Houthi movement

Overview

The Houthi movement, formally known as Ansar Allah, is a Zaydi Shia terrorist organization based in Yemen. It emerged in the country’s northern highlands during the 1990s, fought Yemen’s government in a series of rebellions, and seized Sanaa in 2014 with help from forces loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh. The movement subsequently displaced national institutions and became a principal party to the Yemeni civil war. It controls much of northern Yemen, including the capital and the strategically important port of Hodeidah. Its attacks on Israel and commercial vessels have extended the conflict far beyond Yemen.

The Houthis belong to the Iran-backed Axis of Resistance, a network that also includes Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and armed groups in Iraq. Iran’s regime has supplied the Houthis with weapons, training, financial aid and guidance, strengthening their missile and drone capabilities. The movement remains rooted in Yemen’s Zaydi tradition, which differs from the Twelver Shia tradition dominant in Iran. Iranian sponsorship has therefore developed alongside, rather than erased, the movement’s local religious and political origins.

The Houthis’ threat is both domestic and international. Their seizure of state agencies and interference with tribal leadership have reshaped governance in areas they control. Their attacks on Israel, Saudi Arabia, neighboring states and shipping around Bab-el-Mandeb have endangered civilians and disrupted a maritime route linking the Indian Ocean, Red Sea and Suez Canal. Yemen’s dependence on imported food and fuel makes control of ports and shipping consequential for civilians as well as combatants.

Founding and ideology

The movement arose among Yemen’s Zaydi Shia communities in the 1990s. Hussein al-Houthi, a religious and political leader from the northern highlands, shaped its early message and gave the movement the name by which it became widely known. His followers challenged the Yemeni government’s authority and presented themselves as defenders of Zaydi identity amid changes in religious education and growing friction between Zaydi and Salafi communities. Those local grievances formed part of the movement’s emergence, but its founding message also addressed the United States, Israel and Jews.

The Houthi slogan explicitly calls for death to America and Israel, curses Jews and proclaims victory for Islam. Hussein al-Houthi’s sermons gave anti-Jewish hostility a place in the movement’s founding doctrine; a December 2001 sermon included an explicit argument for genocide against Jews. The slogan and sermons cannot be reduced to a demand for northern autonomy or treated as harmless political theater. They express hostility extending beyond Yemen’s internal struggle, while the movement’s later attacks show its capacity to act outside Yemen.

Ansar Allah’s religious roots lie in Zaydism, a branch of Shia Islam with its own history in Yemen. Zaydi belief and authority differ from the Twelver tradition associated with Iran’s ruling clerical establishment. The Houthis’ political Islam combines religious claims with an armed project of government: the movement seeks to direct public institutions, education and social conduct in territory under its control. Distinguishing its ideology from Zaydi communities generally is essential. Participation by people from northern tribes or Zaydi communities does not make every member of those communities a supporter of Houthi rule.

History

Armed rebellion against Yemen’s government began in 2004. Saleh’s government fought the Houthis through six rounds of conflict in the north, with major fighting continuing through 2009 and a subsequent settlement in 2010. Hussein al-Houthi was killed during the first round, after which leadership passed within the movement and ultimately to his brother Abdul-Malik. Years of warfare expanded the Houthis’ military organization and helped them establish de facto autonomy in parts of northern Yemen. The fighting also deepened tensions among local religious communities and tribes.

Saleh’s later partnership with the Houthis reversed his earlier position. After leaving the presidency, he allied with his former enemies during their 2014 campaign against President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi. Troops and tribal networks loyal to Saleh assisted the Houthi advance through Amran and into Sanaa. Their support was central to the seizure of the capital in 2014 and to subsequent territorial gains. The alliance joined Saleh’s political and military network to a movement that had spent years fighting his government.

In early 2015, Houthi and Saleh-aligned forces seized the presidential palace, and Yemen’s government resigned. The Houthis dissolved parliament and replaced it with a Supreme Revolutionary Committee in February. Hadi escaped house arrest, went to Aden and rejected the actions taken in Sanaa as unconstitutional. As Houthi forces advanced, he fled Yemen. Hadi remained internationally recognized, but recognition did not give his government effective control of the capital. Saudi Arabia launched Operation Decisive Storm on March 26, 2015, beginning the Saudi-led intervention in the Yemeni civil war. United Nations Security Council Resolution 2216, adopted on April 14, called for measures to prevent arms supplies to Houthi and Saleh-aligned forces.

The war spread across Yemen. Hadi loyalists and Southern Resistance forces recaptured Aden from Houthi-Saleh forces on July 17, 2015, with Saudi and Emirati ground support. Houthi forces held Sanaa and large parts of the north, while front lines and local alliances shifted elsewhere. In 2021, the Houthis began a sustained battle for Marib, the Hadi government’s last main northern stronghold. Marib also held important energy resources; its capture would have increased Houthi revenue and bargaining power. The battle was therefore consequential to the survival of Yemen’s recognized government in the north, not merely to a local front line.

The Houthis gradually became less dependent on Saleh. In December 2017, after Saleh offered to negotiate with the Saudi- and Emirati-led coalition, Houthi forces killed him. They subsequently targeted members of his General People’s Congress. His death ended an alliance that had helped them seize power but had remained politically unstable. The 2018 United Nations-brokered Stockholm Agreement halted an offensive against Houthi positions on Yemen’s west coast and imposed a ceasefire in Hodeidah governorate. The agreement stopped the advance without removing Houthi control of Hodeidah’s ports, revenues and access to the Red Sea. Disputes over compliance and oversight continued.

A truce beginning in 2022 reduced some fighting between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia, though it did not settle Yemen’s political conflict. After the September 2019 attacks on Saudi oil facilities at Abqaiq, Riyadh had already opened direct talks with the Houthis to protect Saudi territory and seek an exit from the war. The movement continued to use military pressure in negotiations. In 2026, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi claimed that the war had caused more than $57 billion in Yemeni oil-sector losses as the group pressed Saudi Arabia for compensation. That figure was a Houthi claim. A maritime blockade focused on Saudi Arabia in 2026 damaged the truce governing their relations.

Structure and leadership

Abdul-Malik al-Houthi leads the movement. Mahdi al-Mashat heads its political council and supported its campaign to widen the war between Israel and Hamas through Red Sea attacks. The movement combines armed forces, political offices, security bodies and control over former state institutions. Its command in Sanaa has coordinated attacks on American warships and commercial vessels in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. Houthi authorities also use government structures to enforce decisions across territory they hold.

Control of public employment is a major instrument of rule. After taking power, the Houthis moved to remove employees unaffiliated with the movement, especially decision-makers. They controlled roughly one million of Yemen’s 1.2 million public-sector employees when they imposed a compulsory employment code. Mandatory cultural courses promoted the movement’s outlook and Hussein al-Houthi’s teachings. Employees who refused faced punishment, accusations of treason or dismissal. Public employees outside Houthi networks went more than seven years without salaries, while senior Houthi-associated officials received monthly payments.

The movement has also altered traditional tribal authority. Northern tribes have supplied fighters under Houthi command, but their participation does not establish unified or freely given tribal support. Houthi leaders displaced traditional chiefs, appointed preferred leaders over several tribes and gave Bani Hashim supervisors authority above established tribal figures. Saleh had earlier directed tribes loyal to him to assist the Houthi advance; that temporary alliance cannot explain all later tribal participation. Coercion and imposed supervision have changed local power structures and strained relationships that predated the movement’s rule.

Houthi control reaches international relief operations. The movement placed donor projects under SCMCHA, an agency that selects Yemeni partners for international aid organizations in Houthi-controlled areas. Its authority over partner selection gives it influence over aid delivery. Hodeidah remains a primary United Nations aid-entry port: roughly 80 percent of humanitarian assistance entered through Houthi-controlled ports during the period examined. Those ports are indispensable to civilians, even as Houthi control generates revenue and provides access relevant to the movement’s military operations.

Funding and sponsors

Iran’s regime is the Houthis’ principal external sponsor. It has provided arms, training, financial assistance, military advisers and guidance over many years, increasing military support substantially in the mid-2010s during the war with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Iranian personnel, including members of the Quds Force, operated in Yemen. The support fits Iran’s wider system of armed partners, which includes Hezbollah and Iraqi militias. It has given the Houthis capabilities for strikes against regional states and maritime traffic while leaving them with their own Yemeni leadership and priorities.

Interdictions have exposed arms routes toward Yemen. One intercepted shipment from Iran contained more than 3,000 assault rifles, 578,000 rounds of ammunition and 23 anti-tank guided missiles. In December 2022, the United States Navy stopped a fishing boat in the Gulf of Oman carrying more than one million bullets and rocket components from Iran toward the Houthis, following another seizure in November. The Al-Sharwa, seized in June 2025 with more than 750 tons of weapons and combat equipment, exposed a suspected Iranian shipment intended for the movement. Yemeni government counterterrorism authorities reported intercepting drones and communications equipment in August 2025 after a merchant ship diverted from Hodeidah to Aden. In June 2025, United States sanctions targeted oil, fuel, equipment and technology smuggling networks operating in coordination with the IRGC and the Houthis.

The Houthis also draw resources from territory they control. They have taxed imports and charged shippers around $100,000 per vessel to berth and unload food or fuel at Hodeidah. Yemen depended on imports for about 90 percent of its food and fuel during the war; coalition shipping restrictions and Houthi taxation both raised prices. The 2018 ceasefire left the movement in possession of Hodeidah’s ports and associated revenue. International funding through the United Nations Development Programme paid for port repairs and improvements despite Houthi noncompliance with the Hodeidah Agreement. Hodeidah is thus both a critical humanitarian gateway and a source of economic and strategic power for the movement.

Attacks and operations

Before its campaign against Israel intensified, the Houthis repeatedly struck Saudi targets. Their missiles and drones threatened airports, oil infrastructure and border forces. In November 2020, a Houthi political official identified attacks on Saudi Arabia as a higher immediate priority than attacks on Israel. After the September 2019 attacks on Saudi oil facilities, the prospect of further strikes contributed to Riyadh’s direct negotiations with the movement. A Houthi drone attack on the Saudi-Yemeni border later killed four Bahrain Defense Force personnel, underscoring the risks to neighboring states even during diplomatic efforts.

Following Hamas’s October 7, 2023, massacre in Israel, the Houthis began launching missiles and drones toward Israeli territory and attacking international shipping. Four initial launches from the Red Sea area were intercepted before reaching Israeli airspace. The Houthis presented their operations as support for Hamas in Gaza, while their attacks made them an active party to the Iran–Israel proxy conflict. Their weapons, supplied and developed with Iranian assistance, allowed strikes far beyond Yemen. On July 8, 2024, the Houthis and the Islamic Resistance in Iraq jointly claimed a drone attack against Eilat; an Israeli fighter jet intercepted the target before it entered Israel.

On July 19, 2024, a Houthi drone struck Tel Aviv, killing 50-year-old Yevgeny Ferder and wounding ten others. Israel subsequently struck Houthi military targets at Hodeidah, including its port. Those July strikes were Israel’s first military response to the Houthis’ persistent attacks on Israeli territory since the Gaza war began. The port served as an entry point for advanced Iranian weapons used by the Houthis, while also handling essential civilian imports. On December 19, 2024, the Israeli Air Force again struck Houthi military targets near Sanaa and along Yemen’s coast after repeated attacks on Israel. Israeli forces identified Houthi-operated aircraft at Sanaa airport as transport for operatives planning attacks against Israel.

The maritime campaign became the Red Sea crisis. Beginning in late 2023, the Houthis attacked or hijacked commercial vessels in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, threatened shipping through Bab-el-Mandeb and fired on American, British and French warships. Civilian vessels were exposed regardless of whether the movement’s information about their ownership or destination was accurate. Ships associated with China, Greece, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey remained active on the route, but inaccurate Houthi shipping data left them vulnerable. In April 2024, Houthi forces fired three antiship ballistic missiles at the tanker Andromeda Star while it carried crude oil toward India. A claimed Mediterranean strike that year on a ship tracked off Port Said was unsubstantiated.

Attacks around Bab-el-Mandeb disrupted traffic toward the Suez Canal and increased risks for global trade. Egypt’s canal revenue fell by about 70 percent during the period examined after 2023. By April 2024, commercial shippers treated the northern Red Sea as safer than its southern waters, where Houthi threats kept several major companies away. The threatened route had carried an average of more than four million barrels of Saudi oil per day. Maritime insecurity prompted Operation Prosperity Guardian and other efforts to defend navigation. The Houthis’ shipping campaign endangered commerce serving many countries, not solely Israel.

The movement has supported its military campaign with online messaging. A January–February 2024 survey identified 98 Houthi-affiliated websites and social media accounts, comprising 60 official and 38 supporter entities. These channels helped the Houthis seek international support during the Israel–Hamas war and the Red Sea crisis. Their public claims did not always establish that an attack occurred, as the unsubstantiated Mediterranean strike illustrated. After the June 2025 ceasefire in the Iran–Israel war, Iran-backed Houthi forces resumed attacks on Israeli territory and commercial vessels in the Red Sea. Their operations remained a threat to civilians, naval forces and trade.

Designations and international status

The United States has designated the Houthis as both a Foreign Terrorist Organization and Specially Designated Global Terrorists. These designations address the movement’s attacks and support networks. The Houthis nevertheless act as de facto authorities across much of northern Yemen, including Sanaa; de facto control is distinct from recognition as Yemen’s national government. Iran’s regime is the only state identified in the supplied research as formally recognizing the Houthis as Yemen’s government. Yemen’s internationally recognized authorities have continued to contest their rule.

International responses must also account for civilians under Houthi control. The United Nations continues to use Hodeidah as a principal entry point for humanitarian assistance, while the movement controls aid partners, port access and substantial public institutions. Arms restrictions under Security Council Resolution 2216 and sanctions against smuggling networks seek to limit military supplies. The coexistence of humanitarian dependence and Houthi military use of ports has made Hodeidah central to both relief operations and regional security.

Current status

As of 2026, the Houthis retain control of Sanaa and much of northern Yemen, with Abdul-Malik al-Houthi as movement leader and Mahdi al-Mashat heading its political council. They remain a major force in Yemen’s unresolved civil war and continue to pressure Saudi Arabia over compensation and maritime access. Their 2026 blockade focused on Saudi Arabia damaged the truce that had reduced fighting since 2022. Fighting, coercive governance and interference with public employment continue to shape life in Houthi-controlled territory.

The movement’s position on the Red Sea coast gives it continuing capacity to threaten Bab-el-Mandeb, the Suez route and international trade. In September 2026, it captured additional coastal territory, including Mayyun Island and Mocha, strengthening its position near the strait. Its missile and drone attacks on Israel and vessels connect the Yemeni war to wider regional conflict, including the Iran–Israel war. The Houthi movement remains an armed governing force inside Yemen and an Iran-backed terrorist threat beyond its borders.