As an unsteady truce endures in Gaza, further south in Yemen another peace hangs by a thread as barely concealed animosities and an economic crisis reach boiling point.
The country has seen relative quiet following a truce between the Houthis and their opponents in the south in 2022, but when the war in Gaza erupted in 2o23 it eventually extended to the coast of Yemen.
Last week, the US officially designated the Houthi rebels as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation (FTO), a decision likely to have dire consequences on the humanitarian situation and peace in Yemen, analysts and NGOs have warned.
A sign of this unease can be seen in Marib, a strategically important and resource-rich part of Yemen where a major mobilisation of Houthi forces and clashes have taken place in recent weeks, leaving the truce at its most delicate point in three years.
Farea al-Muslimi, a research fellow at Chatham House, believes a major assault in Marib or other parts of the dormant frontlines is probably inevitable this Ramadan.
“I would be very surprised if Ramadan passes without the Houthis launching a major attack on a day with theological significance,” al-Muslimi told The New Arab.
“The Houthis cannot live without a war. The Gaza ceasefire was out of their hands; if it holds up, they will have to find an internal frontline (in Yemen), and if it collapses, that will save them and they will go back to the sea.”
The Houthis have been in an almost constant state-of-war since their takeover of Sanaa in September 2014, and even when a truce with the government began in 2022 their naval forces and commandos were busy targeting shipping in the Red Sea and Israel itself with rockets, something the rebels say was an act of solidarity with the people of Gaza.
Conflict is essential for the Houthis, as a military force, to extort the Yemeni population for finances and rule by fiat, al-Muslimi says, with an absence of public services and a collapsed economy put down to the tragedies of war.
The Houthis have targeted questioning narratives, with journalists tortured and killed, aid workers detained, and NGOs – including UN offices – raided, so when the truce began, the militia had fewer excuses for the rampant corruption and dire state of governance plaguing their lands.
“There is no public electricity in areas the Houthis control, but they operate private electricity generator companies in Sanaa. There are no salaries, but they have collected more in taxes in one year than (former president) Ali Abdullah Saleh did in five years across the whole of Yemen.
“It’s a masterclass in dystopia; if I were to summarise their governance it would be a combination of FARC via their financing through illicit and licit means, they are pretty radical like the Taliban, but the other sect, combined with the isolationism of North Korea.”
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The reversal of Iranian proxy power in the region has seen Hamas greatly weakened by the war on Gaza, Hezbollah’s command structure wiped out in Israeli airstrikes, and Bashar Al-Assad’s regime vanquished, resulting in hundreds of Houthi fighters present in Syria fleeing over the border to Iraq.
It is now Yemen and Iraq that are at the forefront of this pro-Iran alliance and the weakening of Tehran’s strongest proxy forces offers the Houthi leader Abdul-Mailk Al-Houthi an opportunity to ascend to a position of regional gravitas following the death of Hassan Nasrallah.
The Houthis have two advantages for Iran: they control a vast amount of strategically important territory and have demonstrated their willingness to strike at anyone, including Israel and the US, said Al-Muslimi.
“The good news for the Houthis is that they are now in the business class seat in the Axis of Resistance; the shadow of Abdel-Malik’s godfather – Hassan Nasrallah – is out of the way, so the Houthis are now more visible and more useful to Iran, particularly with their willingness to go to any length and Abdel-Malik’s recklessness,” said al-Muslimi.
“The question is, can Abdel-Mailk inherit Nasrallah’s position? I think not; he doesn’t have the politics and experience fighting Israel, and he’s looked down on by the Iranians compared to Nasrallah. He’s also not a fixer for the Axis of Resistance and has no say in Iranian Revolutionary Guard policy, unlike Nasrallah.”
Whether the hodgepodge of southern forces could withstand an assault from a battled-hardened and unified Houthi force is uncertain, particularly following the departure of Saudi Arabia from the scene.
The formation of the Presidential Leadership Council (PLC) in 2022 offered a chance for cohesion among southern parties, and while there have been advances to the Yemeni military’s capabilities, there are questions about the level of integration of the medley of southern forces and whether they are capable of fighting the Houthis alone.
“The PLC is theocratically united at least by common threat perception vis-a-vis the Houthis,” Ibrahim Jalal, a non-resident scholar at the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center, told The New Arab.
“Over the past three years, the Yemeni Armed Forces has undergone substantive training and transformation, and integrated drones into its capabilities. Other aligned forces within the PLC, especially the Giants Brigades, have in the past demonstrated relative capacity under heavy air cover.
“In short, the Yemeni Armed Forces is thought to have improved its operational capacity and readiness, and therefore its defence posture – even without air cover – has strengthened. They will have to face the test in the event of a Houthi offensive.”
There has been huge uncertainty in Riyadh about the future of the US-Saudi military alliance since the Obama era when Washington pursued a nuclear deal with Iran and attacks on Saudi installations in 2019 by Tehran’s proxies went largely unpunished by Donald Trump.
Such ambiguity in the US-Saudi relationship has pushed Riyadh to arm itself while simultaneously pursuing rapprochement with Iran, striking a surprise China-led agreement with Tehran in 2023. Such fears will unlikely be quelled by the turmoil unleashed during the first two months of Trump’s second term in office, particularly with the way he has treated traditional US allies.
“To see Saudi Arabia re-engage in Yemen, there are at least two primary conditions: one, American security guarantees including an upgraded defence package; and two, restoring American credibility,” said Jalal.
“Saudi Arabia has not forgotten the abandonment of the first Trump administration during Abqaiq and Khurais in 2019 (two oil fields targeted by the pro-Iran militias), which did not originate from Yemen. Generally, Saudi is keener on de-escalation, despite recognising the enduring threat posed by the Iranian-backed Houthi missile and drone programme.”
Houthi attacks in the Red Sea have also dramatically reduced imports of wheat, oil, and other essentials resulting in sharp increases in insurance premiums for shipping companies.
The subsequent sharp rise in the cost of staples, such as bread, and decrepit public infrastructure in southern Yemen, due to shortages of spare parts and corruption, led to major protests in the southern city of Aden following months of rolling power cuts and water shortages.
To prevent another episode of violence, Mohamed Alsahimi, the head of STC’s UK Office, said the international community must urgently engage in Yemen’s political process while there is a need to reimagine the increasingly moribund PLC arrangement, hastily agreed in a very different political climate than the one today.
“Everybody has just been waiting for something to happen, nobody has presented any serious initiative to resolve the conflict or to at least have peace talks,” Alsahimi told The New Arab.
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“There was a roadmap which Saudi Arabia came up with but that was a peace initiative designed to get the Saudis out of Yemen and probably empowered the Houthis more because they would be paying salaries. You’re talking about billions (of dollars) given to the Houthis, which gave them the leverage to get stronger.”
If the Houthi offensive begins, analysts are still divided about how much the Gulf states will aid the Yemeni government and southern forces; the consensus is that the UAE will likely support its allies in the south, while Saudi Arabia’s involvement is more questionable.
This is due to the huge cost of Saudi Arabia’s military intervention in Yemen – around $6 billion a month at its peak the first time around – and the immense damage the thousands of civilians killed in Saudi airstrikes did to the kingdom’s international reputation.
“If you take away that cover, the Houthis will just go on to take over the rest of Yemen,” said Alsahimi.
“The Houthis are not fighting for the cause of Yemen, they are fighting for the divine right to rule the country… so there will be a real war that will destroy everything and likely spill into the region; there will be no winners in this conflict.”
