As the world focuses on Palestine, an Islamic proxy war in Yemen has now claimed the lives of over 150,000 people, and an additional 250,000 Yemeni men, women, and children have starved to death from the resulting famine. Yemen has been ground zero for a cold war gone hot between Islamic superpowers Saudi Arabia et. al., and Iran for nearly a decade now. Most people in the West seem to be unaware of this war and its sheer scale. It has directly involved 12 different countries, with half a million belligerents fighting with billions of dollars worth of cutting-edge military technology. In size and scope of human suffering, Yemen has now been the home of the world’s largest humanitarian crisis for nearly a decade.
There are no protests, no activist movements, no mass ceasefire calls, and no corporate denouncements of this conflict. It has quietly eradicated the sovereignty of a nation and replaced it with foreign-funded fundamentalist fighters from a bizarre radical sect called the Houthis, intent on dragging the Middle East back to the Stone Age. They are led by the belief that death in war is better than prosperity in life, with a flag that reads, “God is Great, Death to America, Death to Israel, Curse upon the Jews, Victory to Islam.” Given the context of the enormous response from different partisan factions around the Middle East to Israel’s war against Hamas, it’s confusing to see such a colossal humanitarian crisis go completely unprotested.
Iran is directly responsible for a list of humanitarian crimes so enormous that it cannot be overstated how catastrophic and generationally destructive their actions have been. Besides the casualties of war, a famine has raged across the country and claimed ever more innocent lives. The World Food Programme estimates that nearly two-thirds of the country suffers from food insecurity, totaling 19 million people. Millions have been directly displaced as supply lines are cut off and towns are engulfed in fighting. This has been caused by both the Houthi rebels confiscating resources and the resulting devastation from Saudi coalition bombing. Foreign aid is also stolen by Houthi rebels, meaning the most desperate people are left without. Slavery has been reintroduced into the Arabian Peninsula thanks to Iran’s Houthis, with African slaves being forced to serve powerful Houthi leaders. Alongside slavery is the sex trafficking of Ethiopian and Yemeni women, who are systematically raped and tortured by Houthi commanders as war concubines. As if their depravity knows no bounds, the Houthis have actively recruited and trained child soldiers, resulting in thousands of armed children dying in suicide-style attacks. The children are captured and indoctrinated in camps and mosques across Houthi-controlled territory and, in many cases, forced to fight. Finally, like all full-scale, all-inclusive humanitarian disasters, there’s an enormous amount of disease spreading across the country. Specifically, cholera in this case, where, according to the European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations, 2.5 million cases have occurred between 2016 and 2021.
The Belligerents.
Saudi Arabia led the initial invasion into Yemen in an attempt to stamp out the Houthi terrorists, backed up by the United Arab Emirates, Sudan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, and Senegal. They were supported further indirectly by the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Canada, and South Korea. These factions fought alongside the legitimate Yemeni government forces and several groups of Yemeni partisans that fought against the Houthi terrorists. Further cooperation was given by Djibouti, Eritrea, and Somalia. In very American fashion, the Saudis called the invasion “Operation Decisive Storm.” With such enormous international support and a Saudi budget, one might believe that victory might have been assured. Yet, after nearly $300 billion spent and 150,000 killed (nearly entirely Houthi terrorists and Yemeni civilians), the Saudi coalition pulled out, conceding the war for now with a ceasefire in 2022.
Saudi Arabia et. al.
Saudi Arabia led the way, making up the majority of forces in the war against Iran’s Houthis since 2016. They’d already begun to get dragged into a war with the Houthis in the years prior, as the Arab Spring had given room for a power vacuum in Yemen, resulting in the rise of the Houthi terrorist organisation. Since 2012, they have begun to bomb Saudi Arabia at an ever-increasing rate. The incentives for Saudi Arabia to react are there: 500 Saudi civilians have been killed by indiscriminate Houthi missile attacks, alongside the deep threat to the country’s bank account in the form of oil shipping routes. But, despite their righteous cause, Saudi Arabia found itself almost roleplaying as America trying to conquer Afghanistan, with similar expensive and bogged-down results. Many think tanks and lobbyist groups knew that this was going to be the case. A fascinating report from the Wilson Center, a Congressional nonpartisan council of researchers, pointed out as far back as December 2015, when the invasion was in its infancy, that not only would the Saudis get bogged down, not only would they lose enormous amounts of money (as much as $200 million a day), but that the end result would be failure. Saudi Arabia’s heavy-handed approach made today's Israel-Palestine conflict look like a game of paintball, but it’s been fascinating to see how little the world has protested or reacted to the near glassing of an entire state filled with 30 million people.
Wilson Center Report "Saudi Arabia's Yemeni Quagmire"
The United Arab Emirates doesn’t have a reputation for war; when one thinks of an Emirati, one rightly imagines a man made soft through decades of European-level bourgeois living. They too had the same reasons to worry as Saudi Arabia: God forbid an Iranian-made missile lands amongst a shiny carbuncle in Dubai or a goofy theme park in Abu Dhabi. Their involvement involved much pomp and circumstance, but their commitment to both fighting the Houthis and other terrorists, including the Muslim Brotherhood, and also bringing aid to those affected by war, has been impressive. The UAE state news outlet “The National” claims that the UAE army has helped over 17 million Yemenis in every governorate of the country. Even if this is another Emirati exaggeration, it’s likely that their charitable efforts have been enormously important to those that did receive them. A big part of their role in the conflict has been lobbying their weapons dealer (the USA) to put and keep the Houthi terrorists on the list of proscribed terrorist organisations. The UAE embassy in Washington, DC, put out a scathing and in-depth report as part of this effort. A quick look at the contents reads, “Chapter 1: They Talk Like Terrorists; Chapter 2: They Act Like Terrorists; Chapter 3: They Are Terrorists; and Chapter 4: The Houthis Are Terrorists,” with chapters 6 through 8 being titled the same as chapter 4. If ever you’re wondering about the difference between seeing Houthi terrorists as either terrorists or some kind of rebel group or separatists, the report is a highly convincing read. One interesting internal conflict with Saudi Arabia has been over Saudi Arabia's allegiance with the Muslim Brotherhood, an extremist faction born out of Egypt, and their militia group Al-Islah in Yemen. This continues to be a point of contention today.
UAE Embassy in Washington DC Report on Houthi Terrorism
Egypt, as well as being a close ally and partner to Saudi Arabia, relies heavily on the fees paid by shipping companies traversing the Suez Canal. It accounts for 10% of the country’s operating budget, which represents a big chunk of revenue for a country with widespread poverty problems. Their contribution to the war has been relatively small compared to that of other nations, with a contingent of warships and warplanes, though this is not likely due to any sheepishness in getting involved in fighting. Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry was sure to announce publicly that they fully endorsed the war and were prepared to provide even ground troops should that be necessary. Like everyone else in the world at this point, the Egyptians have a financial incentive to help eradicate the Houthi infestation in Yemen.
Iran.
As far as belligerent forces go, Iran is the big one. It is through Iran alone that this has become a gigantic continental conflict, stretching to international conflict with the current threat to shipping. It is thanks to the Islamic Republic of post-revolutionary Iran that rampant killing, slavery, child soldiers, indiscriminate explosive mining, cholera, famine, and all-round misery now engulf Yemen with no signs of stopping. Iran is single-handedly responsible for an enormous amount of Islamic war and slaughter around the world, from Boko Haram to South Sudan, from the Hamas paedophile rapists to Hezbollocks itself. There has been no greater threat to peace in the Middle East, followed in close proximity by ISIS, Al Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood, and probably the United States (at least in the past). They’re funding every schizophrenic psychopath with a grudge against the world, and there’s no sign it's slowing down. Not only have they been funding those conflicts, but they’ve now begun to directly engage in war after bombing Iraq, Syria, and Pakistan. At the same time, Iran has also been directly attacked by forces such as ISIS and al-Qaeda. What could the logical conclusion of Iranian hatred be? What is the goal? What does a “victory” in this never-ending battle look like?
In my opinion, Iran is led by a pressure-cooker government. A “pressure cooker government” is my terminology for a government built on constantly accelerating an active and hostile movement against a perceived enemy. However, the pressure cooker element reflects that there are factions within that government that are more loyal to the concept of the war than they are to the will of the government. This results in state elements such as military divisions or other state actors becoming more active, more hostile, and more extreme than the government would like. For example, Iran has long been actively hostile to pretty much all of the Middle East and the West, yet a state actor, General Soleimani, was acting way beyond the Iranian government's remit. Although his actions were within the grand theme of Iran’s hostilities, he was an uncontrolled state actor who pushed far beyond what the government wanted. There exist other state actors within Iran that operate in much the same way, and this may go some way to explaining why Iran is so randomly and incoherently getting involved with genuinely evil and unsustainable terrorist groups around the world. The pressure is building day by day, and every now and again the lid blows off, revealing how little control the government really has over the hatred it has fostered in its own country.
This might explain why Iran has suddenly begun to bomb pretty much everyone around them and is aligning themselves with groups and organisations that could never be allied with or even friendly to their regime long-term. Does anyone in the world think that, should Boko Haram gain a big foothold in Africa, they will continue to have a totally friendly and happy relationship with Iran? One crucial element about fear- and violence-led groups is that it only takes two bad actors half as mean as the main guy to take him down; the violence machine perpetuates and incentivises ever-higher levels of violence and hatred. It’s why the cruellest and most ruthless dictators rise to the top; it’s why groups like these have never sustained themselves for longer than a news cycle. Iran is making the world pay the price for its complete and utter dedication to hatred.
The “Legitimate” Government of Yemen.
When the ruling Yemeni government under President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi was pushed out of the capital city of Sana’a, they “ruled” from Saudi Arabia between 2015 and 2022. In 2022, President Hadi transferred his power to a council of politicians known as the Presidential Leadership Council, or PLC. The PLC rules mostly from the southern city of Aden and has attempted to bring back some government functions. But before Hadi, there was Saleh. Yemen, under the government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, was a corrupt banana republic full of human rights abuses long before the start of the war. A good comparison for understanding Saleh might be to compare him to Gaddafi. Saleh reigned from 1978 as President of North Yemen until 1990, when he became President of the now-unified Yemen as a whole, until 2012, when he was ousted by a national uprising in the wake of the Arab Spring. In an attempt to keep power, he allied himself with the then-budding Houthi rebel movement before reneging on this arrangement. This led to his assassination at the hands of a Houthi sniper as he attempted to flee an attack on his compound. Saleh’s reign is best described as a kleptocracy, and he was thought to have embezzled as much as $60 billion during his reign, mostly from his own country, from foreign aid, and from repeated demands for money from the US to combat terrorism in his own country. His rule has been very similar to that of many other repulsive national dictators around the world: steal all of the wealth, squash the opposition, and live in luxury as the country starves. Another running theme of his presidency can be summed up as “he went full ahead with this initiative before changing his mind and going in the opposite direction.” He had an interesting life worth reading about; he was a soldier at the age of 11, purged his military during his reign, oppressed the Jews in Yemen, opened a museum dedicated to himself, survived previous assassination attempts, and pretty much lied and cheated everyone at every opportunity all the time without fail. In the end, he’d created the very enemy that has now engulfed the state and even eventually shot him dead.
It’s an interesting non-juxtaposition to Houthi control; in reality, the previous government was really awful too. One could cynically yet accurately say that Yemen has never really had any period of peace and prosperity in many generations, and maybe not really ever. The big difference these days is that this disease of war is now beginning to spread outside of Yemen, where Saudi civilians, Israel, and international shipping lanes have now become the targets of bombing, as opposed to almost exclusively other Yemenis. Where is the country to go from here? What realistic future is there for the country where people get to forget the constant echo of gunfire and explosions? It seems like there is no appetite for any kind of internal peace and prosperity. What on earth could a solution be? Is there such a thing as a solution for Yemen? It’ll likely take generations of attempts at peace to bring about a foundation on which the country can begin to rid itself of the chains of eternal conflict, and hope is in short supply. It only takes moments to destroy decades of progress. So long as Iran is funding war, and so long as the Houthis try to export their war and their hatred, the world will not leave Yemen alone. The PLC has a lot of work to do.
Houthis.
The Houthi flag reads: God is Great, Death to the USA, Death to Israel, A Curse Upon Jews, Victory to Islam. It’s a clear indication of who they are and what they intend to do. Their cause is much wider than that of an internal rebel group fighting against a corrupt government. Houthi isn’t an ethnicity from a region of Yemen, but rather an extremist group from the 1990s originally led by a distinct Islamic sect known as Zaidi Shias. Zaidi Islam is an even more extreme version of Islam, and one of their distinct beliefs is that they can only be ruled by a descendent of the Prophet Muhammad. They’re named after the Houthi family that founded the group, which is currently led by Abdul Malik al-Houthi. He has cultivated a messianic image with Hitler-esque fiery speeches, yet he sits in Iran’s pocket as another puppet in a long line of puppets controlled by God-knows-which Iranian state actor. It’s under Abdul Malik's leadership that Yemen sinks further into depravity and misery than it did under the previous Yemeni administrations. It is by his hand alone that war has engulfed the country, and, like with all violent pressure-cooker-style groups, he essentially has no choice but to continue to escalate and escalate. There’s no such thing as backing down and coming to a total ceasefire with the world for him; he is a warmonger, a slaver, he’s armed children, he’s corrupted his culture, and he’s invited more war into the country than anyone thought possible. Abdul Malik is a cockroach that must be squashed.
Houthi Crimes Against Humanity, and Saudi Coalition War Crimes.
The conflict in Yemen has brought about a litany of allegations that both sides are responsible for great crimes. As Houthis are terrorists and Saudi Arabia is a country signed up to the Geneva Convention, they are judged relatively differently, but one mustn’t forget: this is a war. People will be killed, cities and towns will be battlegrounds, and civilian structures are handy hardpoints for fighting forces. However, this does not excuse what may be fairly described as an extremely heavy-handed strategy from the coalition. From bunker busters being sent through hospitals to accusations of direct civilian targeting, Saudi Arabia has not behaved in a manner that comfortable and safe Europeans would prefer them to.
In some ways, the dilemma facing the Saudi coalition has been the same as with Israel and their war against Hamas. When the terrorists hide amongst civilians and use hospitals and schools as staging grounds for shelling opposing forces, is it the fault of the coalition or the terrorists that those schools get bombed in response? When Houthis indoctrinate, train, and arm children with bombs and rifles to shoot Saudi troops, is it the fault of the Houthis or the Saudis that those children get shot in response? It’s lazy to “both sides” this argument, in my opinion. Although this is a fair philosophical question that I wouldn’t necessarily die on a hill over, I do, at the moment, sit on the perspective that it is the direct fault of those who put the innocent in harm’s way on purpose. But whether it’s Hamas using machine guns to prevent their Palestinian human shields from escaping or Houthis putting AK-47s into a little boy's hands and pointing him towards coalition forces, it should serve as a stark reminder to the West that the Iranian-backed Islamic terrorist cockroaches of the world are far more depraved and disgusting in nature than we could possibly understand.
Houthi Crimes Against Humanity.
The Houthi fighters were labelled terrorists by the Trump administration, only for Biden to repeal this designation. Confusingly, only a matter of years later, Biden has very recently reinstated that designation of “terrorist” group over the Houthis. It’s a term that’s relatively loaded; terrorist officially means a non-state group that uses terror tactics to enforce or push forward a political or religious agenda. Terror tactics would be things like suicide bombing in crowds of people, firing rockets randomly into villages, or stabbing people of a sexuality or ethnicity that you religiously cannot tolerate. As the Houthi forces have now taken power in Yemen, it’s difficult to still see them as “non-state” actors. What’s the difference between an evil, murderous rebel faction engaging in civil war versus an evil, murderous terrorist group? This isn’t a setup for an offensive joke. The Saudis and Emiratis have long lobbied the Biden administration to reverse their removal of the Houthis from a terrorist watchlist; the shipping attacks also forced Biden's hand, and he has once again unrepealed a Trump administration move and returned the Houthis to their rightful designation as terrorists.
Houthi leaders have undoubtedly been the most offensive to human rights out of any of the parties and are strong competitors for first place in the international human rights abuses competition. Under their rule, many of humanity's great ills have returned to Yemen. It would be difficult for me to recreate the sheer volume of distressing details that are being reported on by a wide variety of international research groups and think tanks. As I’ve already alluded to their crimes—mining, slavery, and the use of children as soldiers—I have compiled a short list of some of the best reports available on each of the issues.
Carnegie Endowment report on Mines in Yemen
Asharq Al-Awsat report on slavery in Yemen
Al Jazeera News documentary on slavery in Yemen
Arabic Center Washington DC report on Child Soldiers
Saudi Coalition War Crimes.
Saudi Arabia has put a lot of firepower down on the mostly poverty-stricken country of Yemen in an attempt to rid it of the Houthi infestation. Tens of thousands of bombs in air strikes, thousands of missiles, tens of millions of small arms munitions, and thousands of heavy weapons shells have been expended in the war. The Saudis, as well as all of their allies, have a very clear and even righteous incentive to go to war with the Houthis, so it’s difficult, in my opinion, to paint a moral equivalence between Houthi crimes and Saudi crimes. None of the belligerents have the same views of war as those cushy European think tanks in Switzerland. It’s difficult to hold coalition forces to the same standards that we might expect from our own forces in the UK. It’s also very clear that the coalition has worked extremely hard in extremely dangerous situations to provide aid and relief to as many Yemeni civilians as they possibly can, and that this has been a big part of their overall strategy. The Houthis have no real mitigating actions in this same respect, so as fair as some accusations of heavy-handedness may be for the coalition, it would be a farce to draw a moral equivalence.
However, one of the more concerning accusations has been the Saudi response to refugees attempting to cross the border, escaping the conflict in Yemen. There was a story about a brutal massacre that had taken place at the border between Saudi Arabia and Yemen, and it’s not the only case of this coming to light. Fearing infiltration from Houthi fighters, Saudi soldiers have been brutally repelling any and all people who have attempted to cross into Saudi Arabia from Yemen. They’ve been using mortars and machine guns to repel the border-crossers, even if they’re refugees. There exists a distressing first-hand account of a Yemeni child losing all of her fingers on one hand to a machine gun bullet from a Saudi border guard. Another, from the Human Rights Watch report, includes accounts of dozens of people being killed in a single incident of bombing. The accusation from Human Rights Watch is that there have now been hundreds of border-crossers in this fashion. Many were Ethiopian refugees already fleeing one conflict in their home country. Even with this accusation, it should be pointed out that the Houthis have played a similar role to the cartels in Mexico, trafficking victims across the country, extorting vulnerable refugees, raping women, enslaving some of the refugees, and even just murdering those that couldn’t pay. That border is now dotted by the graves of those unfortunate enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Human Rights Watch report on Saudi killings at the border
The Islamic World’s Response.
It was amazing to see that even McDonalds in Malaysia had to put out statements about the Israeli war on Hamas, denouncing the conflict that Hamas has brought to Gaza. Yet there remain no words, no airtime, and no famous voices when it comes to anything on Yemen. No denouncement of the heavy-handed Saudi coalition approach. No protests against Houthis as they train little boys to fight and die in their ways. No statements of protest from McDonalds against the Iranian government as it continues to set the Islamic world ablaze through its terrorist funding and direct air strikes on neighbours. No TikTok trends about real-life chattel slavery; no popular hashtags raising awareness about the systematic torture and rape of women who are forced into being concubines for evil terrorists. No Western leftist denouncements on the use of human shields by Houthis, no pink-haired queers against the laying of mines across the country that lay in wait to kill and maim completely innocent, usually very young victims, often decades after the conflict. The loud and undeservedly proud children of the internet do not have anything to say, nothing to tweet, and nothing to post. A conflict whose crisis dwarfs that of Israel and Palestine, and yet near silence.
What is it that draws so many people to Israel’s war on Hamas yet steers them clear of the conflict in Yemen? It might be too lazy to suggest that it’s hatred of Jews, though it certainly plays a part. It might be less lazy to suggest that it’s because the conflict mainly involves Muslims fighting each other and the uncomfortable reality of Islamic terrorism. It might also be much closer to true to suggest that it’s because the United States is relatively uninvolved as far as massive international war coalitions go, and those loud ethno-socialists of the West, as a result, don’t really care. They never really had any principles at all besides hatred of America and anything Western. It’s why there’s total silence on Boko Haram as they slaughter their way through Nigeria. It’s why there’s barely an eyebrow raised at Sudan’s own civil war. Do the lefist racists have such a low opinion of these people that this is just acceptable to them? Or do they have such a narrowly focused, West-hating view of the world that any other type of conflict simply confuses them enough to deter their interest? It’s difficult to gauge. Leftists and the ethno-socialist cockroaches of the West aren’t a group led by principles, knowledge, or the non-discriminatory love of their fellow man. They’re led by a simple vision and a simple hatred; they are a few steps removed from the Houthi animals currently destroying their own country.
More Reading Links:
Reliefweb report on Cholera Outbreak
Global Conflict Tracker report on War in Yemen
Responsible Statecraft Article on Iran’s terrorism troubles
*Note: Some of the images are real photos but with creative AI edits purely for artistic purposes.