IndiaTheNews Exclusive: Who are the Houthis rebels? Where do they get so much money from? Why are they attacking ships in the Red Sea?

This week in IndiaTheNews News Network’s special program Shaurya Path, we wanted to know from Brigadier Shri DS Tripathi ji (Retd) that the world is troubled by the increasing attacks of Houthis in the Red Sea. What is the cause and solution of this problem? In response, he said that the attacks by the Houthis began after the Israel-Hamas war started on October 7. He said the Houthis declared their support for Hamas and said they would target any ship sailing to Israel. They said they seized an Israeli cargo ship in November and have since attacked several commercial vessels with drones and ballistic missiles.

Brigadier Shri DS Tripathi Ji (Retd) said that in response to the Houthi attacks, the US has launched an international naval operation to protect the ships. Many countries including UK, Canada, France, Bahrain, Norway and Spain have participated in it. Major shipping companies, including Mediterranean Shipping Co, Maersk, Hapag-Lloyd and oil giant BP, have said they are moving ships away from the Red Sea, he said. He said Washington has accused Iran of being “deeply involved” in planning the campaign against commercial vessels in the Red Sea.

Brigadier Shri DS Tripathi (Retd) said that as far as the question is concerned, who are the Houthi rebels? So the answer is that the Houthis are an armed group of Yemen’s Shia Muslim minority, a sub-sect of the Zaidis. They take their name from the movement’s founder, Hussein al-Houthi. The group was formed in the 1990s to tackle the corruption of then President Ali Abdullah Saleh. He said President Saleh, backed by Saudi Arabia’s military, had tried to eliminate the Houthi rebels in 2003 but the Houthis had driven them both out. He said Houthi rebels have been waging a civil war against the Yemeni government since 2014. The Yemeni government is backed against the Houthis by a coalition of Arab countries led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. He said that according to the United Nations, by the beginning of 2022, the Yemen war would have caused an estimated 377,000 deaths and displaced four million people. He said the Houthis consider themselves equivalent to Hamas and Hezbollah and have declared themselves part of an Iranian-led “axis of resistance” against Israel, the US and the broader West.

Brigadier Shri DS Tripathi (Retd) said that as far as the question is concerned, who supports the Houthi rebels? So the answer is that the Houthi rebels describe themselves as an organization modeled on Lebanon’s Shia armed group Hezbollah. According to the Combating Terrorism Center, a US research institute, Hezbollah has been providing them with extensive military expertise and training since 2014. The Houthi rebels also consider Iran an ally, as Saudi Arabia is their common enemy. He said Iran is suspected of providing arms to the Houthi rebels and the US says Iran provides intelligence to enable them to target the ships. However, Iran denies any involvement in Houthi attacks in the Red Sea.

Brigadier Shri DS Tripathi (Retd) said that the US and Saudi Arabia say that Iran had supplied the ballistic missiles that the Houthis fired on the Saudi capital Riyadh in 2017, but they were shot down. He said Saudi Arabia had also accused Iran of supplying cruise missiles and drones that the Houthis used to attack Saudi oil installations in 2019. He said the Houthis have fired 10,000 short-range missiles into Saudi Arabia and have also attacked targets in the United Arab Emirates. They have also fired ballistic missiles and drones toward Israel since the war in Gaza began, he said. He said that the supply of these weapons is a violation of the United Nations arms embargo, so Iran has always refused to do so.

Brigadier Shri DS Tripathi (Retired) said that as far as the question is concerned, how much part of Yemen do the Houthis control? So the answer is that most of the population of Yemen lives in areas under the control of the Houthi movement. He said the official government of Yemen is the Presidential Leadership Council, to which President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi had transferred his powers. However, the government is based in the Saudi capital Riyadh after Hadi fled there in 2015. He said most of Yemen’s population lives in areas under Houthi control. The Houthi rebels control Sanaa and the north of Yemen as well as the Red Sea coast. He said that this group collects taxes and also prints money. He said the United Nations Security Council had said the Houthis had 100,000 to 120,000 followers as of 2010. He said that it is a resourceful armed organization, hence its attackers sometimes attack with helicopters and sometimes with drones. He said that they had also targeted two Indian ships but that attack failed. Since then the Indian Navy has also increased patrolling. He said that these rebels have to be controlled because if another alternative to the Red Sea is found, transportation fares will increase which will lead to inflation. He said that all the countries should come together and teach these rebels such a lesson that they will not have the courage to raise their heads again.