Yemen’s Houthi Head of Intelligence Abu Ali al-Hakim Wages War in Marib
Yemen’s Houthi Head of Intelligence Abu Ali al-Hakim Wages War in Marib
Abdullah Yahya al-Hakim (a.k.a. Abu Ali al-Hakim) is one of the most prominent military leaders of the Yemeni Houthi movement. Since 2011, he led the group in decisive battles that expanded the Houthi’s control of the country. Over the past few years, the Shia group went from being a resilient, but isolated, rebellious armed group operating almost exclusively in the Sa’dah province, into an organization that controls the Yemeni capital Sanaa and most of northern and western Yemen. The support the Houthis enjoy from Iran, the main Shia power in the Middle East, has undoubtedly been crucial in their empowerment, but almost all the fighting and field work was done by Yemeni fighters led by loyal and dedicated leaders. Abu Ali al-Hakim is one of the most prominent of those leaders.
Just before the end of its term, the U.S. administration of President Donald Trump designated the Houthis as a foreign terrorist organization and sanctioned three of its leaders. Those were the Houthis overall leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi, his brother Abdul Khaliq al-Houthi and Abu Ali al-Hakim (Treasury.gov, January 19). When the Biden administration revoked the designation of the Houthis in a break with the previous administration, it still kept the designation of al-Hakim and the other two leaders (The Arab Weekly, February 13). Al-Hakim is also currently under UN sanctions that were imposed by the security council in November 2014 (Treasury.gov, Novemebr 7, 2014).
Early Years
Al-Hakim was born in the mid-1980s in Dehyan, Sa’dah province in northern Yemen near the border with Saudi Arabia. He joined the Houthi movement early in his life. When the Houthi rebellion against the government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh broke out for the first time in 2004, the young al-Hakim was on the frontlines. Saleh forces launched a military campaign that was difficult and challenging, but, in the end, resulted in the defeat of the rebels and the death of the founding leader of the Houthi movement, Hussein al-Houthi. Al-Hakim was captured and put in prison in Sanaa. When President Saleh issued an amnesty for the Houthi prisoners, al-Hakim was not included, in a sign of how dangerous he was considered by the government. He was reported to have been responsible for the deaths of 300 Yemeni soldiers (Hour News, April 13, 2014). But when his prison conditions were relaxed and he was allowed a family visit, he seized the opportunity and sneaked out of the prison wearing women’s clothes (Okaz, March 6, 2018).
The killing of Hussein al-Houthi was a blow to the group, but it did not kill the movement. [1] The Houthis quickly reorganized themselves and relaunched the rebellion under a new leader, Hussein’s brother Abdul Malik al-Houthi. Al-Hakim rejoined the insurrection after fleeing prison and ascended its ranks to become a key military leader. The Yemeni army under President Saleh and his right-hand man General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar launched another five military campaigns against the Houthis in Sa’dah to quell the rebellion. In one of those operations, Operation Scorched Earth in 2009, Saudi forces became involved in the fighting against the Houthis after the conflict spilled over to Saudi Arabia (Al Jazeera, November 25, 2009). All those operations, known in Yemeni political literature as the ‘Six Wars,’ could not crush the Houthi rebellion. On the contrary, the Houthis, with the significant but still indirect backing of Iran, became a more powerful armed group capable of launching a fully-fledged insurgency.
Uprising and Opportunity
In early 2011, the wave of major political upheaval that was enveloping countries in the Middle East and North Africa reached Yemen. Thousands of Yemenis took to the streets of Sanaa and other cities, calling for the end of 33 years of rule by President Saleh. The Houthis supported the uprising and organized demonstrations in Sa’dah, but quickly turned to violence and seized the whole province (Alghad, November 1, 2014).
Al-Hakim led the operation against the Houthi’s next target. In the 1980s, the Salafist cleric Sheikh Moqbil al-Wada’e founded Dar al-Hadeeth, a religious academy in the Dumaj Vally in the Sa’adah province. Over the years, thousands of Salafist students came to live in Dumaj to study at Dar al-Hadeeth and become clerics. The Salafist interpretation of Islam condemns several aspects of the Shia faith, especially Shias’ traditions of visiting and honoring the shrines of prominent religious figures. The receding power of the central government of President Abd Rabu Mansour Hadi, who succeeded Saleh, made the Houthis attack against the academy almost inevitable. Al-Hakim led the operation, imposing a siege on Dumaj that began in late 2013 and lasted three months. The fighting was severe and hundreds of people were killed. Finally, in January 2014, the Salafists accepted a ceasefire and submitted to Houthi demands, completely vacating the area (Al Jazeera, January 15, 2014).
After imposing full control on Sa’dah, the Houthi forces, led by al-Hakim, turned to Omran, a neighboring province the group had always operated in, but never fully controlled. The defending force in Omran was Brigade 301 of the Yemeni Army, and a group of fighters aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated al-Islah party. Al-Hakim’s men at this point had become more confident in their fighting ability. They launched more than one attempt to occupy Omran, with the final operation for control taking place in July 2014. Despite coming under arial bombardment during the operation, al-Hakim and his forces successfully occupied Omran city on July 10 after days of heavy fighting (Al Bayan, July 10, 2014). Al-Hakim and the Houthis went on to expand their power over the next several weeks on the whole of Omran province and other parts of Yemen.
Seizing Sanaa
In September 2014, the Houthis secured their greatest victory when they entered and seized control of Sanaa. Former President Saleh maintained his influence over certain parts of the armed forces, but that was not enough to launch his own counterrevolution. Instead, he lent significant support to the Houthi’s operation to take over Sanaa. Commanders loyal to Saleh reportedly did not give their units the order to fight the Houthis, while tribal leaders loyal to the former president fought alongside the rebels when they invaded the city (Sanaa Online, September 22, 2020).
While the Houthis needed the help of other parties to occupy Sanaa, they worked effectively under al-Hakim’s leadership to make sure that they alone would control the city and government. Using their control of the capital city, the Houthis began claiming to have official credentials. Al-Hakim was given the rank of a general, although he did not have a career in a conventional, professional military (Yemen Press, December 19, 2015). Subsequently, he was appointed to the position of head of military intelligence, a decision that gave the armed wing of the Houthis control of what was left of the national Yemeni army in Sanaa and other Houthi-controlled areas (Arabi21, August 21, 2017).
A Saudi-led coalition began Operation Decisive Storm, intervening in the conflict, after the Houthis took the port city of Aden in southern Yemen in March 2015. After months of fighting local Yemeni forces supported by the Saudi-led coalition drove the Houthis out of Aden (Al Arab, July 14, 2015). However, neither the coalition nor the anti-Houthi Yemeni forces managed to achieve major victories against the Houthis after that. Al-Hakim and his forces grew stronger and their control over Sanaa and most of northern Yemen remained steady.
In December 2017, Saleh made his last move for control of the country. He turned against the Houthis and tried to start an uprising in Sanaa. The man who helped the Houthis take control of the capital thought that he was ready to remove them, but al-Hakim was prepared for Saleh. He had placed Saleh and his loyalists under strict surveillance and when the former president signaled that he was about to move against the Houthis, al-Hakim issued a clear warning to him to cease his activities. Nevertheless, Saleh went on with his attempt to take back power, but al-Hakim’s forces were able to capture and kill Saleh on December 4, 2017 (Al Jazeera, December 4, 2017).
Last Battle?
The conflict might soon be coming to an end, especially with Saudi Arabia’s recent apparent admission that the initial goal of removing the Houthis from power is unrealistic. However, no clear political path for peace or a ceasefire has yet been agreed upon. Without a clear process for deescalating the conflict, the Houthis decided to launch another campaign led by al-Hakim to occupy the oil rich province of Marib. The operation started in February and is still ongoing at the time of writing (Al Quds, April 25).
After the first Houthi attempt to take Marib did not succeed in February, media organizations controlled by Saudi Arabia and other opponents of al-Hakim began to repost past reports that mocked al-Hakim as an uneducated person who was made a general despite his lack of credentials. These media organizations do not, however, seem to be interested in explaining how he managed to win so many battles and maintain the Houthi’s control of areas so far from their stronghold in Sa’dah. Another trend in the propaganda war against al-Hakim included reports claiming that he was removed from leadership and punished for not succeeding to overrun Marib (Yemen Voice, April 5). Attempts to undermine al-Hakim are a reminder of how the Houthi’s opponents underestimated the group’s power in the early stages of the conflict in Yemen. That failure to properly assess the ability of the Houthis led to greater conflict in the country.
Conclusion
At the time of writing, another attempt by the Houthis to take Marib is ongoing. Even if they do not manage to fulfill their goal, they are still the most organized power in Yemen and their control of Sanaa and the most populous parts of Yemen remain undisputed. The Houthis seem to be well positioned to maintain their influence, if not expand it, after the war. Al-Hakim would likely take a central role in the Houthi’s attempt at further expansion. Al-Hakim and the Houthis, however, face the thorny problem of being under UN and U.S. sanctions. The world might deal with the Houthi leaders as the de facto rulers of parts of Yemen, but being under sanction will complicate a peace process involving their integration into an internationally-recognized government. Their violation of international resolutions and their radical anti-Western and antisemitic ideology will always mean that the Western powers will not accept them as legitimate members of the international community. But the Houthis seem to be interested in remaining the main power on the ground in Yemen and perhaps nominate less significant figures to occupy official positions, a pattern that has precedent in countries like Lebanon, where another Shia organization, namely Hezbollah, have more power than its representatives in government.
The war in Yemen is not over yet. As long as al-Hakim is alive and in a senior position in the Houthi movement, he will always play a role in both the military campaigns, like in Marib now, and in maintaining the Houthi’s power over the communities in Sanaa and elsewhere as part of his position as head of intelligence.
Notes
[1] Hussein al-Houthi was a member of the Yemeni parliament in the 1990s. He was the son of a prominent Zaidi Shia cleric. The Zaidi strand of Shia Islam is different than the more popular Twelver branch of Shi’ism, which has substantial followers in Iran, Iraq, Lebanon and other parts of the Middle East. However, Hussein al-Houthi became influenced by Iran and its Shia Islamist anti-Western ideology when he founded his group which was first called al-Shabab al-Mo’min (The Faithful Youth) and later Ansarullah (Supporters of God). The Houthis are still Zaidis despite including more Twelver Shia’s notions in their religious practices. The more significant transformation is that they completely embraced the political ideology of Iran and its anti-Western axis in the Middle East.
