Houthis

Vincent J. Curtis

7 Feb 24

Hamas opened its war with Israel on October 7, 2023, with a surprise attack that killed over 1,200 people, many of them brutally, and taking another 246 people hostage.  The war did not go well for Hamas, and Israel’s success created a response from an unexpected quarter: Yemen.  In support of the Palestinian cause, the Yemeni Houthis opened a campaign to close the Gulf of Aden, the Straits of Bab Al-Mandeb, and the Red Sea to international shipping.

On December 26, the Houthis fired twelve one-way attack drones, three anti-ship ballistic missiles, and two land attack cruise missiles over a ten-hour period, according to U.S. Central Command.  The U.S. has deployed the U.S.S. Eisenhower carrier group, with two Arleigh Burke class missile cruisers (passim, ad nauseum) into the region to keep the sea lanes open.  The anti-missile weaponry the U.S. possesses include SM-2s (Block 11A-RIM66) (472 cm long, range: 125 nmi., cost: $2.5m), SM-6s (RIM-174) (660 cm long, Range: 230 nmi., cost $4m); the Evolved Sea-Sparrow Missile (ESSM: range 50 nmi, cost: $1m) which is effective against low-flying threats such as anti-ship cruise missiles and drones; as well as CIWSs.

There are four Super-Hornet squadrons on board the Ike, and are equipped with APG-79 electronically scanned array radar, plus Sidewinder air-to-air missiles ($450k) and AMRAAMs ($1m).  The Super-Hornet was first operationally deployed in 2002

On February 2^nd, the Houthis attacked with twelve UAVs, an Uncrewed Surface Vessel (USV), and anti-ship ballistic missiles in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, with minimal effect.

On February 3nd, 2024, the U.S., along with UK RAF Tornado fighter-bombers out of Cyprus, attacked Houthi bases in Yemen, hitting multiple underground storage facilities, command and control centers, missile systems, UAVs, storage and operational sites, radars, and helicopters, according to U.S. CENTCOM.  This strike was connected with Operation PROSPERITY GUARDIAN, which Canada supports diplomatically but without any operational hardware.

The Houthis are a large clan that originated in Yemen’s northwestern Saada province. They are Zaydi, a form of Shiism, making them natural allies of Iran and enemies of Saudi Arabia. Zaydis are a religious minority in Yemen, comprising about a third of its population.

The Houthi movement emerged in northern Yemen in the 1990s out of anger at alleged Saudi financial and religious influence in Yemen. There is a lot of domestic Yemeni politics at play in the Houthi campaign in support of the Palestinian cause.

Abdul Malik al Houthi has been the group’s spiritual, military, and political leader since 2007. Little is known of him, and he’s rarely seen in public. His brother-in-law, Youssef al Midani, is deputy leader. Malik’s two brothers, Yahia and Abdul-Karim, are also senior leaders in the movement.

The Houthis are said promote no coherent ideology, and that their political platform is likewise vague and contradictory. The Houthi originally wanted to imitate Hezbollah, that is, to have power without actually ruling.

The Houthis made themselves a useful ally of Iran in the latter’s effort to destabilize Sunni states in the region: fighting a war with Saudi Arabia starting in 2015 and firing ballistic and cruise missiles of Iranian types into Saudi and, in 2022, at Abu Dhabi.  I say “of an Iranian type” because Iran vociferously denies supplying the Houthis with weapons and training, despite being caught red-handed on several occasions (Tehran calls such claims “false, irresponsible, destructive, and provocative”), and so it must be that these semi-literate tribesmen, without technical sophistication or an industrial base, manage to produce identical copies of their patron’s exotic weapon systems themselves.

Treacherous and bloodthirsty doesn’t being to describe the politics of the region. The Houthis killed ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh, a former ally, on December 4, 2017, in a roadside ambush, after having killed a former top advisor to Saleh the previous August. Iranian officials celebrated Saleh’s death.

Even semi-literate tribesmen have access to sophisticated weaponry, and, but for distance, the CAF and Canada are naked against it and to the barbarism controlling it.

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