author | Surya Tallavarjula
The Rise Of Ansar Allah
Ansar Allah, commonly called “Houthis” or “Houthi Rebels,” had humble roots. It began as a purely theological movement, with its first organization, The Believing Youth, established in 1992 (1). This organization, founded by Mohammed and Hussein Al-Houthi, was based in the city of Sa'ada, a city in the Northwestern corner of Yemen. Sa'ada was the historic birthplace of Shia Islam in the seventh century and served as a base for Zaydism, a sect of Shia Islam, throughout the remainder of the first and second millennia (2). The Believing Youth established school clubs and summer camps to promote a Zaidi revival in Sa'ada, gaining approximately 20,000 members by 1995. Some notable speakers at these events included Mohammed Fadhlallah, a prominent Lebanese Shia scholar, and Hassan Nasrallah, the current secretary general of Hezbollah (3).
One of the fundamental reasons for the creation of the BY (Believing Youth) was a response to foreign intervention and the alleged corruption of the Yemeni government. Some of their key grievances included Saudi influence over ideologies in Yemen such as the emergence of Wahhabism, alliance with the United States, and marginalization of Zaydi Muslims (4). After the 2003 US invasion that left over one million Iraqis dead, BY-affiliated youth adopted more extreme anti-American and anti-Israel chants. Due to the Yemeni government’s affiliation with the US, they feared that anti-American sentiment could lead to resistance against the government. This led to the arrest of over 800 BY supporters in 2004 in Sana'a, the capital city of Yemen (5). Hussein Al-Houthi, one of BY’s founders, responded by leading an insurgency against the central government but was killed on September 10th, 2004. The insurgency, however, continued until a temporary ceasefire was reached in 2010. Yemen’s president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, led numerous campaigns to suppress the rebellion with the aid of equipment and troops from the Saudis. Due to the superiority of weapons carried by the Yemeni government and Saudi forces such as modern tanks and aircraft, Ansar Allah typically bore the brunt of casualties. Ultimately, however, Ansar Allah prevailed in terms of retaining their home base of Sa'ada: a major humiliation for the Saudis who spent tens of billions of dollars to no avail (6).
In 2011, large demonstrations broke out in Sana'a. Tens of thousands of protesters gathered, demanding an end to President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s regime. Ansar Allah capitalized off of this social unrest, launching attacks and ultimately gaining control of the majority of Sa’ada, Al Jawf, and Hajjah governorates as well as access to the Red Sea. The Gulf Cooperation Council, consisting of various Gulf States such as Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, and others, oversaw the power transfer to Abdrabbuh Mansur Al-Hadi. Ansar Allah refused to accept the GCC deal for various reasons, namely that it divided Yemen into poor and wealthy areas (7). According to a Newsweek article written during the aftermath of the 2011 revolution, the Houthis [were] fighting "for things that all Yemenis crave: government accountability, the end to corruption, regular utilities, fair fuel prices, job opportunities for ordinary Yemenis, and the end of Western influence" (8). On August 18th, 2014, Ansar Allah began a series of demonstrations against increased fuel prices in Sana'a. On September 16th, the protests and the ensuing repression by government security forces led to violent clashes and left approximately 340 people dead. On September 21st, Ansar Allah took control of Sana'a, after which Prime Minister Mohammed Basindawa resigned and the Houthis signed a deal for a new unity government with other political parties (9). This forced the internationally-recognized government into exile, to reside in the Southern port city of Aden. Ansar Allah had, at this point, transformed their localized Northern rebellion into a full-scale nationwide revolution.
An Exploration Of Zaydism
To make sense of the Ansar Allah insurgency, it is critical to first explore their ideological roots. Zaydism is a Shia-Islamic school of thought which emerged in reverence of Zayd's failed uprising against the Umayyad Caliph, Hisham (r. 724–743 AD). This fundamental aspect of the ideology’s origin set a precedent for revolution against corrupt rulers. According to Hussein al-Houthi, a founder of the Ansar Allah movement, Zaydis find it difficult to ‘sit in their houses' and remain passive in an unjust world (10). Some scholars argue that Zaydism is “simply a philosophy of political government that justifies the overthrow of unjust rulers'' (11). While they may make this argument, there are some concrete theological differences between Zaydism and other forms of Shiism. Firstly, Zaydis reject Taqiyyah, the practice of religious dissimulation to protect one’s religious identity from enemies; certain Islamic sects legitimize this practice. This can be attributed to the fact that Zaydis lived safely under Zaydi rule in Yemen for over a millennium, while other Shiite sects experienced persecution under Sunni rule.
Zaydis also do not believe in the infallibility of Imams— in contrast with Twelver and Ismaili Shias— although they do believe that the Imamate must be a descendant of Husayn or Hasan ibn Ali. Thirdly, while Zaydis believe that Ali was the rightful Caliph, they do not reject Abu Bakr and Umar outright: in fact, the term ‘Rafidah’ was born out of Zayd ibn Ali’s refusal to condemn to first two Caliphs of the Muslim world, a term used by many Salafis to this day to refer to Twelver Shias (12). This fact demonstrates a contrast between Zaydi and Twelver beliefs regarding Abu Bakr and Umar, the first two Caliphs. Generally speaking, the vast majority of Zaydi theological beliefs are common with mainstream Sunni and Shia Islam, although they rely less on Hadith (stories about the prophet Muhammad PBUH) and mainly use Hadiths that are consistent with the Quran (13). The Zaydi sect is almost exclusively found in Yemen; approximately 35% of Yemenis are Zaydis and the remaining 65% are Sunnis.
At the most practical level, Zaydis believe in resisting oppression to a much larger extent than other Islamic sects. Zaydis’ theological literature emphasizes justice, human responsibility, and their political implications, i.e. Muslims have an ethical and legal obligation by their religion to rise and depose unjust leaders including unrighteous sultans and caliphs (11). Thus, the revolutionary ideals necessary for bottoms-up political movements are ingrained into the ideology: the very nature of rising against corrupt rulers rules out the concept of placing one’s entire trust in an authority figure, creating a safeguard against internal corruption.
In other sects of Islam (and other cultures/religions worldwide), there is a larger emphasis on the trust and obedience of rulers, caliphs, and scholars. While people may have ambitions for political change, this thought process of blind, absolute obedience often proves to be the kryptonite to such ambitions. Any political or scholarly figure could easily be corrupted without the obedient masses taking notice, and injustice could be rebranded as justice in the face of the uncritical. Also, the concept of human responsibility is arguably the most fundamental element of a bottoms-up revolution. If the majority of people believe in their personal responsibility to enforce justice at a macro level, they will be active participants in a movement for political change. However, if the masses believe in blindly placing their trust in rulers, scholars, and other figures of authority to enforce justice and truth, such a revolution is unlikely to occur.
Ultimately, it is no surprise that Ansar Allah is leading the charge of rebellion as this is a fundamental aspect of their theology. This foundational concept of shared human responsibility makes them nearly impossible to crush: killing any leader will not profoundly impact the movement as another leader will inevitably rise to the occasion. This is evident by how the Ansar Allah insurgency continued until 2010 despite their leader, Hussein Al-Houthi, being killed in 2004. Furthermore, a movement founded on the principle of collective involvement with goals shared by the populous can potentially cross religious sectarian divisions. In an interview with the Yemen Times, Hussein Al-Bukhari, a Houthi insider, said that the Houthis' preferred political system is a republic with a system of elections where women can also hold political positions and furthering that they do not seek to form a cleric-led government: "we cannot apply this system in Yemen because the followers of the Shafi doctrine are bigger in number than the Zaydis" (14).
Although Ansar Allah has undoubtedly shored up plenty of Sunni support, there are still controversies surrounding the unfair treatment of the Sunni majority by Ansar Allah. The BBC reports that "[t]here are rumors that the Houthis are targeting Sunni mosques in the capital and changing their imams," while noting that the call to prayer was changed from the Sunni to the Zaydi version (BBC 17 Mar. 2015). In addition, it is stated that Ansar Allah believes that those who do not swear allegiance to it are working with the Saudi-led coalition and that as a result Sunnis have been discriminated against. While these are very valid concerns, the fact remains that the overwhelming evidence shows both Sunni and Shia Yemenis can coexist, as was the case for a millennium, under Zaydi rule in Yemen. As we will observe, it is important to maintain a certain level of skepticism in what foreign entities have to say about Ansar Allah and maintain a focus on primary source evidence.
Genocide Of The Yemenis: The ‘Coalition’ Of International Powers And Their Collective Crimes Against Humanity
On the 26 of March 2015, Saudi Arabia led a coalition consisting of itself, the UAE, Sudan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, and Senegal with the backing of the USA, the UK, France, and Canada to intervene against Ansar Allah at the request of Saudi-installed president Hadi. This initial operation, Operation Decisive Storm, consisted of roughly 190 aircraft and 180,000 troops from these nations. Multiple nations contributed warships to the operation to establish a naval blockade to prevent potential aid to Ansar Allah (15). In addition to these States, non-state entities such as ISIS and Al-Qaeda with a localized presence took to fighting Ansar Allah (16). Ultimately, fighting continued until a temporary truce was reached in April 2022. As of the writing of this paper in January 2024, Saudi Arabia has resumed the bombing of Yemen.
The Saudi-led coalition has leveled schools, homes, infrastructure, and cultural heritage sites in Yemen while continually repeating the same excuse, “only military targets are hit by airstrikes.” However, the observable conditions on the ground show a blatant disregard for international humanitarian requirements with the mass killing of Yemeni civilians including thousands of women and children, and the mass starvation of noncombatants in Yemen (17). The Saudi coalition has implemented a crippling blockade in Yemen, condemned by humanitarian experts worldwide, ceasing the flow of food and medicine for Yemenis while at the same time enabling the flow of arms to the Saudi-led coalition. Yemen had traditionally imported over 90% of its food supplies, but the Saudi-led embargo stopped virtually all food imports. About 2 million were malnourished, including 1.3 million children - 320,000 of whom were suffering from severe acute malnutrition in 2019 according to a BBC report (18). As of January 2024, over 377,000 civilians have been killed with around 150,000 killed in direct combat action according to UN estimates (19).
Since November 2013, the US has provided over $35 billion in arms to the Saudis, and the British have supplied the Saudi coalition with over $9 billion in new weapons. Saudi Arabia claims the main purpose for the intervention to be the supposed Iranian backing and influence of Ansar Allah. However, US intelligence in early 2015 asserted that Iran had advised Ansar Allah against capturing the Yemeni capital and that Iran was not engaging in the movement beyond religious ties between scholars, revealed in a classified WikiLeaks document (22). The WikiLeaks document also revealed that the main reason for the Houthi uprising was local issues such as corruption, imperialism, and economic austerity, not Iranian clerical influence. Despite this intelligence, the US and UK continued to provide weapons to the Saudis, a practice that was widely condemned across academic circles and made the US complicit in crimes against humanity. Based on the UN definition of genocide - a crime committed with the intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group, in whole or in part - there can be no doubt whatsoever that the coalition is guilty of genocide and that Western powers such as the US, UK, France, and Canada are complicit in genocide.
Why World Powers Are Afraid Of Ansar Allah, And Why They Failed To Destroy Them
The question arises: why were these prominent Arab and Western powers so dedicated to defeating Ansar Allah? Ultimately, the reason has to do with the concept of bottoms-up revolution, a phenomenon feared by every world power. In Saudi Arabia and the UAE, demonstrating is illegal and can result in imprisonment or even assassination. One example of this is Jamal Khashoggi - a vocal Saudi journalist against the Saudi intervention in Yemen - who was assassinated on October 2, 2018, in Turkey. Additionally, a retired teacher was sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia after making a post on Twitter criticizing this action (20). In fact, according to former residents, the Saudi and UAE regimes go so far as giving premeditated scripts to Imams to be read during community prayer which parrot pro-government policies, imprisoning those Imams that do not follow the script. The message is clear: we are scared of dissent and people organizing from the bottom of the pyramid. Why?
Bottoms-up revolutions are incredibly difficult to crush. In such a revolution, there is no top-down structure, i.e. one can’t extinguish a bottoms-up movement just by killing its leaders. To truly extinguish such a movement, one must try to demoralize them to a point at which they give up or imprison/kill all of their participants. The Saudis ultimately failed in demoralizing them or making them sell out to corruption: the ideas of Ansar Allah were too powerful to destroy. Since Saudi’s stated aim of restoring their puppet leader Hadi to power required the removal of Ansar Allah, Saudi Arabia’s final option was to wage genocidal warfare. Despite genocidal techniques such as using starvation as a weapon of war and indiscriminate bombings, the Saudi-led coalition completely failed to achieve its stated aim. Ansar Allah is stronger in 2024 than in 2014, gaining more support and fighting experience. It seems almost impossible: a coalition of over eleven states with the backing of four prominent Western powers, able to massacre 377,000 people but unable to make a dent in Ansar Allah's resistance. How?
In Yemen, Ansar Allah and the people are fundamentally inseparable, as the movement represents and stands for things the vast majority of Yemenis want and transcends sectarian squabbles. It’s quite clear that if the majority Sunni population wanted to rise against Ansar Allah, they could have easily done so with the backing of the international world. They did not; instead, they joined forces with them in large numbers. According to Abdulqawi Esmail Esmail, a Yemeni citizen who lived in Sana’a during the genocide, approximately 60% of Ansar Allah is Sunni (21). Ansar Allah could not be defeated from within Yemen or externally; the collective community of Yemen was mobilized with one goal, revolution and resistance. Many Yemenis were motivated by their faith, and would rather die the honorable death of martyrdom than do the bidding of external powers. This made them an impossible army, capable of taking on the most advanced weaponry with their willpower alone. The factors that made such unity and resistance possible must be studied: both by dictatorships that seek to maintain oppressive rule and by revolutionaries who seek to topple it.
A Connection To The Concept of Revolution
First and foremost, a revolutionary movement should have an ideological backbone. This ideological backbone should be compatible with the things in society that people value. At the most fundamental level, the Zaydi sect preaches individual responsibility to ensure justice. People aren’t taught to sit back and wait for somebody else to save them; they are taught that if they see something corrupt in the world, they have a moral duty to act to fix it. This mindset makes a bottoms-up movement possible and prevents a corrupt centralized power structure from forming, as individuals are not looking to put all their trust in authority figures to deal with external difficulties.
Secondly, the movement must transcend sectarian and ideological differences in the broad masses and represent values that everyone can get behind. This is critical in terms of mobilizing the masses and creating a sense of community and belonging that resonates throughout all of society. Ansar Allah was able to appeal to both Sunnis and Zaydis, uniting and mobilizing them in the cause of justice. The fact that Ansar Allah is estimated to be 60% Sunni, close to the proportion of Sunni Muslims in Yemen (65%), shows that Yemenis of all backgrounds are siding with Ansar Allah.
Thirdly, the movement will inevitably be faced with internal and external disturbances and one can expect the establishment powers to be ruthless if they feel their power is threatened. In the case of Ansar Allah, there were many disturbances, the most prominent of which were the leaders of the Arab world and many prominent Western powers engaging in genocidal warfare against them. They also had to resist radical extremist groups such as ISIS and Al Qaeda, many of whom were found to be Saudi nationals (21).
Lastly, the movement has to be absolute in its values and expose hypocrisy: any weaknesses will be exploited by the establishment powers. Ansar Allah was able to resist internal weakening by maintaining hard lines ideologically and carefully weeding out intruders. Analyzing their slogans— which include phrases such as “death to America,” “death to Israel,” and “victory to Islam”— we observe that Ansar Allah is uncompromising in their beliefs. After witnessing the slaughter of over a million Iraqis at the hands of the Americans and the daily abuse of Palestinians by the Israelis, they aren’t willing to water down what they say to satisfy other regional players. Using these techniques, Ansar Allah and the Yemeni people were able to endure the most excruciating suffering at the hands of external powers who sought to destroy them for what they represented: a bottoms-up revolution.
What Ansar Allah Is Doing Today
As of January 2024, Ansar Allah’s territory covers 80% of Yemen’s population, with the remaining territories under the control of the Southern Transitional Council (STC), the government of Yemen (GoY), Al Qaeda, and ISIS. Ansar Allah is becoming more relevant and known globally, albeit by their unofficial nickname “the Houthis.” The fact that regional powers are referring to Ansar Allah with this nickname is quite telling: Arab leaders don’t want the masses to associate these people with their name’s meaning - the supporters of Allah (God). In any case, the simple fact that broad masses of Yemenis are getting behind the message of Ansar Allah is becoming more apparent: hundreds of thousands of people, often well into the millions, have shown up to protests in Sana’a against Israeli aggression in Palestine. Ansar Allah is leading these protests, and many protestors are holding up signs of Ansar Allah’s slogan and pledging their allegiance.
As a result of the mass outrage toward the treatment of Palestinians by the Zionist entity, Middle Eastern politics are under an intense microscope, giving Ansar Allah more publicity than usual. Ansar Allah declared war on the Zionist entity on October 31st, 2023. They have vowed to shut down the Red Sea for all ships Israel-bound until Israel stops its assault on the civilians of Gaza. Due to the targeting and seizure of Israel-bound ships, shipping companies have been forced to take a longer route around the Cape of Good Hope to reach Israel, costing billions of dollars. Beginning on the 11th of January, the US and UK launched a series of airstrikes supposedly targeting ‘Houthi infrastructure,’ effectively starting a war to protect Israeli supply chains.
Ansar Allah and the Yemeni people have put everything on the line to put pressure on Israel; there is nothing they gain at an economic or political level by doing this other than attracting the attention and aggression of their enemies. They are not afraid of the consequences, however, and claim to be doing so purely out of moral and ethical necessity. While most Arab rulers have done nothing for Palestine other than hollow words of support, Ansar Allah has done everything in their capability to exert maximal economic and military pressure on Israel, winning the hearts of authentic pro-Palestinians worldwide. There is no greater example of the spirit and essence of Ansar Allah than the actions they have taken to defend those under attack in Gaza: they are not worried about war and confrontation, they are rooted in their morals, and they stand for what they believe is just.
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Disclaimer
This article is not intended to be an endorsement of Ansar Allah or their ideology. The goal is not to argue that Ansar Allah is a direct model for other revolutionaries to follow, nor that they are necessarily role models of morality. Rather, this paper intends to bring to light the political situation in Yemen, illuminate the key methodologies used by Ansar Allah to create a revolution in Yemen, and expose the global world order’s fear of such a revolution.