Despite deal with US, Yemen’s Houthis have lots of fight left
| London
Amid a rapidly escalating exchange of fire this week between Israel and Yemen’s Houthis, the United States announced the end of its own expensive, seven-week campaign of airstrikes against the Iran-backed group.
While the U.S. campaign degraded Houthi capabilities, analysts describe the setback as likely only temporary, saying the Houthis’ military supply lines, underground stockpiles, and desire to fight are intact.
U.S. President Donald Trump said Tuesday that the Houthis had “capitulated” and “don’t want to fight any more,” and therefore agreed to halt attacks on U.S. shipping in the Red Sea, in a ceasefire brokered by the Gulf state of Oman.
Why We Wrote This
Yemen’s Iran-allied Houthi rebels reached a ceasefire with the United States after U.S. strikes degraded their military capabilities. But analysts say they are already in rebuilding mode, with supply lines and a desire to fight Israel intact.
But the Houthis spoke in triumphant terms about the end of U.S. strikes, and the hashtag #YemenDefeatsAmerica spread online. They also vowed to keep up military strikes against Israel, in a continuation of their long-distance bid to force Israel to end its war in Gaza and its blockade of Palestinians there.
For 18 months, the Houthis have regularly fired missiles and drones at Israel and Israel-bound ships, and on Sunday for the first time struck near Ben-Gurion International Airport outside Tel Aviv, triggering several airlines to suspend their flights. The Houthis warned of “repeated targeting” of the airport to come.
Israel retaliated with waves of airstrikes, which damaged the Houthi-controlled Hodeidah port and destroyed Sanaa International Airport – both key conduits for humanitarian aid in one of the poorest countries in the world.
The U.S.-Houthi ceasefire did not include stopping attacks against Israel in “any way, shape or form,” chief Houthi negotiator Mohammed Abdulsalam told Reuters.
Indeed, attacks against Israel “will continue” and go “beyond what the Israeli enemy can withstand,” Houthi political leader Mahdi al-Mashat said in a statement.
According to analysts, the weeks of U.S. strikes since mid-March – which reportedly cost the Pentagon more than $1 billion to conduct – damaged the Houthis’ military capacity. The U.S.-Houthi agreement was reached as Washington pressures Iran to halt support of its Yemeni ally and continue indirect talks, also mediated by Oman, on limiting its nuclear program.
U.S. Central Command stated in late April that it had struck more than 800 targets, resulting in a 69% drop in Houthi ballistic missile launches and 55% drop in drone attacks.
“The airstrikes inflicted serious damage on Houthi capabilities, killing several field commanders and key experts in missile and drone operations,” says Nadwa Dawsari, a Yemen expert at the nonprofit Middle East Institute in Washington.
“This is the first time the group has faced sustained military pressure, and that pressure is what pushed them to accept a ceasefire,” she says. “But for the Houthis, the ceasefire is a tactical pause: a chance to regroup, recalibrate, and rebuild. Their smuggling infrastructure across the Horn of Africa remains intact, and with continued support from the IRGC [Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps], they are already restocking.”
Just last week, notes Ms. Dawsari, despite intense American and Israeli surveillance, local monitors reported the largest weapons shipment to the Houthis this year, delivered through seven smuggling routes across the Red Sea to Houthi-controlled points along the coast.
“IRGC and Hezbollah experts remain on the ground, assisting the Houthis with weapons systems and cross-border attacks,” says Ms. Dawsari. The ceasefire with the U.S. “is not a capitulation, but rather a tactical maneuver.”
A glimpse into the quality of the military support reaching the Houthis came last August, in the hold of a Red Sea trading ship delivering fertilizer that was intercepted by a Yemeni faction backed by the United Arab Emirates.
Hidden among the cargo was a smorgasbord of precision equipment, including hundreds of air frames and fins for precision-guided 270mm artillery rockets, small turbojet engines, and elements of hydrogen fuel cells that could dramatically increase the payload and extend the range of drones, according to evidence detailed in a March report by Conflict Armament Research field investigators.
The result of receiving such equipment would be a “major escalation in Houthi capability,” the report found, and a first-such sophisticated effort “by any non-state actor, globally.”
Houthi leaders have made clear they remain undeterred by the U.S. and Israeli campaigns, and have instead portrayed them as bolstering their regional street credibility as members of Iran’s “Axis of Resistance” alliance against American and Israeli influence in the region.
While other key elements of that axis have since been heavily damaged by Israel – Hamas in Gaza, and Hezbollah in Lebanon – the Houthis continue the fight. Iran also lost a key regional ally in Syria when the regime of Bashar al-Assad was toppled late last year.
The Houthis, who have been subject to U.N. arms embargo since 2015, were declared a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. on March 4.
“In the future, neither side will target the other, including American vessels” in the Red Sea and adjacent waters, Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi posted on X, to explain the U.S.-Houthi ceasefire. The result will ensure “freedom of navigation and the smooth flow of international commercial shipping,” and marks “the end to the conflict” between the U.S. and the Houthis.
But the deal makes no reference to Israel, and the U.S. State Department confirmed it was separate from the Israel-Houthi fight.
“The Houthis want to remain a thorn in the side of Israel and the United States,” Dr. Elisabeth Kendall, a Yemen expert at the University of Cambridge, told the BBC.
“It’s hard to say how effective [U.S. and Israeli airstrikes] have been overall, because it would take time for any diminishing in the Houthi stockpiles and military capability to start to show through,” she said.
“The Houthis remain undaunted, and ... they will be able to keep going because they have stockpiles underground that are hidden,” said Dr. Kendall. She noted that the Houthis were undeterred by tens of thousands of airstrikes mounted by a Saudi-led coalition during seven of the last 10 years.
“It’s safe to say that the war won’t be won on military intimidation of the Houthis alone,” she said. “It will require a much broader and more holistic approach.”
