yemen abolished slavery 60 years ago in the 1960s, some forms of slavery remain legal in the country. Houthis engage in slavery in a variety of ways, most notably by forcing men from the dark-skinned Muhamasheen minority to fight for them, and killing those who refuse.

6. Women’s rights in Houthi areas are nonexistent.

Ardent Islamists, Houthis restrict women’s rights even more than their patrons in Iran do. Women in Houthi-ruled areas are banned from working, forbidden from using birth control, prevented from going out bare-headed or while wearing makeup, and must have a male escort while traveling. Women are permitted in restaurants - after producing a valid marriage contract.

7. Houthis persecuted Yemen’s Jews.

Facing intense antisemitism, most of Yemen’s approximately 50,000-strong Jewish community was airlifted to the new State of Israel in an ambitious mission called “Operation Magic Carpet” in 1949. Hundreds of Jews remained behind, only to face ever-increasing antisemitism from Yemeni groups, including the Houthis.

As they took over territory, Houthis harassed Jews and forced them from their homes and communities where they’d lived for generations. (Yemen’s Jewish community traces its origins to Biblical times.) A Yemenite rabbi named Yahya Yusif Mosa spoke with the Jerusalem Post in 2013 from a compound in Sanaa, where he and other Yemeni Jews were confined after Houthi fighters forced them out of the Yemeni city of Raida. In 2011, Houthis told a leader of Yemenite Jews that all Jews remaining in Yemen would have to either convert to Islam or flee the country.

Virtually every last remaining Yemeni Jew listened to the Houthi terrorists and fled. Tragically, one Jew is currently being held hostage and tortured by Houthis in Yemen. As Jews fled in 2016, Levi Marhabi helped a family take a Torah scroll out of the country. Houthis arrested him for this “crime” and continue to hold him in jail. The US Commission on International Religious Freedom notes that “Marhabi lives in inhumane prison conditions, where his health continues to deteriorate. He reportedly suffers from kidney and lung issues and has lost all his teeth from being tortured repeatedly.”

8. Houthis are well funded.

Iran remains the Houthis’ largest source of funding. In December 2023, the United States announced new sanctions on 13 individuals and companies which, they estimate, help Iran funnel “tens of millions” of dollars to the Houthis each year. The US Treasury Department found that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a branch of Iran’s military, controls a vast business empire around the world, including in Turkey and the Caribbean.

A 2023 UN report found that in addition to Iranian donations, Houthis enrich themselves from a vast network of businesses in Yemen and around the world. “The Houthis continue to control legal and illegal sources of revenue,” the UN concluded.

Houthis also “to sell oil on the black market and collect illegal fees from such sales.” On January 11, 2024, US Naval forces noticed a ship sailing close to Somalia, bound for nearby Yemen, which wasn’t carrying a national flag, in violation of maritime law. US sailors boarded the ship and found pieces of Iranian-made ballistic and cruise missiles. In the course of the operation, two US Navy SEALs were lost at sea, casualties of the struggle to prevent Iran from arming Houthis in violation of international sanctions.

9. Houthis are motivated by improving their standing, not sympathy with Gaza.

It’s become axiomatic in much of the West that Houthis are moved to attack shipping vessels in the Red Sea out of a desire to show solidarity with Gaza civilians caught up in fighting between Hamas and Israel. In fact, the Houthis - a Shi’ite sect that has little in common with the Sunni Muslims in Gaza - is motivated by domestic concerns.

Inside Yemen, Houthis had becoming less and less popular. Bombing and attacking British, American, and other ships, and declaring that they are doing so to demonstrate their hatred of Israel, has given Houthis a huge boost in Yemen and around the world.

Middle East policy observer Nicholas Brumfield notes that “the Houthis are facing real challenges with the Yemeni public. Increasingly totalitarian, unable or unwilling to pay salaries, and viewed by many as attempting to establish a theocracy, the Houthis were dealing with one of their biggest political crises ever in the months immediately preceding October 7th, with popular protests forcing the group to retreat from an attempt to ‘radically restructure’ the Yemeni state.”

Hamas’ vicious attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 gave Houthis a potent new recruiting tool. “The Houthis have recruited a large number of fighters on the promise they would get to fight in Palestine, only to then deploy these fighters on fronts facing the Yemeni government,” Brumfield notes. “This recent buildup has been significant enough that the Yemeni government recently stated it believes the Houthis are preparing for a large-scale offensive on the long-contested Ma’rib City.” Houthi attacks on international shipping has done nothing to help Gazans; the Houthis are merely cynically using the war in Gaza to strengthen themselves.

10. Houthis are popular.

As their prestige grows in Yemen, Houthis are also being embraced as freedom fighters around the world, including in the West. In recent weeks, protestors in Britain, Canada, and the US have declared their support for the Houthi movement.

It’s imperative that we all stand up and point out the truth: Houthis are not freedom fighters. They’re not noble, and they’re not our friends or allies in any way. As Iran extends its influence throughout the Middle East, funding genocidal armies such as Hezbollah, Houthis, and Hamas, it’s crucial we educate ourselves about these venal organizations and work to make sure their complex histories and agendas are better known.