Ansar Allah, the formal name of the so-called “Houthis,” first emerged from the chaos following the reunification of Yemen in the 1990s. The movement comes from the Zaydi Shia Muslim majority in northern Yemen—which long dominated northern Yemen, but abruptly found itself in the minority after North and South Yemen were unified in 1990.

The movement grew in power during the reign of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who governed northern Yemen from 1978 to 1990—and then a unified Yemen from 1990 until 2012. Though Saleh was a Zaydi, he was also notoriously corrupt and widely unpopular. When the Arab Spring swept across the Middle East in 2011, Saleh saw the writing on the wall and announced that he would not run for re-election. After narrowly dodging an assassination attempt in June 2011 and seeking medical treatment in Saudi Arabia, he surrendered power that November to his deputy, Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

Unlike Saleh, Hadi was a Sunni Muslim from the country’s southern half. Also unlike Saleh—who was renowned for his craftiness as well as his venality—Hadi was incompetent, weak, and slavishly loyal to Saudi Arabia, further alienating the Zaydis of the north. Under Hadi, the al-Islah party, Yemen’s branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, was favored and grew in power, with Saudi Arabia’s tacit approval. ........

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