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Matthew Pipes
Political Science 331- International Terrorism
Professor Zaman Stanizai
December 12th
, 2015
Yemen’s Civil War and Why Saudi Arabia Cares So Much
Currently, a civil war in Yemen is attracting a great amount of attention, particularly from
Saudi Arabia. Yemen’s location on the border with Saudi Arabia, and one half of the strait of
Bab Al-Mandab, where much of the worlds’ oil and cargo shipping travels through, make it a
strategic focal point of international geopolitics ("Yemen Crisis:”). The side making the most
gains and attracting the most attention refers to itself as Ansar Allah, but is referred to in the
international media as “Houthis” (Eleiba). Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has long
had a presence in the country, and recently so has the Islamic State (IS). A coalition of Sunni
tribes and factions of the old government and army have organized what they call the Popular
Resistance Committees to resist Houthi expansion. In March 2015, A coalition of Arab states
intervened on the side of the Popular Resistance Committees, countering what they saw as an
Iranian threat ("Yemen Crisis:”).
Ansar Allah is a militant offshoot of the Houthi Movement. The Houthi Movement takes
their name from its founder Al-Sayed Hussein Badr Al-Din Al-Houthi, who died in the first
uprising in 2004. The Houthi Movement sought to counter what was called the “American
Project” by Al-Houthi. The American Project was the pressure put on Yemen, and most
countries in the world, after September 11th
, 2001, by the United States to crack down on
religious fundamentalism. Furthermore, Al-Houthi accused the then US Ambassador to Yemen
of funneling hundreds of millions of dollars worth of weapons into Yemen to support the regime

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of Ali Abdullah Saleh. These weapons were used to eliminate all opposition which included the
Houthi Movement, which militarized into Ansar Allah. From 2004 to 2011, six rounds of
warfare failed to eliminate Ansar Allah. These conflicts left the Zaidi community, which makes
up the majority of the Houthi Movement, outraged and ostracized (Eleiba).
What began in the 1990’s as a religious revivalist movement that preached co-existence,
was radicalized after the U.S. invasion of Iraq ("A Widening War")("A Widening War"). The
Houthi Movement claims to be non-sectarian, but their stated goals, to stop the oppression of the
Zaidi community, is very much based on their identity (Eleiba). They strongly oppose AQAP
due to their treatment of Shia, and they have incorporated Zaidi doctrine into their own (Joffe).
AQAP does not think very highly of them either and consider them apostates ("Al- Qaeda
Steps“). They have stated that they do not wish to reestablish what was called the Imamate,
which was a Shia kingdom that ruled Yemen for one thousand years ending in 1962, but their
territorial gains have exceeded far beyond their home governorates of Saada and Imran ("Yemen
Crisis:”)(Eleiba). Zaidi’s are not limited to just the north, in fact they make up as much as one
third of the entire population of Yemen ("Yemen Crisis:”).
The largest obstacle to Ansar Allah from taking over the entire country is the coalition of
ten total nations, nine of which are Sunni Arab states: Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Bahrain,
Kuwait, Jordan, Morocco, Egypt, and Sudan in addition to Senegal ("Senegal Sends”). The
motivation for this Sunni coalition is to counter what is seen as a growing threat from Shia Iran
(Murphy). Saudi Arabia and other Sunni nations are locked in a proxy war with Iran throughout
the entire Middle East. This is not new, but since the US led invasion of Iraq, it has become
much more intense. Furthermore, Saudi Arabia sees the Arabian Peninsula as its own sphere of
influence, similar to how the United States views South America. Yemen shares a long and

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undefined border with Saudi Arabia, so they like the government there to be in line with them
(Murphy). When the Houthi Movement was said to be getting support from Iran, Saudi Arabia
was keenly interested in countering that influence. It is worth noting that both the Iranians and
Ansar Allah deny any relationship between the two countries (Eleiba). Whether true or not, the
Saudis believe it, and it is that belief that has driven them to lead a coalition to remove Ansar
Allah and any Houthi influence from power and reinstate the friendly former President Abed
Rabbou Mansour Hadi (Murphy).
In February 2011, when the Arab Spring Movement spread to Yemen, the Houthi
Movement wasted no time in joining the anti-government protests, and hundreds of thousands
came out to protest in Saada Governorate. When the National Dialogue Conference announced in
February 2014, without the Houthis approval, the creation of six federal regions, it set up an
inevitable conflict between the Houthi Movement and the new government ("Yemen
Crisis:”)(Eleiba).
By 2011, a security vacuum existed in Yemen which was created by six rounds of
fighting with the Houthis, separatists in the South, attacks by AQAP, and tribal power struggles
in the military. Starting in 2011, Ansar Allah began to take advantage of this security vacuum by
consolidating their control of Saada Governorate ("Yemen Crisis:”)("Houthis' Recent…).
Eventually, by September 2014, they had taken the capital Sanaa, and by March 2015, they had
taken Aden in the South ("Yemen Crisis:”)(Eleiba).
The fall of Aden was too much for the Saudis to bear, and in March they began a
bombing campaign of Ansar Allah rebels, as well as the government they were setting up that
was Houthi/Zaidi controlled ("Pro-Hadi Coalition”). The Saudi campaign also targeted the
portions of the Yemeni Army that had sided with Ansar Allah, which included the former

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president Ali Abdullah Saleh, who is believed to be in Sanaa commanding breakaway units of
the army in support of Ansar Allah (Trew). Ansar Allah and its allies were driven from Aden in
July and by September 2015, the Saudi air campaign had expanded to become an international
intervention in Yemen with nine Sunni-Arab nations and Senegal, both in the air and on the
ground ("Pro-Hadi Coalition”)("Senegal Sends”). In order to cobble together this coalition, Saudi
Arabia, along with other Gulf nations, promised investment in the various countries ,that
participated in the coalition ("Senegal Sends”). Once enough allies were on board they moved in
tanks, armored personnel carriers, rocket launchers, and Apache attack helicopters in addition to
the air campaign to retake Sanaa from Ansar Allah and reinstate Abed Rabbou Mansour Hadi as
president ("Pro-Hadi Coalition”)( "Qatar Confirms”). As of early September, the coalition had
gathered troops in Marib Province for an offensive to retake the city. They had amassed ten
thousand troops, and were expecting six thousand more to join them from Sudan and Egypt
("Number of Saudi-led”)(Trew). It is likely that this intervention will be a year’s long process if
it is to be successful (Trew). All the Houthis have to do to win the conflict is survive (Shaheen).
So far, the bombing campaign has resulted in many civilian deaths. The intervention of Sunni
nations turned up the sectarian tone of the conflict, and hatred for Saudi Arabia and the USA in
Yemen has risen sharply since the start of the bombing campaign (Fahim).
The third crucial player, other than the Houthis and the Sunni coalition of foreign states
and the Popular Resistance Committees, is Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. AQAP was
founded by Nasir Al-Wuhayshi in 2009 after he escaped from a prison in Yemen (Shaheen).
Territorial gains are not all that the AQAP is up to in Yemen. Since September 2014, when
Ansar Allah took Sanaa, they have carried out over 150 attacks throughout the country targeting
both the former government of Hadi and the military as well Ansar Allah and their allies ("Al-

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Qaeda Steps“). Although AQAP has been degraded by US drone strikes over the past years,
("Al- Qaeda Moves”)(Miller) the group has remained active and gaining ground despite the loss
of its leader and founder, Wuhayshi, to a US drone strike in June 2015. A replacement was
quickly made, and Qassim Al-Raimi was elected the new leader of AQAP (Shaheen). Despite all
this, AQAP has consolidated control over most of Hadramout Governorate, mostly due to the
collapse of the central government (Batati). As the coalition pushes out Ansar Allah and Houthi
influence from the South and East of Yemen, the void is often filled by AQAP ("Al- Qaeda
Moves). Worse than that, the Saudi led coalition does not even appear to be attacking AQAP at
all, only Ansar Allah and the Houthi Movement. This has allowed AQAP to seize large swaths of
Abyan Governorate in addition to gains made in the east of Yemen in Hadramout Governorate
("Al- Qaeda Moves”). The Saudi government appears to be in full cooperation with AQAP, even
facilitating meetings between them and exiled President Hadi in Riyadh (Batati). Given the
current civil war, the pressure has been lifted off of AQAP some, allowing them to execute a
daring prison break in April 2015 and make territorial expansion. AQAP is not the only Al-
Qaeda franchise active in Yemen anymore; IS has also executed a few terrorist attacks on the
Houthi Movement, which AQAP has distanced themselves from (Shaheen).
The three main sides of the civil war appear to be Ansar Allah, the Saudi led coalition
and their Yemeni Allies, and AQAP/IS. These three sides all appear to be fighting each other for
dominance of the country. The stated goal of the coalition is to restore Hadi to power, but that
goal looks less and less likely every day. Once in control of Sanaa the coalition will have to
occupy the nation as it rebuilds its institutions from the ground up. All of this was done on their
part to counter the perceived threat of Iranian influence on the border with Saudi Arabia. In the
meantime, the counterterrorism operation against AQAP has been made a secondary-conflict,

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and the ensuing chaos has opened the door for IS to get involved. A fourth and forgotten faction
that is not involved in the fighting is the nation’s civilians, who are also the biggest losers in this
conflict. Yemen was the Middle East’s poorest country before this conflict, and at this stage,
eighty percent of the country is in need of assistance ("UN Declares”)("Yemen Houthi Rebels”).
So far, at least 4,500 people have been killed in the conflict, of which at least 2,110 are civilians,
and there have been over fourteen thousand injuries ("UN Declares”)("Yemen Houthi Rebels”).
Whoever wins this war, one thing is for sure, it will not be the innocent.