The power behind the power: How Qatar helped the Houthis become a threat to Israel
While the militia recently emerged as an unlikely menace to international shipping, its combative influence in the region has long been amplified by Doha
Executive Director ROPES (Regional Organization For Peace, Economics & Security); Senior non-resident fellow Atlantic Council; former member of Knesset (Hatnua)
The Yemeni Houthi militia shoots missiles at Israel and blocks international shipping routes on the Red Sea. Its members dance traditional Yemeni dances on the ships they seize, and they chant “Death to Israel, death to America.”
While the Houthis — who also go by the name “Ansar Allah,” or “Supporters of God” — have emerged as a fresh and mostly unexpected threat to Israel and global security since the start of the war in Gaza, the terror group had already posed a major threat to its Gulf neighbors before the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas conflict on October 7.
Today, the Houthis enjoy unprecedented popularity and support in the Middle East — despite being backed by Iran. Also overlooked is the damage they are causing to the economies of Egypt and Jordan due to the halt of maritime activity in the Red Sea, as well as their attacks against Saudis, Bahrainis, and Emiratis, and extrajudicial killings of Yemenis themselves.
Al-Jazeera and other Qatari media are playing a huge role in whitewashing the militant group, amplifying the Houthi commitment to the Palestinian cause and casting them as the Robin Hoods of the Middle East.
How did a relatively small minority that has had little success rebelling against the Yemeni government since the early 1990s become so effective and powerful?
It happened through a unique confluence of geopolitical circumstances, and regional backers –including the Qataris — have brought them from near-obscurity to the forefront of the global arena.
First, a look back
The Houthis stem from the Zaydi Shia minority rooted in a mountainous area of northern Yemen. After the fall of the Ottoman Empire, they formed a theocratic kingdom that existed until 1962, when its leader died. His death emboldened voices that called for modernizing and joining the Arab nationalist movement.
A proxy battle followed between the nationalists, who were supported by Egypt, and the royalists, supported by Saudi Arabia, Britain, and Jordan, with the nationalists emerging victorious and the establishment of a Yemeni republic in 1968.
Things were far from calm. Then, in 1990, the president of Yemen, Ali Abdullah Saleh — himself a Zaydi Shia — united the country following prolonged and bloody civil wars. But his fellow Zaydis weren’t long placated. They rebelled against him in the ’90s, and then again in the 2000s.
Experts believe that the Houthis — who have adopted the name of their leader Hussein al-Houthi — were largely radicalized by the 2003 US war in Iraq but escaped global attention at the time. Another possible catalyst for their radicalization lay with the rapid emergence of Salafist-jihadi groups in Yemen such as al-Qaeda, and later, ISIS. These terror organizations expanded their power significantly in Yemen during the 2000s and often attacked Shia areas in the north, likely triggering defensive radicalization.
At that time, the Saudis helped Saleh in his fight against the Houthis, but it was clear that the north was reaching a boiling point and the jihadi groups were also gaining prominence in other areas.
The situation spun out of control in 2011 after the Arab Spring, when millions of Yemenis marched against Saleh’s regime and demanded his resignation. The regime was shaken and weak, and it was the Houthi rebels’ cue to act. In 2014, the Houthis took control of some parts of southern Yemen as well as the capital, Sanaa.
Mighty regional backers – Iran and Qatar
A leaked confidential UN report states that the Houthis received weapons from Iran for the first time in 2009. After the Arab Spring, the alliance became closer and by 2015 a full-blown military conflict erupted in Yemen between the central government and the Houthis, with the Iranian weapons already pouring in. The Saudis led a 10-country coalition that backed the internationally recognized government, which was now exiled from its capital.
By 2017, Qatar, a country that originally joined the Saudi coalition against the Houthis, backed off and pulled its forces out of Yemen, mostly due to a rift with the Saudis and other Arab countries that eventually resulted in their blockade of Qatar and the severing of diplomatic relations between the countries.
Soon thereafter, the Saudi press revealed interesting details regarding the nature of relations between the Qataris and the Houthis. While previously it was common wisdom that Doha supported the Islah — an Islamist Sunni party that is ideologically close to the Muslim Brotherhood — now, according to Saudi sources, the Qataris were also supporting the Houthis.
A July 2019 article published in the Saudi daily Okaz titled “The Poisonous Qatari Money” accused the small emirate of “play[ing] a dual role in Yemen,” supporting the Houthi rebels in Sanaa and the Muslim Brotherhood to sow discord and spread chaos in Yemen, which is now suffering humanitarian consequences from the Houthi coup. Thousands of Yemenis have died in indiscriminate Houthi attacks on their homes and government hospitals, said the article.
“The Qatari weapons were not supplied to organized forces, but weapons of destruction designed to carry out specific operations to target and undermine the security stability of [Sanaa], which is a symbol of Yemen’s legitimacy, to mix the cards and make way for the Muslim Brotherhood to expand its influence,” it said.
In 2020, Yemeni Information Minister Moammar al-Eryani warned Qatar over its backing of the Houthis in a Twitter post, calling on Qatar and Al Jazeera, “whose position has become clear in identifying with the Iranian project in Yemen and its Houthi tool… to review its policies and distance itself from the swamp of Yemeni blood in which Iran’s mullahs are immersed, as history will not be merciful to anyone.”
Towards 2022, the Qataris were skillfully installing themselves as the mediators between the United States and their Houthi protegees in Yemen in a manner that closely resembles its situation vis-à-vis the Palestinian terror group Hamas, which was funded and supported by Qatar for many years.
However, there are still some in the region who are well aware of the Houthi alliance with Iran and Qatar. They point out the absurdity of the alliance between a militia that chants “Death to America” and Qatar — a country that hosts a massive American base on its territory and is considered to be one of the strongest American allies in the region.
But the current role of Qatar in the “Houthi phenomenon” is yet to be fully explored and analyzed — not only in the context of Yemen and the 2015 war with Saudi Arabia, but within the wider frame of its being a regional disruptor and serial supporter of the Middle East’s most violent and dangerous militias, parties, and terrorist organizations.
The writer, a former member of Knesset, is a senior non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council and executive director of ROPES.
