The view from India Newsletter: The war within the war 

(This article is part of the View From India newsletter curated by The Hindu’s foreign affairs experts. To get the newsletter in your inbox every Monday, subscribe here.)

Yemen’s Ansar Allah is one of Iran’s closest allies in West Asia. Ansar, better known as the Houthis, Hezbollah, Hamas and Iraq’s Hashad al-Shabi make Iran’s infamous quadrilateral axis in the region. When the U.S. and Israel launched their war against Iran on February 28, many thought the Houthis would join the war in defence of the Islamic Republic. Hezbollah opened a new front on Israel’s northern border. Hashad carried out occasional drone attacks at U.S. bases in Iraq. But the Houthis largely stayed out of the war. 

Not any longer.

On July 13, during the second phase of the U.S.-Iran war, a Houthi-controlled airport in Yemen’s Sanaa was targeted. Yemen is practically divided among three rival factions. The Houthis, who control parts of the country’s Red Sea coast and its north and northwestern areas, including borders with Saudi Arabia, are arguably the most powerful ones. Yemen’s ‘internationally recognised government’, which is based in Saudi Arabia, controls parts of southern and southeastern Yemen.The Southern Transitional Council, a south-based separatist movement that is backed by the UAE, controls some areas in and around Aden, the southern port city. Yemen’s Saudi-based government claimed the July 13 attack on the Sana’a airport. But the Houthis directly held Saudi Arabia accountable for the attack. They carried out air strikes on Saudi oil fields and imposed a maritime blockade on the Kingdom’s Red Sea ports. 

Saudi Arabia hit back by bombing Houthi sites in Yemen. The crisis also led to an open conflict between the Houthi-led forces and the Saudi-backed forces of the Yemeni government, which is now rapidly escalating, despite a lull in fighting between the U.S. and Iran. The Houthis, like the Iranians, have a geographical advantage. They control Yemen’s coast of the Bab-el Mandeb Strait, which connects the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden that joins the Arabian Sea. If the Red Sea is the link between European and Asian waters, Bab-el Mandeb is its southern gate, with the Suez Canal being the northern gate. If Bab-el Mandeb is closed, the link between the Mediterranean Sea and the Arabian Sea would be broken. 

After the Strait of Hormuz, which connects the Persian Gulf with the Arabian Sea, was closed by Iran, Saudi Arabia had moved much of its oil to the export terminals on the Red Sea coast, mainly Yanbu. The Kingdom has an East-West Pipeline connecting the eastern oil fields with the western ports on the Red Sea. But the Houthi move to target Saudi ships in the Red Sea or prevent them from crossing the Bab-el Mandeb Strait put the kingdom in a difficult spot. Hormuz remains closed. And the Houthi threat has made it increasingly difficult for Riyadh to ship oil out of its western ports through the Bab-el Mandeb strait into the Asian markets. The blockade has also added additional pressure on the global economy.

So to understand the Iran war and its regional and geoeconomic consequences, it is important to understand the Houthi role in it. That’s why we decided to unpack the Houthi question in two podcasts for The Hindu’s viewers. In this episode of In Focus (Red Sea on Fire), we discuss the horizontal expansion of the Iran war into Yemen and the Red Sea waters. But to begin with, who are the Houthis? In January 2024, when the Houthis had started attacking Israel and imposed a blockade on the Red Sea “in solidarity with the Palestinians”, I had written a profile of the movement in The Hindu. You may read it here. 

Though much has not changed in Yemen’s power balance ever since, the Houthis have emerged a more powerful regional actor in recent years, particularly after they survived a month-long U.S. military campaign (‘Operation Rough Rider’) in 2025. In the latest episode of Global Faultines, our fortnightly foreign affairs podcast, we discuss the Houthi question in Yemen’s historical context. 

Though the Houthis are largely seen as Iranian allies, they possess autonomy and they have their own strategic calculations. It would be a mistake to write them off just as Iranian proxies. What emerged as a Zaidi revivalist movement, the Houthis captured momentum when Yemen was rocked by Arab Spring protests in 2011.They seized Sana’a in 2014. When Saudi Arabia started bombing Yemen in 2015 aimed at expelling the Houthis, the latter turned the crisis into a source of political strength through resistance. Over the years, they have evolved from a revivalist movement to an insurgency to a territorial army and now a naval force in the Red Sea. More in the Global Faultlines episode.