The Middle East is burning, and they're nowhere to be seen; Where have the Houthis gone?

Houthi leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi stated on March 5 that his group is prepared to launch attacks at any time.

“As far as military escalation and action are concerned, our fingers are on the trigger, and we are ready to act if the course of events requires it,” he said in a televised address.

However, unlike Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Iraqi armed groups, the Houthis have not officially declared entry into the war.

The Houthi religious doctrine does not entail loyalty to Iran’s Supreme Leader in the same way Hezbollah and the Iraqi groups do. While Iran promotes them as part of its regional “Axis of Resistance,” Yemen experts say the movement is primarily driven by internal goals, even though it shares political closeness with Iran and Hezbollah.

The United States claims that Iran arms, funds, and trains the Houthis with the help of Hezbollah, while the Houthis deny acting on Iran’s behalf and assert that they develop their own weapons.

The Houthis are a military, political, and religious movement led by the Houthi family, based in northern Yemen. They belong to the Zaidi sect of Shia Islam.

The movement has a long history of guerrilla warfare against the Yemeni army, and it expanded its power and established closer ties with Iran following the Arab Spring protests in 2011. Exploiting the country’s instability, the group seized the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, in 2014.

A year later, Saudi Arabia led a coalition of Arab states in a military intervention attempting to oust the Houthis. During the conflict, the Houthis demonstrated significant missile and drone capabilities, striking oil facilities and critical infrastructure in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

After years of fighting, which created one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, the United Nations mediated a ceasefire between the warring parties in 2022, which largely remains in effect.

Attacks in the Red Sea

Following a Palestinian militant Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which triggered a devastating Israeli military campaign in Gaza, the Houthis began targeting international vessels in the Red Sea, claiming it was in support of the Palestinians.

They also launched drones and missiles at Israel, which responded with airstrikes on Houthi targets. The United States also conducted strikes against the Houthis. These attacks ceased after a U.S.-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was established in October 2025.