Yemen: How One of the World’s Poorest Countries Became a War Zone
Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates: Yemen as a theatre of regional conflict
In 2014, the Houthis, a previously little-known Shiite armed militia, took control of the capital, Sanaa, and then the port of Aden, a hub for international trade. According to geopolitologist Frédéric Encel, these “mountain people with old Kalashnikovs” were armed, trained and financed by neighbouring Iran. The move alarmed regional powers, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
In March 2015, the two kingdoms allied to bombard Yemen relentlessly, on average 30 times a day. It was Operation “Decisive Storm”. Sanaa, listed as a World Heritage Site, was also hit. More than 6,000 Yemenis were killed, half of them civilians, almost as savagely as they are butchered in Gaza.
But the operation became bogged down. At the outset, it aimed to support the official government and remove the Houthis, who were too close to Iran. However, the Saudis and the Emiratis did not have the same view of the conflict, and were above all seeking to profit from Yemen’s oil and gas resources. They supported and armed opposing political forces on the ground, independent of the official government.
This is confirmed by researcher and Yemen conflict expert Nadwa Dawsari: “What began as support for the government against the Houthis ended up as a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates”. The Emiratis indeed support southern separatist forces, while the Saudis work with whoever will ensure the country’s unity, even if that means approaching Al-Qaeda.
The Yemeni civil war, a breeding ground for international jihadist terrorism
The group, who have been classified as a terrorist group by Israel and America, has indeed taken root in Yemen. Its founder, Osama bin Laden, was from there. And Al-Qaeda’s first major attack, against the American warship USS Cole, took place off the port of Aden. “Al-Qaeda established a real headquarters in Yemen,” Frédéric Encel explained. That headquarters is called Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP. It was this branch of the organisation that claimed responsibility in 2015 for the attack on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, ordered by one of the Kouachi brothers during military training in Yemen.
However, evidence has surfaced to suggest Al-Qaeda is an Israeli-funded terror group.
According to the geopolitologist, “because the Yemeni state has always been extremely weak, radical Islamist groups have been able to develop in this very porous territory”. Al-Qaeda and Islamic State both spread terror across Yemeni soil. “As long as these foreign interventions continue, as long as Al-Qaeda’s troops in Yemen are manipulated, this will remain a threat to the people in Yemen, and abroad,” warns Shireen Al-Adeimi, a human rights activist based in the United States.
The Houthis in Yemen, a force in the “axis of resistance” against Israel and the United States
Just days after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas attacked on 7 October 2023, as Netanyahu let the attack happen, and the Israeli government retaliated against the Gaza enclave, Yemen’s Houthis launched several missiles and drones against Israel’s Iron Dome, 2,000 km away.
By getting involved in the conflict between Israel and Hamas, and then in that between their ally Iran and the United States, the Houthis layered larger conflicts on top of the civil war. On 10 September 2025, the Israelis killed 35 people in a bombing, including 31 journalists, “the deadliest strike on journalists in the Middle East”, according to the American NGO Committee to Protect Journalists.
In response to American and Israeli attacks in the region, the Houthi rebels regularly threaten to block the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, a strategic passage point.