Houthis Say They Will “Target” All Ships Headed for Israeli Ports

Patrick Mondaca, Warrior Non-Resident Fellow

Since October 19, 2023, United States and Israeli militaries have intercepted multiple missile and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) barrages against Israel fired by Houthi fighters in Yemen. A defense official also confirmed on November 8, 2023 that a U.S. MQ-9 Reaper drone was also shot down in international airspace off the coast of Yemen. Then, in an attack lasting several hours on December 3, 2023, the guided-missile destroyer U.S.S. Carney shot down three UAVs in response to a distress call from commercial ships under fire by Houthi missiles and drones. Later that week, France’s multi-mission frigate, the Languedoc (D653), shot down two more UAVs launched from Yemen; and on December 16, 2023, U.S. and British warships reported the shooting down of 15 UAVs.

The Houthis, who effectively declared war on Israel following the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas militants, have been firing salvoes of ballistic missiles and drones from Yemen in what Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree said was an effort “to help the Palestinians to victory.” This effort, which now includes targeting commercial shipping in the Red Sea, was reiterated by Saree on December 9, 2023 who warned, “If Gaza does not receive the food and medicine it needs, all ships in the Red Sea bound for Israeli ports, regardless of their nationality, will become a target for our armed forces.”

It must first be said that the Houthi military spokesperson speaks for the Ansar Allah, or the “partisans of God” Houthi militant movement, and not Yemen’s internationally recognized government currently based in Riyad, Saudi Arabia. The movement is primarily affiliated with Zaidiyyah, a subsect of Shi’a Islam that split off in the eighth century after Zayd ibn Ali‘s unsuccessful rebellion against the Umayyad Caliphate. Zaidi Shiites are in the minority both in relation to Shi’a Islam and in the primarily Sunni Yemen. And while long established in northern Yemen, they have fought to wrest control of the remainder of the country from the Sunni government.

Theologically, Zaidiyyah differs from Iran’s official state Ja’afari, or Twelver, Shi’i denomination in that they believe in the appointment of an Imam by consensus of a community’s religious scholars. Twelvers, conversely, believe that an Imam must be appointed by the Prophet or a previous Imam. As Zaidis believe the usurping of an unjust ruler’s authority is a central qualification for any Imam, the two sects diverge on this tenet. Whereas Zaidis have a religious obligation to overthrow and replace any corrupt or illegitimate ruler, Twelvers maintain that any such rebellion should await the Mahdi’s return.

But where Zaidis and Twelvers converge is their shared ideology of rising up against Israel and Western “imperialism” and influence. Houthi resentment of U.S. involvement in Yemen has festered since the Pentagon ramped up counterterrorism operations in the region following the suicide bombing of the USS Cole in October 2000. The U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 further stoked anti-imperialist sentiment among Houthis, and the Saudi Arabia-led intervention in Yemen in 2015 using American weaponry and munitions cemented the anger. Iran’s Twelvers arming of Yemen’s Zaidis is both an extension of Iranian foreign policy and a fomenting of the existing Houthi anger against Western influence, Sunni Saudi Arabia, and a desire to confront Israel.

Iran-Backed Houthis

Part of Iran’s “Axis of Resistance,” the Houthi movement’s sarkha, or scream, is “God is great, death to America, death to Israel, curse on the Jews, victory to Islam.” It was the movement’s late founder, Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi, who first came up with the slogan in a sermon in January 2002. Inspired by Iran and Hezbollah which he called “the most important masters of jihad in this world,” al-Houthi extorted his followers to “do everything you can to terrorize the enemies of God.” At the top of this list of enemies, al-Houthi placed the United States, Israel, and the Gulf states who have formed allegiances with, as his brother and current leader of the Houthi movement, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, has also called them, “the enemies of Islam.”