What the Red Sea ship attacks are really about

This is the MV Ruby Mar, a British-owned freighter. She was hit by a missile on 18 February 20124 and sank in the Red Sea. The missile came from Yemen, from a group known as the Houthis. It was one of dozens of

attacks

they carried out. We have been carrying out boats in the area since November 2023. The Houthis control much of Yemen, which has been in a civil war for over 9 years. The war has caused one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world. More than 350,000 people have died. violence famine or lack of medical services the Houi say they are attacking

ship

s in the Red Sea that do business with Israel and to protest Israel's war in Gaza and its solidarity with the Palestinians and to put pressure on the actors involved in the war, but There is also another story behind the Huth, these

attacks

on these

ship

s, the story of who controls Yemen for centuries.

The most populated area of ​​Yemen was ruled primarily by religious Zis, a Shia Muslim sect. In the 1960s, a military revolution overthrew the 1980s. The region they once ruled became a Republic known as North Yemen. The early leaders of North Yemen were deposed or killed, but in the late 1960s 1970 a colonel who was part of the Revolution Ali Abdullah Salah became its president. Sah was zi, but he was not politically aligned with the zi cause and they were often marginalized in 1990 when he united the country with South Yemen and when the new government was formed, a Yemeni politician named Hussein alui started an uz zi movement in the province of Sada, where many of Yemen's zes were in most of the country, was nominated by Sunnis and his followers were strong critics of Salah and were against the growing religious and financial influence of Sunni Saudi Arabia.

In the region there was a very small militia, no more than a few thousand soldiers, who started from the ideological belief that they had to govern Yemen and as Salah cooperated with the United States in its war against terrorism it became more militarized and more hostile towards him in 2004. Salah's forces attempted to arrest Alhi, leading to clashes between his forces later that year. Salah's army killed Elhi, but this only made his movements stronger. The new leadership and its followers became known as the Houthis over the next few years, the Houthis continued to clash with the government.

Some reports say that around this time they also began cooperating with Iran, a Shia-majority country, and in January 2011 protests began to spread throughout the Arab world. repression poverty and corruption Protesters in Yemen called for Solace's resignation and demanded his inclusion in the country's political process and soon there were also militant attacks throughout Yemen by various factions who wanted Salah gone, eventually Salah resigned and was replaced by a transitional government backed by Saudi Arabia and led by interim president Abid Rabu Mansur Hadi, who initiated a national dialogue to form Yemen's new government, the Houthis initially participated in the dialogue, but after disagreeing over the new system of governance that they thought marginalized their influence, they abandoned in 2014 and that same year amid a new wave of protest over fuel prices, Hadi's national dialogue completely collapsed the Houthis saw an opportunity the president's residents were attacked followed by the nearby presidential palace has fallen the hois have in fact taken control of some parts of the capital our demands are to get rid of this corrupt government, the Houthis formed an alliance with their former enemy Salah to expand their government, deepen their control in Yemen and understand how the system works, but also game the system, and in September 2014 they took control of the capital sonat because During the transition, Yemen did not have an army to defend itself, so the hthis basically They entered the position they are in today and then extended their control to Hudaa, a key port city that gave the Houis access to the Red Sea.

Hedi fled further south as the Houthis followed. and eventually escaped to Saudi Arabia in March 2015, leaving Yemen without a legitimate government and leading Saudi Arabia into Civil War. A Saudi coalition led a bombing campaign against Houthi-controlled areas and eventually imposed a naval blockade around Yemen aimed at restricting the flow of weapons from Iran to the Houthis, but the Houthis were still able to hold territory they had seized through that chaos, they were able to expand. The Houthis are expansionist by their very nature the more Saudi Arabia intervened and the more chaos there was in Yemen. rather they would see themselves or present themselves as legitimate actors and defenders of female sovereignty against foreign invasion in the new territories they controlled, which included many non-zis and non-followers, the Houthi government was brutal and the Saudi intervention in Yemen has created a devastating humanitarian crisis and the same with the huis.

They have also created a humanitarian crisis with their absent governance system by terrorizing the local population. Basically, human rights organizations accuse both the Saudi Le Coalition and the Houthis of war crimes like air. landmine attacks and forced disappearances of opponents, women have also been imprisoned and in particular women who have some kind of defense against the houses, so their government is more brutal in that sense, they are

really

similar to the Taliban in 2017. Amid tension between Salah and the Houthis over who would wield power, the Houthis killed him in 2020 after hundreds of thousands of deaths, the Saudi Le Coalition began withdrawing airstrikes and some of the negotiations began. ceasefire between the Houthis and the Saudis.

In April 2022 it initially began with fighting in Halton, but the most recent agreement, from December 2023, aims to ease restrictions on SA airport and the port of escape and more economically open Yemen, but there was little mention of the accountability for the harm caused to Yemenis and It was still unclear how Yemen will actually be governed, but many Yemenis felt that any kind of Saudi-Saudi deal is some

what

counterproductive because it is about Saudi security rather than Yemeni security and I think that was a concern for many EMES who are I am not on the side of the hthis and I do not want to see them have absolute control in the country.

As of this video, the Houthis control territory containing over 70% of the Yemeni population, while also lacking international recognition or legitimacy and apart from their own followers within Yemen they also lack legitimacy among a Yemeni population. devastated by years of crisis. What the huis seek is to legitimize themselves to expand their support by framing their actions in the context of support for the Palestinians who want their operations to appeal to Arab sentiment and broader Muslim sentiment, so that the more they focus on Palestine, in the conflict with Israel, in the humanitarian crisis there, the more it will be distracted from the local issues of the Yemeni conflict and the governance failures that they are experiencing.

The attacks in the Red Sea have caused significant disruption to international trade and now a US-UK Le coalition is attacking Houthi-controlled areas in Yemen in retaliation, further worsening the situation for Yemenis, but There is evidence that the Houi strategy may be working across Yemen with massive protests and support. of Yemeni Palestinians are also showing support for the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea and even for Houthi leaders this suggests that although the attacks in the Red Sea are not actually evidence that the Houthis are doing anything to improve the Yemen catastrophe, may be a way for the Houthis to strengthen their grip on power