More than 2,500 years ago, Chinese philosopher and founder of Taoism Lao Tzu warned that no misfortune is greater than underestimating an enemy. Treating an opponent with contempt, he cautioned, is among the costliest mistakes a commander can make.
Unfortunately, that lesson has been consistently ignored against the Houthis.
Over the past two decades, a strikingly varied set of adversaries – Saudi Arabia and the other Sunni Gulf monarchies, Egypt, Israel, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Yemen’s own government – have dismissed this tribal militia as a backward, containable force.
The contempt has been expensive.
The Houthis have become one of the world’s most resilient and powerful non-state actors, having their own drones, long-range missiles capable of hitting Israel, anti-ship cruise missiles, and a disciplined and highly motivated militia force capable of fighting modern organized armies supported by some of the earth’s richest countries.
Over the past few weeks, they have enforced a naval blockade of Saudi Arabia, hit Saudi oil refineries with drones and missiles, and gained new territory with lightning speed.
We have all seen videos of professional soldiers of the internationally recognized Yemeni government, supported by Saudi Arabia, coming out of their modern US-supplied armored vehicles and surrendering in front of malnourished teenagers with no fancy gear, no uniform, no empire branding, not even proper military training.
An American armored vehicle and a Saudi soldier surrender to a Yemeni soldier armed only with a Kalashnikov rifle.
Worse still, the soldier defecated in his pants out of sheer terror of the Yemeni fighter. Lol pic.twitter.com/KRKQB4RNIq
— ابراهيم ناجي Ibrahim Naji (@Ibrahym22Nagi) August 3, 2026
With the capture of Mokha, a medieval port city on the Red Sea coast, once famous for supplying coffee to the whole world and also giving its name to Coffee Mocha, the Houthis now effectively control the Bab el-Mandeb, the strategic choke point on the Red Sea.
⚡️BREAKING: Yemen's Houthis have Shot Down a Turkish Akinci Drone operated by Saudi Arabia
Houthi troops can be seen walking Barefoot on the Hot Sand pic.twitter.com/jjRZiEUDV1
— ☫ ألأحداث ألإيرانية بالعربية (@_Iran_English) July 27, 2026
During the capture of Mokha, three brigades of the Yemeni Army surrendered in front of the Houthis, along with all their weapons.
🇾🇪Yemen
🔻 Three brigades of US-Israeli-Saudi proxy govt army & its militias of mercenaries,
with all their light,
heavy weapons & equipment,
surrendered to the Yemeni Ansar Allah on the fronts of Hays, Al-Mokha, Al-Khokha, Taiz & Al-Jawf. pic.twitter.com/fyksPrk4Wi— Vox Ethica (@VoxEthicabr) September 10, 2026
Building on their rapid gains, the Houthis also captured the strategic Zuqar Island in the Red Sea, which can control maritime traffic heading south to Bab-el-Mandeb and north to the Suez Canal.
Iran now effectively controls both choke points of the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf and Bab-el-Mandeb in the Red Sea, giving it control over nearly one third of global crude supply.
The Houthis’ rapid advance against a far better-armed, better-financed, and better-trained opponent has raised a critical question: What makes them such a potent fighting force?
Why is it Hard to Defeat the Houthis?
The Houthis, also known as Ansar Allah (Supporters of God), are a Zaydi Shiite politico-religious movement from Yemen’s northern highlands.
The more common term, Houthi, refers to its founder, a politician and Zaydī activist named Hussein Badr al-Din al-Houthi. They began as a local revivalist movement in the 1990s and evolved into the dominant armed and governing force in much of northern Yemen after 2014.
Although the Houthi movement began in the 1990s, its roots go back more than a millennium.
Houthis follow Zaydism, a branch of Shia Islam, also called “Fivers,” as opposed to Iran’s ‘Twelver’ Shia sect. It is named after Zayd ibn Ali (d. 740 CE), a direct descendant of Prophet Muhammad and great-grandson of Ali.
The Zaydi sect follows Imams, who must be descendants of Ali and Fatima. Fatima was the daughter of Prophet Muhammad and was married to Ali, who was also a cousin of Prophet Muhammad.
All the Imams of the Zaydi sect, therefore, are living descendants of Prophet Muhammad and Ali and Fatima.
Notably, Zaydi Imams have ruled northern Yemen from the late 9th century until the 1962 revolution, for over a millennium.
Although the Imams’ power was not unlimited and had to be balanced with tribal structures, they still unified spiritual and temporal power within this institution.
The Imam’s rule also benefited from northern Yemen’s mountainous landscape, its deeply tribal structure, and weak state formation in this remote area.
In 1962, Yemen’s republican revolution overthrew the last imam and sparked a civil war lasting until about 1970.
So for the last 11 centuries, followers of the Zaydi sect in northern Yemen followed the rule of Imams and were not integrated into the broader Yemeni state.
Today, Zaydis form roughly 30–45% of Yemen’s population.
After 1962, the new Republican Yemeni state, centered in the capital, Sana’a, ignored and discriminated against the Zaydis, which further led to their social, educational, and economic marginalization and a feeling of alienation.
In the 1980s and 1990s, two major events revived Zaydism.
The 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran sparked Shia revival movements in many places. The new Islamic regime in Tehran also believed in exporting the revolution to other parts of the Middle East and supported proxy groups, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Ansar Allah in Yemen.
Further, Saudi support for Sunni Islamist fundamentalist movements such as Salafism and Wahhabism in Yemen threatened the distinct identity of Zaydis, and it directly led to the rise of the Zaydi revivalist movement in the 21st century.
In 1997, Hussein Badr al-Din al-Houthi established the Believing Youth movement, a network of Zaydī youths.
In 2003, President of Yemen Ali Abdullah Saleh supported the US War on Terror, which further led to differences between the Believing Youth movement and Yemen’s government.
It was around this time that Hussein al-Houthi adopted the slogan: “God is great, death to America, death to Israel, curse the Jews, victory for Islam.”
Between 2004 and 2010, the Saleh-led Yemeni government fought multiple wars against the Houthis to crush their movement, but the Houthis emerged victorious in each conflict.
The Houthi takeover of the Yemeni capital of Sana’a in September 2014 and their subsequent move southward toward Aden prompted Saudi Arabia to form a coalition of nine Gulf countries, including the UAE, Jordan, Egypt, Kuwait, and others, and launch its ill-planned 2015 military campaign against the Houthis.
The Saudis and the Emiratis hoped for a quick victory.
However, from 2015 to 2022, the Houthis absorbed airstrikes from this Gulf coalition, combined with a ground offensive by the Saudi-supported Yemeni Army.
Unable to dislodge them, the Saudis struck a peace deal with them in 2022.
However, the Houthis were attacked again in 2024, this time by a coalition of the US, the UK, and Israel. These airstrikes followed Houthi disruption of Israel-linked maritime traffic in the Red Sea.
Again, in 2025, the US conducted a three-month-long military campaign, Operation Rough Rider, against the Houthis.
The US carried out more than 1,000 strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen using two carrier strike groups, B-2 bombers, fighter jets, and drones. The stated goal was to restore freedom of navigation in the Red Sea and degrade Houthi missile and drone capabilities.
However, unable to achieve its objective, President Trump announced a ceasefire in May 2025, brokered by Oman.
The Saudi-Houthi ceasefire collapsed in July this year.
The key trigger was when Saudi Arabia launched airstrikes on the Sanaa airport to stop an Iranian flight from landing. The Houthis responded by firing missiles toward Abha airport in southern Saudi Arabia, the first major cross-border exchange in years.
Fighting then escalated in August, and the Houthis declared a naval blockade of Saudi Arabia.
However, the Houthi offensive gained momentum in September, and they have captured huge territory and multiple strategic cities on the Red Sea coast since then.
The Houthis currently have the momentum, and they look unstoppable.
The Saudis are in this battle only half-heartedly. Without air cover that only the Saudis could provide, the Yemeni forces are collapsing on the battlefield like a House of Cards.
The Houthis’ successes carry a blunt lesson: a movement rooted in local society and driven by religious conviction does not need advanced weapons, vast funding, or a professional army to humble far stronger powers.
The Taliban showed this in Afghanistan. The Houthis are proving it again.
- Sumit Ahlawat has over a decade of experience in news media. He has worked with Press Trust of India, Times Now, Zee News, Economic Times, and Microsoft News. He holds a Master’s Degree in International Media and Modern History from the University of Sheffield, UK.
- He can be reached at ahlawat.sumit85 (at) gmail.com
