- Vigil category device · not official insignia
Identity provenance
Vigil category device — drawn from this record’s own domain, echelon and role. Not an official insignia.
In brief
The military of the Houthi authority in Sanaa — an insurgent movement that inherited most of the Yemeni state's arsenal in 2014 and has since become a conventionalised force with its own missile, drone and coastal components, organised in seven military regions, and the one non-state actor in this module able to close a chokepoint.
- Scope
- Structure, role, lineage and links. 2 subordinate records published.
- Subordination
- Subordination unknown
- Sources
- 3 on the record
- Record state
- Partial
- Broad area of activity
- Northern and western Yemen, with reach across the Red Sea, Bab el-Mandeb and the Gulf of Aden
- Notable history
- When the Houthi movement took Sanaa in September 2014 it took most of the Yemeni state's armed forces with it, and a decade of war against a Saudi-led coalition turned an insurgency into something closer to a conventional military: a force organised in seven military regions with specialised departments for missiles and unmanned aircraft, a naval and coastal arm on the Red Sea, an intelligence service that watches the movement itself, and an underground defence industry near Sanaa and Saada. Its campaign against shipping from late 2023 drew American, British and European naval operations and Israeli strikes; in July 2026 it declared a blockade of vessels calling at Saudi ports, traffic through Bab el-Mandeb fell by about a quarter, and Saudi crude bound for Asia went the long way through Suez. Its relationship with Iran runs through the Quds Force and is real, contested in degree, and not what determines its targeting: the blockade serves Houthi objectives whether or not it serves Tehran's.
- Strengths
- Position at a chokepoint, a decade of surviving a far better-equipped coalition, and an arsenal — anti-ship and ballistic missiles, one-way attack drones, mines, small craft — that lets a non-state actor impose costs on global shipping.
- Limitations
- Its published strength figures are unverifiable and this module carries none; its recruitment includes documented child soldiers and coerced migrants; and its campaign has brought strikes on the ports and infrastructure the population it governs depends on. Attribution of its weapons' origin is contested in degree. No military regions, brigades, launch sites or dispositions are recorded.
Subordinate formations
Rows are layout only — position and order carry no hierarchy, importance, sequence or strength. Every record shown is an immediate subordinate of the selected organisation.
Related organisations
- EUNAVFOR ASPIDES Opposed · as of 2026-09 · high confidence
The operation exists to protect shipping from the Houthi campaign and has engaged Houthi drones and missiles in defence of merchant vessels. Its mandate is defensive: it does not conduct strikes on Yemen.
Lineage & institutional history
Formal parent institution: Answers to the Houthi movement's leadership in Sanaa, which claims the Yemeni state's armed forces as its own; Iranian support is documented and its degree contested, and the module records no command relationship.
Related locations
Sanaa: Seat of the movement's authority; association is structural, not positional. Bab el-Mandeb: The water the movement's July 2026 blockade declaration concerned; no position, launch site or pattern is described.
Campaigns
Campaigns naming this organisation as a participant. The campaign record owns the relationship and grades it; this list is computed.
- The Saudi–Houthi Red Sea front, 2026 round Primary force · Since 13 July 2026 · high confidence
The force that declared the blockade, claimed the strike waves and took the coast.
- The Houthi campaign against Red Sea shipping, 2023–2025 Primary force · November 2023 – October 2025 · high confidence · as of 2025-10
The force that declared the targeting of Israel-linked shipping and claimed the attacks.
Key events
The Houthi movement blockades shipping to and from Saudi ports
The Houthi movement declares a blockade on vessels calling at Saudi ports at Bab el-Mandeb. Vessel traffic through the strait falls by about a quarter, and Saudi Arabia reroutes Asia-bound crude through the Suez Canal — turning a voyage from Yanbu to South Korea of about twenty-four days into one of about fifty-four.
The Houthi movement takes the southern Red Sea coast and reaches Bab el-Mandeb
The Houthi movement takes the port of Mokha, about 75 kilometres north of Bab el-Mandeb, at dawn on 10 September, and over the following day Dhubab some 46 kilometres further south, the coastal villages beyond it, Perim (Mayyun) island in the strait and Zuqar in the Hanish group — the last government-held stretch of Yemen's Red Sea coast. Reporting describes the result as the whole of that coastline passing into Houthi hands; independent verification of a control line has not been read. The Presidential Leadership Council's vice chairman, Tareq Saleh, says he ordered a strategic retreat and the formation of an alternative command centre to regroup the forces in consultation with the Arab coalition command. Reporting places a remaining government force, put by one account at more than two thousand, on the Hanish islands. The movement claims six districts and 5,400 square kilometres. A Houthi politburo member states that navigation and trade in the Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb are safe and orderly and that the exception remains Saudi shipping; a Houthi commander says that with the fall of Mokha the strait can be considered under the movement's administration. Al Jazeera reported no official Houthi announcement of control over the strait.
Yemen's government and the Saudi-led coalition open an offensive for the Houthi-held coast and Sanaa
On 4 October Rashad al-Alimi, chairman of Yemen's Presidential Leadership Council, announced operations to retake all remaining Houthi-held territory, restore state institutions and retake Sanaa. On 5 October the government military said a "strategic offensive" on Sanaa had begun, and the Saudi-led coalition's spokesman, Major-General Turki al-Maliki, said the coalition was providing round-the-clock air support to the ground forces and air cover for the Bab el-Mandeb strait, with 100 fighter jets and 324 "high-value" targets destroyed by its own count. The coalition called the operation "Yemen Dawn"; other reporting renders it "Dawn of Yemen". The Giants Brigades and the Nation's Shield Forces said they had secured the strait's shore and Dhubab airport, and a military source cited by the government agency Saba said Mokha had been taken; the Houthi movement denied losing any territory. On 10 October Yemeni military sources told AFP that forces were advancing near the strait but had not yet secured the waterway and that Perim (Mayun) remained in Houthi hands, while the movement said it had repelled an advance from Ras al-Ara in Lahj. Military sources on both sides put the dead at 63 in the preceding 24 hours. The coalition said it destroyed more than 130 targets that day. The United States Secretary of State sided with Riyadh and the Yemeni government on 5 October.
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Assessed as of — 2026-09 Last reviewed — 2026-09-09
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