Confronting Israel at a time when popular anger over its battering of Gaza is very high has burnished the Houthi rebel’s image at home, and served to silence—at least temporarily—otherwise rising public criticism over the group’s lack of services, salary payments, and overall mismanagement of the areas of Yemen that they control, according to Ibrahim Jalal, a Nonresident Scholar at Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center.
Jalal, who published an article in The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace website found the Houthis have in recent years taken on a significant cross-border role as part of the Iran-backed Axis of Resistance in the region and are strengthening their regional ties, notably with the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces PMF, who offer them political, economic, military, and geopolitical benefits, as well as means of pressure against the Gulf states.
He also found that as a largely unrecognized political authority, the Houthis were unable to establish formal relations with states other than Iran and Syria. This made the prospect of forging ties with pro-Iran non-state or quasi-state actors in Iraq particularly attractive.
Jalal disclosed that the Houthis’ presence in Iraq also enables the smuggling of arms from Iraqi territory to Yemen via Saudi Arabia and that The PMF has even provided the Houthis with “free and very heavily subsidized Iraqi fuel, including diesel and oil,” which it ships to Hodeida from Basra in violation of an international embargo.