The Gaza war has allowed the Iran-backed Yemeni militants to broaden alliances with Iraqi militias, African jihadists and Russia
of resistance” has suffered a series of blows delivered by Israel over the past month, including operations targeting the leadership of Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah, and a strike last week on Iran’s missile-making facilities used, in part, to supply the groups.
That hasn’t stopped Yemen’s Houthis from targeting more ships this week in the Red Sea with drones and missiles, the latest demonstration of how an escalating regional war appears to be boosting a once minor Iran-backed player in the region.
The Houthis have so far avoided the type of Israeli strikes that killed Hassan Nasrallah, the charismatic Hezbollah leader who turned the Lebanon-based militant group into the world’s most powerful nonstate armed force. A few weeks after his death, Israel killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who orchestrated the Gaza-based militant group’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
By contrast, the Houthis have benefited by inserting themselves into the Gaza conflict, according to Western officials and analysts. Since the war started last year, the U.S.-designated terrorist group has launched drones and missiles at more than 80 commercial ships, snarling trade and increasing shipping costs.
The Houthis are also rapidly expanding abroad, lending their considerable manpower to conflicts elsewhere and forging international links with a range of actors in the Middle East, Africa and as far afield as Russia, according to Western officials.
“One of the unfortunate offshoots of the Gaza conflict is…that the Houthis have doubled down on their contacts with other malign actors in the region and beyond,” said Timothy Lenderking, the U.S. special envoy for Yemen.
Lenderking, in an interview, called the trend “very alarming” and said the U.S. is talking with regional partners about how to respond.
SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS
How should Israel and its allies handle the threat of Yemen’s Houthis? Join the conversation below.
A Houthi spokesman declined to comment.
The Houthis, who belong to the Shia branch of Islam, are combatants in Yemen’s long-running civil war. They seized the capital, San’a in 2014, which prompted Saudi Arabia and other Sunni-led Arab countries to intervene.
Iran, another Shia power, responded by sending more arms and training to the Houthis, which drew the group closer to Tehran.
But after nearly a decade in power, the Houthis were facing a mounting financial crisis in Yemen and discontent over unpaid wages. When last year’s conflict in Gaza started, the Houthis started launching missiles and drones at both Israel and international shipping in the Red Sea.
Inserting themselves into the war gave them “renewed domestic and regional legitimacy, framing themselves as defenders of Gaza in the broader Israel-Palestine conflict,” said Mohammed Albasha, a U.S.-based Middle East security analyst.
Attacks in the Red Sea
Confirmed Houthi attacks
(Nov. 19, 2023-Oct. 29, 2024)
Note: Houthi territory is as of May 13, 2024.
Sources: Acaps (Houthi territory); The Washington Institute for Near East Policy (attacks)
Emma Brown/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
The strategy appears to have worked, building more support domestically and internationally. Houthi recruitment surged inside Yemen, and in May, the leader of the Iraqi militia Kataib Hezbollah said his group would work together with the Houthis to strike Israel.
“The Houthis have morphed from sandal-wearing fighters to rock stars. These are people who you want to be associated with right now,” said Michael Knights, co-founder of the Militia Spotlight platform, which studies Iran-backed militias in the Middle East.
A recent United Nations report written by a panel of experts found extensive evidence of Houthi cooperation with foreign militant groups. Among the cases cited were Houthi joint-operations centers in Iraq and Lebanon aimed at coordinating military actions of Iran-backed groups.
Yemen’s Houthis are transforming “from a localized armed group with limited capacity to a powerful military organization,” the report said.
The Houthis’ targeting of shipping has drawn retaliatory strikes from the U.S. and its allies, including one on Oct. 16 by U.S. Air Force and Navy forces, including B-2 Spirit bombers, targeting underground weapons stores. U.S. strikes, while damaging, haven’t done much to blunt the Houthis capabilities.
Israel has carried out some strikes against the Houthis, but has largely left the U.S. and its Western allies to confront the group
But Israel’s focus on other Iran-backed groups has inadvertently benefited the Houthis, some analysts argue. After Israel assassinated Hezbollah’s Nasrallah in late September, “the Houthis quickly stepped in to fill the political and military void within the axis of resistance,” Albasha said.
More surprisingly, the Houthis have grown closer to some al Qaeda franchises, despite the Sunni group’s traditional hostility to the Shia sect of Islam. Houthi cooperation with the al-Shabaab terrorist group in Somalia is “quite extensive,” Lenderking said, adding that the two groups are discussing ways to further “menace and threaten freedom of navigation in the Red Sea.”
The Houthis have also agreed to transfer drones, thermal rockets and explosive devices to al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and are discussing joint attacks on the internationally recognized Aden-based Yemeni government and maritime targets, according to the U.N. report.
Countries such as Saudi Arabia, Oman and Djibouti are alarmed at the trend, Lenderking said, and the U.S. is discussing with its allies increased intelligence sharing and how to block weapons transfers.
The Houthis also are looking to find new ways to get arms supplies and funding abroad, including from Moscow. Viktor Bout, the Russian arms dealer exchanged almost two years ago in a trade for U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner, is trying to sell the Houthis assault rifles.
In a move underscoring Moscow’s deepening involvement in Yemen, a Russian warship in April evacuated the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander in charge of Iran’s missiles and drones program in Yemen, from the port of Hodeidah, according to a Western security official. The U.S. is offering a $15 million reward for the commander, Abdul Reza Shahlai, for directing a plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington and a separate attack that would have killed 200 civilians on U.S. soil.
Russia has provided targeting data for the rebels as they attacked Western ships in the Red Sea and is considering delivering antiship missiles to the Houthis, U.S. officials said. The U.S. is using diplomacy to try to head off the latter transfer.
The potential move by Moscow appears to be in response to U.S. support for Ukraine, particularly the possibility that Washington would allow Kyiv to use Western-supplied, long-range missiles against Russia.
Moscow, Lenderking said, is “using Yemen as a way to get back at the United States.”
Saleh al-Batati contributed to this article.