Jun. 21, 2024

Inside story: How Yemen’s Houthis dig for strategic depth in Iraq

Iraq/Security

Far from their home base in Yemen’s northern highlands, the Ansarullah movement—better known as the Houthis—has slowly but surely cultivated a role for itself in Iraqi political dynamics. The group’s presence in Iraq serves its core aim of knitting itself as an indispensable thread in the webbing of the Tehran-backed ‘Axis of Resistance’. Ansarullah has also built capacity in Iran, Lebanon, and Oman, ultimately aiming to encircle its arch-nemesis to the north, namely the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Since the beginning of the Saudi-led military campaign against Ansarullah in 2015, Baghdad has broadly played both sides of Yemen’s complex diplomatic dynamics. While the Iraq envoy of the Houthis, Ahmad Al-Sharafi, primarily...

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Tamer Badawi
Tamer Badawi
Tamer Badawi
Tamer Badawi is an independent analyst currently focused on violent conflict, governance, and geopolitics in Iraq ... Full Bio
فارسیPersian
فارسیPersian
عربيArabic
عربيArabic