By Michael Horton
Anxiety among the Houthis—based in northwest Yemen—is higher than it has been in years. The Zaidi Shi’a group is watching the Iranian-backed “Axis of Resistance” crumble. The Israeli offensives in Gaza and Lebanon have severely weakened both Hamas and Hezbollah. The Assad regime in Syria collapsed in two weeks after Salafi-inspired militias launched coordinated operations. Iran has spent decades helping fund and train its Axis of proxies that to varying degrees serve as a way of projecting force on the cheap is being systematically dismantled. The Houthis know they may be next, and this is stoking simmering discontent among the group’s leadership and supporters.
Following Hamas’ October 2023 attack on Israel, the Houthis declared their support and began attacking “Israeli and Western-linked” shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. The group also initiated missile and drone attacks on Israel. The attacks made the Houthis a premier member of the Axis of Resistance and, for a while, increased domestic support for the group. However, the Houthis’ failure to deliver on economic growth and their brutal crackdowns on anyone they label a dissident, combined with the sharp weakening of other members of the Axis, are reshaping public opinion in many of the areas they control. Most significantly, some elite members of the organization are questioning the group’s aggressive policies in light of a weakened Iran and an incoming Trump administration that will be far less tolerant than the one it is replacing.
Internal Divisions: Maximalists versus Pragmatists
The Houthi leadership is broadly divided into “maximalists” and “pragmatists.” The maximalists are ideologically allied with Iran and want to control all of Yemen, while the pragmatists are most interested in securing their long-term financial and political interests. The pragmatists, who once dominated the organization, are also more nationalistic and fear that the maximalists are sacrificing Yemeni identity to please Iran. As an act of defiance and unity, Yemenis living under Houthi rule routinely play the Yemeni national anthem at weddings and other gatherings. The Houthis have responded by arresting musicians and even the owners of wedding halls. These actions alone are fueling the anger of many tribes that once supported the Houthis.
Both the maximalists and the pragmatists rely on support from Yemen’s tapestry of tribes to maintain their hold on power. However, this tapestry is beginning to fray, which means both factions are scrambling to bolster tribal support in the areas they control. Since taking over much of northwest Yemen in 2014, the Houthis have worked to co-opt—forcibly in many cases—the leadership of many of Yemen’s most powerful northern-based tribes. However, after years of economic decline, steady demands for men and boys to fight on the frontlines and rapacious “taxation,” anger among tribes that nominally back the Houthis is increasing.
Adding to the friction among the Houthis is the fact that the Houthis’ leader, Abdul Malek al-Houthi, is increasingly isolated due to fears that air or missile strikes or a domestic assassin will target him. Security around Abdul Malek al-Houthi has always been tight. He makes no public appearances and maintains an electronic cordon sanitaire around himself and his family. Following Israel’s attack on Hezbollah operatives’ beepers and radios, Abdul Malek's protective detail further tightened his security. Heightened security makes it even more difficult for the reclusive leader to retain control of a sprawling organization where individual commanders exercise much autonomy.
The autonomy of field commanders and of even lower-level officers is a double-edged sword for the Houthis. The Houthis encourage and reward individual initiative. The ability of commanders to react quickly to battlefield dynamics has, in the past, given the Houthis an advantage over their domestic rivals and permitted an expansion of their influence into the Horn of Africa (for more details on this please see my recent article for the Combatting Terrorism Center CTC Sentinel). However, this autonomy will also threaten the Houthis if, and when, the organization comes under increased pressure from internal and external forces. Many members of the Houthi elite may be unwilling to follow the orders of the maximalists if that means sacrificing the wealth and power they have accumulated over the last decade.
The Houthis maintain a formidable internal security service, Preventative Security, tasked with monitoring dissidents and, most notably, members of the Houthi elite. So far, the Houthis’ security services—the innermost rings of which answer directly to Abdul Malik—have succeeded in maintaining a climate of fear that preserves organizational integrity. However, as has been the case for hundreds of years, the real power in Yemen rests with its tribes. It is these powerful and well-armed northern-based tribes that will ultimately decide the fate of the Houthis, just as they determined the outcome of north Yemen’s 1962-1970 civil war.
During the 1962-1970 war, Egypt intervened in north Yemen on the side of the Republicans, which overthrew the country’s Zaidi Shi’a Imam, a relative of the Houthi family. Saudi Arabia, the UK, Iran, and Israel all supported the Imam and his Royalists forces with money, weapons, and advisors. Egypt sent more than seventy thousand men to fight in Yemen and lost an estimated fifteen thousand soldiers in the war. The Egyptian war in Yemen also arguably paved the way for Egypt’s catastrophic loss to Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War. Egypt withdrew its soldiers from Yemen in 1967, and the other outside parties to the conflict reduced—or eliminated—their support for the Imam and his forces. Ultimately, Yemen’s major tribes gathered, debated, compromised, and determined the country’s future. The Imam was exiled, and an uneasy but durable peace between Republicans and Royalists prevailed.
Tribal Dynamics
While contemporary Yemen is more troubled and more complex, the same tribal dynamics continue to exist today. It is Yemen’s tribes that will decide how long the Houthis—at least as they are currently configured—hold on to power in northwest Yemen. Overt outside intervention is fraught with risks, including the unintended consequence of strengthening the Houthis, who have already proved themselves to be masters of propaganda. However, the weakening of the Axis of Resistance and the Houthis’ internal brittleness should be viewed as opportunities to reform, train, and support those Yemeni forces most capable of countering and combatting the Houthis. At the same time, it is important to understand that the Houthis are not monolithic. The pragmatists among the Houthis could play a role similar to that played by figures among the Imam’s forces who, at the end of the 1962-1970 war, supported a negotiated peace that balanced rival powers.
A power vacuum in Yemen could be just as dangerous, possibly more so, than the current state of affairs. Just as in Syria and Libya, Yemen is home to well-armed Salafist forces who are often indistinguishable from militant Salafist groups like al-Qaeda. Yemen’s strategic position along the Red Sea shipping corridor and the Houthis’ stockpiles of missiles and UAVs, as well as other heavy weapons both mean caution should be exercised when considering ways to counter and weaken the Houthis. While the Houthis and the threat they pose to shipping must be dealt with, care must be taken to ensure that attempts to degrade them do not accelerate instability in Yemen and the broader region.
About the Author:
Michael Horton is the co-founder of Red Sea Analytics International (RSAI). He has two decades of experience as an analyst and researcher in Yemen and the Red Sea region. Michael has written policy briefs and conducted briefings and seminars for the US National Security Council, the British Foreign Ministry, the British Ministry of Defense, the US State Department, and senior members of the British Parliament and the US Congress. He has written extensively about the region for Jane’s Intelligence Review, the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, Oxford Analytica, The Economist, and other publications.