From Husayn to Abd al-Malik: Profiling the Past and Current Leadership of Yemen’s Houthis

From Husayn to Abd al-Malik: Profiling the Past and Current Leadership of Yemen’s Houthis

Thousands of Yemeni Shi’a Muslims attended the funeral of Husayn Badr al-Din Houthi on June 5 in the northern Yemeni city of Sada’a. Husayn was the founder and ideologue of the Houthi movement and was killed in 2004 in fighting with government forces (Yemen Post, June 6). The Government of ousted President Ali Abdullah Saleh originally buried Husayn at the central prison in Sana’a to prevent his grave from becoming a shrine for his followers, but this January President Abd Rabbu Mansur Hadi delivered the remains to his family in a conciliatory move aimed at easing tensions with the group (al-Manar [Beirut], January 4; al-Jazeera, June 6). 

What follows is an assessment of the re-organization of the Houthi leadership in the post-Husayn era, with reference to past and present key figures and ideological aspects of the movement. 

Husayn Badr al-Din Houthi and the Shabab al-Mu’min 

Husayn’s funeral in the group’s stronghold in Sada’a exemplified the influence the late Houthi leader maintains on the collective consciousness of his Zaydi (a.k.a. Zaidiya, Shi’a school of thought named after Zayd ibn Ali) followers. The Houthis (a.k.a. Ansar Allah) are a group moving along the combined lines of a religious movement trying to revitalize Zaydism, an insurgent group fighting for ambiguous goals and a political group. [1] Regardless of its precise nature, the movement has always had a strong reliance on the individual personalities of the Houthi family, who have not only shaped its ideological stance but also crafted its collective identity. The Houthis (a.k.a. Husayniyun, followers of Husayn) are named after Husayn Houthi. 

Husayn was born in 1956 in the Marran area of Sada’a region where his father, Badr al-Din al-Tabatabai, was a prominent Zaydi cleric (Saadah Press, February 18). According to a disciple’s account, Husayn spent part of his life in Qom, Iran, an experience that reportedly influenced his ideological stance (Ayandenews.com, September 28, 2009; al-Majalla [London], December 11, 2009). Husayn won a parliamentary seat in 1993 as a member of the al-Haqq party. He left parliament in 1997 to pursue Quranic studies in Sudan. [2] Husayn returned to Sada’a in 2001 and with his charisma and compelling speaking style, rapidly became the leader of Shabab al-Mu’min (Believing Youth), an educational association devoted to Zaydi teaching that by 1994 was present in all Sada’a districts (al-Akhbar, September 12, 2009). 

Husayn forged an ideology that combined the religious dimension of Zaydi revivalism and a strong political critique of the Yemeni Government as well as criticism of U.S. and Israel policies in the region. During this time, Husayn also wrote al-Sarkha (the scream), the movement’s slogan and group’s symbol, which says “Allahu Akbar! Death to America! Death to Israel! Curse the Jews! Victory to Islam!” 

Under Husyan’s leadership, Shabab al-Mu’min expanded from Sada’a to other northern provinces, especially Amran and Hajja, which, coupled with Husayn’s increasing anti-Americanism, ultimately pushed the Yemeni government to consider the Houthis as a threat to its authority (al-Arabiya, November 17, 2009). As tension continued to mount in the early summer of 2004, the Yemeni government launched an operation to arrest Husayn in the Sada’a mountains, where he was killed on September 10, 2004 (Yemen Times, June 17). 

Abd al-Malik and the Houthis as an Insurgent Force 

Husayn’s death marked the end of the first of the six Sada’a wars and the beginning of an intermittent conflict that officially ended after a ceasefire was reached in February 2010. Husayn’s father, Badr al-Din, briefly took charge of the movement, but the group gradually coalesced under the leadership of Husayn’s youngest brother, Abd al-Malik (The National [Abu Dhabi], August 21, 2009). 

Al-Malik was born in 1982 in Marran, Sada’a province, from the fourth marriage of Badr al-Din. He spent much of his youth as a zealous Zaydi religious student under the guidance of Husayn and lived in Qom for some years with his father and brother (al-Majalla, December 11, 2009). Husayn’s influence on al-Malik is evident in al-Malik’s speeches and interviews, where all the thematic points of Husayn’s narrative—from the depiction of Houthis as a defensive movement against Sana’a oppression to the critique against the alleged U.S. involvement in domestic affairs—have been maintained and expanded (al-Jazeera, April 29, 2007; al-Sharq al-Awsat, September 29, 2009). 

Building on the ideological legacy of Husayn, within a few years al-Malik asserted his role as the undisputed leader and successfully completed the Houthis’ transformation into a resilient insurgent force (Yemen Post, April 10, 2010). This transformation was likely strengthened during the 2009-2010 campaign, when Houthi militants managed to repel a Saudi ground and aerial offensive and when al-Malik defiantly re-emerged after claims by the government that he had been killed in an air raid in Sada’a (Yemen Times, November 9, 2009; Yemen Observer, December 21, 2009; Mareb Press, January 19, 2010). 

The 2009-2010 hostilities, coupled with the 2011 popular rebellion, also marked a new phase for the Houthis under al-Malik’s leadership. The new space opened by Yemen’s unstable democratic transition has effectively allowed the Houthi group to consolidate its grip over Sada’a and enabled a shift from violence to social and political actions (Mareb Press, October 6, 2012). The movement has aligned its position with that of the youth movement, calling for justice and the fall of Saleh’s Government, attempted to establish administrative control in the Hajjah region and extended its network of religious centres across north-western Yemen­—a social effort that reportedly was the work of al-Malik (Barakish.net, February 10; Yemen.com, March 19). 

Despite repeated claims that the movement was inherently religious and not interested in the political game, al-Malik announced his willingness to join the political arena (National Yemen, December 15, 2012). More recently, al-Malik has called for the establishment of a civil democratic state and a salvation government after a meeting with UN envoy to Yemen Jamal bin Omar (Yemen Observer, July 8; National Yemen, July 13). 

In this developing process of political engagement, the role of al-Malik’s brother, Yahya Badreddin al-Houthi, a former Yemeni MP who was involved in the most important mediation efforts with the government, is important. Yahya resides in Germany, where he sought political asylum in 2005 after being stripped of his parliamentary immunity and sentenced in absentia to 15 years imprisonment in 2010 for “planning to assassinate a number of figures including the American ambassador in Sana’a” (Yemen Post, April 10, 2010). He continues to serve as spokesman and political representative for the Houthis abroad (al-Sahwa [Sana’a], October 12, 2009; Yemen Observer, October 27, 2009). Yahya’s regular interviews and editorials in Arab media outlets have presented the Houthi issue in a political context, although much of the movement’s political agenda, beyond the calls for religious freedom and more autonomy, remains vague. 

Conclusions 

Although the recent shift in the Houthis’ rhetoric and actions might suggest an ongoing process of political engagement, there is evidence that this trend is far from being a turning point. While the conflict with security forces is decreasing in intensity, outbursts of violence persist within and beyond Sada’a. For instance, on June 9, Houthi supporters demanding the release of their imprisoned members clashed with security forces around the National Security Building in Sana’a, with 14 of them killed in the fighting (Mareb Press, June 9; Barakish.net, June 10). The event was followed by a massive funeral where Houthi supporters showed their capacity to mobilize their numbers in the capital. The severity of the tension was more apparent when Houthi spiritual leader al-Murtadha bin Zaid al-Mahtouri issued a fatwa (religious ruling) calling for jihad against the security forces (al-Masdar Online, June 13; Yemen Today, June 14). In the same vein, Houthi militants have reportedly embarked on a campaign of kidnapping and violence targeting opponents in Sada’a while maintaining a confrontational stance towards Salafis in the province, where unceasing skirmishes between the two groups is raising the prospect of a sectarian conflict (Mareb Press, June 19 and 22). Overall this trend suggests that not one of three Houthi dimensions—the religious, the insurgent and the political—is predominant. Conversely, the ability of al-Malik to adjust the elements on the basis of circumstances on the ground might be the most important factor behind his rise as the undisputed Houthi leader. 

Ludovico Carlino is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of International Politics at the University of Reading, specializing in al-Qaeda and its affiliated movements. He is currently Director of the International Terrorism program at CISIP, the Italian Center for the Study of Political Islam.   

Notes 

1. B. Salmoni, B. Loidolt and M. Wells, Regime and periphery in Northern Yemen, the Houthi phenomenon, RAND Corp. 2010; Zaydism is a branch of Shi’a Islam particularly rooted in the northwestern provinces of the country that provided the religious underpinning for the Yemeni Imamate until its overthrown in 1962.

2. Abd al-Malik official Facebook site, available at https://www.facebook.com/pages/????-?????????????-????????-?????? and https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002196544875&fref=ts.