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Your faithful writer,
Dr. Daniel Smith

The world can be a weird place sometimes.

Over the last month, the U.S. and the U.K. have launched air strikes against militants in the Arab nation of Yemen who have been attacking ships in the Red Sea with missiles, drones, and piracy.

Some of these pirates, like Rashid al-Haddad, have posted TikToks showing them boarding ships passing through the Red Sea en route to the Suez Canal — along one of the most important shipping routes in the world.

As a result, al-Haddad was nicknamed “Jihadi Depp,” and headlines like this have popped up:

• SKY NEWS: Israel-Hamas war: Who is the viral Yemeni 'Pirate' dubbed 'Timhouthi Chalamet'?

• NEWSWEEK: Hot Houthi Pirate Wants People To Stop Salivating Over Him

• THE TELEGRAPH: 'Hot Houthi pirate' tells followers to focus on 'a free Palestine' not on his good looks

Weird, I know. But these humorous headlines can help us explore an interesting and important topic: the Houthi movement in Yemen and its place within the exploding conflict in the Middle East.

Who are the Houthis?

The Houthis are a Shia Muslim jihadist militant group from the Arab nation of Yemen.

They took over the Yemeni capital of Sanaa in September 2014, prompting neighboring (Sunni majority) Saudi Arabia to launch a military intervention against the Houthi-led government in 2015.

KEY FACTS

Over the last few months, the Houthis have launched attacks on ships passing through the Red Sea in support of Palestine.

Global shipping companies have directed their ships to make the longer and more expensive trip around Africa due to the attacks.

Over the last few weeks, the U.S. and the U.K. launched missile attacks on Houthi positions in Yemen in response to Houthi attacks on ships crossing the Red Sea.

BACKGROUND

• The Houthis have played a central role in the Yemeni Civil War that began in 2014.

• They have fought against Saudi Arabia, which backs the official Yemeni government that lost control of much of the country in the mid-2010s.

• The U.S. has provided military aid to Saudi Arabia during the Yemeni Civil War, prompting many to criticize the U.S. for complicity in a war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people since 2014.

The Deadliest War of the 2010s?

Over 150,000 people — including tens of thousands of civilians — have been directly killed during the war, primarily by the 25,000+ Saudi airstrikes that occurred between 2015 and 2022.

Many of these airstrikes involved U.S.-made armaments that were sold to the Saudis with the approval of the U.S. government. In one tragic incident, an American-made GBU-12 bomb was dropped on a wedding celebration. The attack killed 21 people, including 11 children, and injured 97 others.

Famine and starvation have also devastated Yemen since the Civil War began nearly ten years ago.

By 2018, an estimated 1.8 million Yemeni children were malnourished. In that same year, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote:

A 2018 report published by the World Peace Foundation claimed that Saudi forces directly contributed to the famine by targeting crop fields, herds of animals, irrigation infrastructure, and other agricultural targets.

By 2023, more than half of Yemeni children under five years old — 2.2 million children — suffered from acute malnutrition.

What’s next for Yemen?

The Yemeni Civil War has slowed down since 2022, when the U.N. brokered a ceasefire between the Houthis and the Saudi-backed Yemeni coalition government.

However, there are still a number of ongoing problems in Yemen:

• Houthi support for the Palestinian cause is unlikely to abate, meaning that Houthi piracy & attacks in the Red Sea will continue.

• If Houthi attacks continue, the U.S. and its allies could escalate their attacks on Houthi positions in Yemen — potentially drawing other countries into the conflict and escalating the already-volatile situation in the region.

• The humanitarian crisis in Yemen is still ongoing.

LEARN MORE

If you want to learn more about the history of the Yemeni Civil War, check out this excellent explainer from the Council on Foreign Relations: ⬇️

ART OF THE DAY

Thank you for reading. Please reply to this email if you have any thoughts or feedback.

Yours,
Dan