Yemen as a Bargaining Chip

The Houthi armed group’s decision to declare a maritime embargo against Saudi Arabia on July 20 marks the latest example of how local factions in Yemen are exploiting the broader U.S.-Irael war on Iran, using regional chaos as cover to capture domestic leverage. This interplay of regional and domestic wrangling has long defined the war in Yemen, with disastrous results for the Yemeni people as the conflict reheats.


The Houthi military spokesman, Yahya Saree said in a televised statement on July 20 that the group would enforce “an eye for an eye, blockade for blockade” against what he described as “the criminal Saudi enemy.” The group frames the blockade as a necessary, retaliatory measure against Saudi Arabia’s prolonged 12-year economic blockade on Yemen’s airspace and ports of entry, accusing Riyadh of stalling peace negotiations and exploiting regional dynamics to weaken them.


The decision came after the Saudi-led coalition and Internationally Recognized Government of Yemen (IRG) blocked Iranian flights carrying a Houthi delegation that attended the funeral of former Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to Sana’a on July 13, with an exchange of fire on Sana’a International Airport to block the flight leading the Houthis to attack Abha International Airport in Saudi Arabia the same day. Another Iranian flight was blocked on July 19, leading to the Houthi blockade decision.


The Houthis’ shift from rhetoric to active maritime interdiction against Saudi-bound shipping threatens Saudi Arabia’s economic supply lines and domestic security. Requiring an external, existential threat to maintain domestic coercion, the group thrives on violence and likely viewed this move — especially the narrative of solidarity with their Iranian ally against American and Israeli threats — as beneficial. As such, it is slowly resuming the conflict, shattering the 2022 truce with the Saudi-led coalition and the IRG, breaking the domestic stalemate.


The escalation is directly connected to regional developments. The United States and Iran have increasingly traded fire for nearly two weeks in what likely signals the collapse of their June 17 memorandum of understanding that guided ceasefire negotiations. Washington has increasingly targeted civilian infrastructure in Iran, with U.S. President Donald Trump threatening to continue escalating until Tehran capitulates. Iran, in turn, is scaling up pressure on the United States in Yemen through its close ally, the Houthi Movement (Ansar Allah), putting pressure on Saudi Arabia and global energy markets. Beneath the implicit coordination between Iran and the Houthis, the group agreed to help so as long as the effort aligns with their interests: Strengthening their domestic power.


That reasoning is appropriate given developments within Yemen over the last year. In particular, the United Arab Emirates’ withdrawal from Yemen in January 2026 has fostered recalculations on the part of the major factions in Yemen’s war. Both domestic and regional actors hope to exploit the new power dynamics defining this reality on the ground to advance their territorial and political agendas, assessing that they can do just that today.


With the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council’s (STC) dissolution and Abu Dhabi’s military exit, the fractured anti-Houthi coalition — led by the IRG’s Presidential Leadership Council (PLC) — is now unified under a single command structure in Riyadh and southern Yemen’s Aden. For the Houthis, that development marks a major setback, as the group has long capitalized on division among its Yemeni rivals. The PLC is no longer burdened with managing infighting within its anti-Houthi bloc, such as the STC separatists in Hadhramaut or Aden, and confronting the Houthis in the north.


As the Houthis have crossed Riyadh’s red lines with their attempts to regain control of Yemen’s airspace and the blockade decision, Saudi Arabia will likely utilize this newfound political cohesion to fight the group, especially through Saudi-backed, pro-government factions like the National Resistance Forces along the Red Sea Coast. That campaign will constitute a highly localized, aggressive military campaign focused on the western coast, especially in the Houthi-controlled Hodeidah Governorate. The goal will be to push Houthi forces away from critical maritime choke points, stripping the group of their Red Sea launch pads and, thus, their maritime leverage. That effort may already be underway, with fighting between the Houthis and IRG forces in and around the strategically crucial city of Hodeidah, Yemen’s primary port city, intensifying over the past few months.


For the Houthis, a battle in Hodeidah is welcome, especially after winning previous battles for the city in 2014 and 2018. The group has faced unprecedented domestic economic failure and rising local anger in recent years across territory under their control. Starvation and poverty are increasing, especially with aid flows to Houthi areas drastically decreasing since 2025, in no small part due to U.S. aid cuts under the Trump administration and Houthi pressure on aid providers. Last month, the United Nations warned that tens of thousands are facing starvation in Houthi-controlled territories, among the over 18 million people in Yemen experiencing crisis-level hunger or worse.


In such a difficult economic situation, the Houthis understand that resuming the conflict helps them preserve their authoritarian grip on the north. An active ground campaign in Hodeidah gives them the perfect narrative to declare full military mobilization and crack down on internal dissent under the banner of "defense against Saudi-U.S. aggression" without facing immediate domestic accountability. The group’s failure to secure Iranian flights landing at Sana'a airport further incentivizes the Houthis to act, as it exposed their lack of genuine sovereignty over the areas they govern. For the group, to gain domestic and regional concessions that assert their sovereignty, the Houthis must leverage every pressure card at their disposal and have a long history of doing so.


With the Houthis, the IRG and their respective supporters transforming civil infrastructure, airspace and maritime gateways into active, high-stakes battlegrounds in and around Yemen, there will be immediate negative consequences, including on the global economy and the already catastrophic humanitarian crisis in Yemen. Any battle for Hodeidah and the Red Sea coastline, a primary commercial and humanitarian aid lifeline for the country, facilitating around 80 percent of humanitarian aid and 70 percent of commercial imports, risks sending Yemen back down a humanitarian spiral, underscoring the urgent need for a durable and just conflict resolution rather than military force. The current severe economic depression risks worsening widespread hunger into acute famine.


Peace efforts led by U.N. Special Envoy Hans Grundberg and Oman risk freezing as well, a setback presaged by the Houthis' recent decision to postpone detainee exchanges until further notice. Renewed fighting would ultimately send already difficult negotiations on Yemen’s future backward at the expense of all Yemenis, who deserve a democratic future that they themselves lead. Renewed war does not help Yemen or its people get closer to that outcome.


As the regional conflict between the United States, Israel and Iran continues with no end in sight, unaddressed questions in Yemen are naturally and unfortunately spilling over as a result. Whether the worst-case scenario for the country can be averted remains to be seen. For now, a return to full scale war appears most likely, with disastrous results for Yemeni communities.

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*This article was first written for/published on the DAWN website. 

My Interview with Tahjeer Podcast

 

Yemen's Houthis: From Restraint to Calculated Involvement

As Yemen passes 15 years of devastating conflict, the country faces renewed risk of escalation amid the widening regional confrontation involving Iran, Israel and the United States. After weeks of speculation over whether Yemen's Houthis would remain on the sidelines, the movement launched ballistic missile attacks toward Israel on March 28. While the limited nature of the assault suggests an attempt to signal alignment with Iran's regional posture without triggering full-scale retaliation, the question now is whether Houthi thinking remains limited to this signaling or reflects the beginning of a sustained escalation, once again making Yemen an active front in the Middle East's expanding conflict.

The depth of the relationship between Iran and the Houthis is central to this question, constituting one of the most contested debates surrounding the group. For some analysts, the movement operates as a crucial component of Tehran's regional network of allied militias. "The Houthis always try to present themselves as independent decision-makers," said veteran Yemeni journalist Anwar al-Ansi in an interview with Democracy in Exile. "But we know there has been a very close ideological and military relationship with Iran for nearly three decades."

According to al-Ansi, the group's military capabilities — from ballistic missiles to drones and naval mines — were developed largely through training and assistance from Iran's Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) and Lebanon's Hezbollah. "Without Iranian weapons, the Houthis would not be what they are today," he said.

Numerous reports highlight how Iranian military support to the Houthis has grown over the course of the war in Yemen. The United Nations Panel of Experts on Yemen found in 2018 that Iran "failed to take the necessary measures to prevent the direct or indirect supply, sale or transfer" of various ballistic missiles that the Houthis have used to perpetrate unlawful attacks. As a result, Iran agreed to significantly reduce its support for the Houthis in the March 2023 China-brokered deal re-establishing diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Other experts describe the relationship in broader strategic terms. Nadwa al-Dawsari, a veteran Yemeni researcher, argued in an interview that the movement functions within a transnational project tied to Tehran's regional ambitions. "The Houthis are a transnational group," she said, explaining that "Yemen, for them, is a base where they organize, regroup and launch cross-border operations." In her view, the IRGC maintains significant influence over the group.

Yet not all analysts see the Houthis as mere proxies. Speaking in an interview for Democracy in Exile, historian and instructor at Harvard University, Asher Orkaby, notes that Yemeni political movements — particularly the Houthis — have historically shifted alliances based on power calculations rather than ideological loyalty. "The Houthis have continuously backed the winning party," he said. "What they understand is power — military power and financial power."

In "Beyond the Arab Cold War: The International History of the Yemen Civil War, 1962-68," Orkaby documents how Zaydi royalist forces drawn from the same northern highland communities and religious tradition that later gave rise to the Houthi Movement relied on shifting external support for survival. Backed primarily by Saudi Arabia and, at times, covertly by Israel, these actors navigated alliances pragmatically rather than ideologically. Most notable is the group's brief tactical alliance with the former Yemeni president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, despite having fought multiple rounds against him in the Saada Wars that precluded Yemen's civil conflict.

That alliance was derived purely out of self-interest. The Houthis needed access to state military networks and resources in their effort to conquer the state. Once they secured this objective, they turned on Saleh — killing him in 2017.

Orkaby argues that the Houthis similarly rushed to support Gaza because the group understood they would gain more than lose, winning the hearts and minds of people at home and abroad. That pragmatism may explain their delayed decision to join Iran's confrontation with Israel and the United States, even as other Iranian partners across the region have been weakened or sidelined.

For Orkaby, the Houthis may have been calculating the broader geopolitical balance. With several Iranian allies diminished in recent years, the group may hesitate to tie its fate too closely to Tehran. "They understand that Iran is a sinking ship," he explained.

Early Houthi restraint appeared to be driven by a combination of Iranian strategy and the group's domestic calculations. Al-Dawsari believes Tehran initially preferred to keep the group out of the war unless absolutely necessary. "Iran has lost most of its proxies, and now the Houthis represent the proxy with the most potential to support Iran's regime," she said. Preserving the Houthis was intended as a strategic priority. "The Houthis will likely intervene more fully only in the event of an existential threat to Iran's regime," she argued before the group launched strikes at Israel.

Al-Ansi points to the risks the movement could now face upon entering the conflict, especially if they do so more aggressively. In this regard, intelligence services in Washington and Tel Aviv have spent years gathering detailed information about Houthi military infrastructure. "If the Houthis begin aggressively attacking Israel or U.S. targets again, the response will be much stronger than before," he warned. One example of the devastating consequences of Israeli retaliation against the Houthis is the killing of most of the Houthi group's cabinet members in an August 2025 attack on Sana'a.

The group also faces domestic constraints. Despite controlling the capital and much of the north, the Houthis remain under economic pressure and international isolation. "Their situation is extremely difficult," al-Ansi said. "They are under sanctions, isolated internationally and face hostility even within areas they control." Last year, the United States re-designated the Houthis as a Foreign Terrorist Organization and a Specially Designated Global Terrorist, deepening economic pressure, albeit likely marginally compared to sweeping aid cuts to Yemen around the same time.

If conflict between Iran and its adversaries escalates, Yemen could quickly become a key theater, with renewed attacks on Red Sea and Bab al-Mandeb shipping — disruptions that would again amplify global economic pressure, as in 2024–25.

In an interview for Democracy in Exile, Yemeni academic and political analyst Abdulwahab Al-Awaj said that energy infrastructure in Gulf states could also become targets for the group. "The Houthis could attack fuel infrastructure in Saudi Arabia," he said. Al-Awaj added that such operations would likely begin from areas like Hodeidah and Ibb, where the Houthis have increasingly mobilized their forces, if Iran gave the green light.

For Yemen itself, the regional crisis could prolong the stalemate that has defined the war since a fragile truce emerged in 2022. Still, peace negotiations remain distant. Al-Dawsari argued that the Houthis have historically engaged in diplomacy to primarily buy time rather than to reach a genuine settlement: "They have never engaged in good faith in the peace process."

Meanwhile, the anti-Houthi camp has begun reorganizing after years of internal divisions. According to Al-Awaj, Saudi Arabia is working to unify Yemeni forces and assume greater control over key fronts following the United Arab Emirates' reduced role in the conflict. However, any decisive shift on the battlefield may depend on events far beyond Yemen's borders. As al-Ansi explained, the country now finds itself suspended between war and peace, waiting for the regional picture to clear.

The Houthis seem to be demonstrating a calibrated entry rather than a full escalation. What happens next will depend not only on those calculations, but on how forcefully regional actors respond. One fact is clear, however: Another critical front may be opening in this worsening regional war.

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*This piece was first written for/published on DAWN website here. 

Yemen Between Internal Deadlock & Regional War

Restoring the internationally recognised government of Yemen and undoing the Houthis' takeover of Sana’a, which had happened in September 2014, were the two key aims announced by Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States, Adel al‑Jubeir, just as Saudi Arabia began a military intervention in Yemen on 26 March 2015. Eleven years on, neither the internationally recognised government was restored, nor was the Houthis ’ takeover of Sana’a undone. The war persists, not as a dramatic clash of advancing armies but as a stalemate that refuses to resolve itself, and as a situation that persistently hampers the livelihoods of Yemeni civilians.

From Military Intervention to Stalemate

Yemen today inhabits an uneasy middle ground, the sort diplomats like to label “no war, no peace”. The large offensives that once defined the conflict have mostly faded since the truce arrangements of 2022. Saudi bombardments, which visually embodied the conflict in the eyes of many, have to a large extent halted for four years. Yet peace, in any meaningful sense, has not followed.

Instead, the country has settled into fragmentation. The Houthis hold Sana’a and most of the north-west of the territory, governing a landscape they seized through years of war. Elsewhere, a collection of forces aligned with the internationally recognised government and Saudi Arabia controls parts of the south and the east.

For much of the past decade, the forces opposed to the Houthis have struggled less with their adversary than with one another. Divisions ran deep, sharpened by the differing priorities of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Saudi Arabia wanted a unified Yemeni state under the internationally recognised government, but the United Arab Emirates wanted a fragmented Yemen, especially a semi-autonomous or independent south. Each of the two regional powers invested in its own network of Yemeni allies. Abu Dhabi backed figures such as the secessionist Southern Transitional Council it helped establish in 2017, and its affiliated forces, along with Tareq Saleh, a nephew of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh. Riyadh aligned itself with actors tied to the Islah Party, including Sultan al-Arada, governor of Marib, and Abdullah al-Alimi Bawazir, who headed the president’s office.

These parallel lines of support fractured the anti-Houthi camp, setting rival political projects—southern secessionism, party-based influence, and competing military commands—against one another. It pulled the conflict in conflicting directions, neglecting the initial anti-Houthi rationale of the Saudi-led coalition. The result was a patchwork rather than a unified front. Command structures overlapped or competed, military support arrived unevenly, and political loyalties remained fragmented. UAE-backed formations—including the Southern Transitional Council under Aydarous al-Zubaydi, the Security Belt forces in Aden, the Giants Brigades led by Abdulrahman al-Mahrami, and forces aligned with Tareq Saleh, as well as the Hadrami and Shabwani Elite units—operated through parallel chains of command that largely bypassed state institutions. By contrast, Saudi-backed forces remained formally tied to the ministries of defense and interior, alongside Islah-affiliated networks linked to figures such as Sultan al-Arada and formations like the Nation’s Shield Forces. In practice, however, these structures coexisted without integration, answering to different patrons and political agendas, and reinforcing a fragmented military landscape rather than a cohesive national force.

Time and again, these fractures weakened attempts to sustain pressure on Houthi positions in the north, turning what might have been coordinated campaigns into a series of faltering efforts. For instance, in 2019, clashes between government forces and UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council units in Aden led the STC to seize control of the interim capital, fracturing the anti-Houthi camp and forcing a shift in focus away from frontlines in the north. In 2020, the collapse of the government’s offensive in al-Jawf and the subsequent Houthi brief advance into Marib and Shabwah exposed the lack of coordinated command among anti-Houthi forces.

At the beginning of 2026, however, the domestic landscape had begun to shift in quieter but noticeable ways. The UAE’s military engagement was forced to end after Abu Dhabi lost its bet in expanding STC control over the east of Yemen. Saudi Arabia opposed the move, and consolidated its influence, marginalizing the UAE’s main local ally, the Southern Transitional Council, and then reshaping the Southern movement to its own advantage. These changes have created new conditions on the ground, opening space for a possible reorganisation of the Yemeni forces aligned against the Houthis. This dynamic first took the form of a new government announced in February 2026. Yet, plethoric as it is and unable to fully intervene in all the areas outside of Houthi-held territory, it remains at best fragile.

There are now efforts—tentative, uneven—to bring the various military formations under something resembling a unified command. At the same time, Saudi Arabia has taken a more direct role in overseeing key strategic areas, including Aden and stretches of the western coast, tightening its grip on the places that matter most to the broader war effort. Supporters of the STC remain active and able to organise rallies in urban areas, asserting their allegiance to Aydarous al-Zubaydi who fled Yemen in January 2026.

Riyadh’s approach now carries the unmistakable tone of someone who has learned, slowly and at considerable expense, the limits of force. And yet the problem remains. In northern Yemen, the Houthis continue to hold power with a resilience that refuses to fade. As their aggressive military strategy in the Red Sea has shown over the last two and a half years, their presence is not a temporary irritation but a long-term strategic concern—one that Riyadh cannot easily ignore.

Since November 2023, Houthi forces have targeted commercial shipping lanes, initially striking vessels linked to Israel before expanding their attacks to ships associated with dozens of countries, often indiscriminately. By October 2024, Houthi forces had carried out over 190 attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, and over 2,000 ships had rerouted away from the Red Sea, disrupting global trade and forcing costly diversions around the Cape of Good Hope. Flows of Houthi missiles and drones being sent to positions in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates up until 2022 have also highlighted a form of fragility of the monarchies. They were a of prelude to the post-February 2026 situation which, through Iranian attacks and the closure of the Hormuz Straight, has exposed Gulf security failures.

Airports, petrol facilities, infrastructure and even maybe Mecca are still at reach for the Houthis. Common ground thus needs to be found. For the moment, the Saudi kingdom seems less interested in launching a new offensive against them than in tidying the house on its own side: consolidating the various Yemeni partners it supports and strengthening the lines it already holds.

And so the battlefield in Yemen remains, for now, comparatively quiet when compared to situations elsewhere in the Middle East. The Yemeni front lines hold. The war pauses without ending and both the economy and the humanitarian situation - despite evident harshness, show a form of capacity of society to adapt. Meanwhile, elsewhere in the Middle East, tensions continue to rise, gathering force in ways that Yemen—so often drawn into other people’s struggles—cannot entirely escape.

Regionalization of Houthi Strategic Positioning

Viewed in a broader context, Yemen’s war drifted beyond its own borders. What began as a struggle over power inside the country now sits within a much larger web of regional tensions, most recently shaped by the war involving the United States, Israel, and Iran. Currently, all eyes are on the Houthis, wondering—will they step in this time to support their major ally, Iran, as they did through attacks to support Gaza in recent years, or continue to hold back?

The waters of the Red Sea might be one more time the Houthis’ stage for action. In mid-March 2026, public calls by the new Iranian leadership to close the Bab el-Mandeb Strait have been answered in ambivalent terms by Houthi military leaders. Through years of external assistance and training networks tied to Iran’s security establishment, the Houthis have developed their arsenal—ballistic missiles, drones, and naval mines. The result is a movement that no longer sits neatly within Yemen’s borders. Yet their operations beyond Yemen’s borders tend to move in step with the wider calculations emerging from Tehran. What exists between the Houthis and Iran, then, is not quite the tidy hierarchy implied by the word “proxy.” It is something looser and more networked: a web of allied actors, linked by shared ideology, mutual interests, and a habit of coordination that stretches across the region.

Nowhere is this arrangement more visible than in the present confrontation involving Iran, Israel, and the US. The rhetoric, as ever, is loud and uncompromising, suggesting that the Houthis are ready to support Iran. The Houthis are careful about appearances. They can go on air and give wonderful speeches about their support for Iran. They can also mobilize hundreds of thousands of demonstrators in the streets of Sanaa, as they did on March 7th, to condemn the American-Zionist aggression in Tehran and Lebanon. Yet the Houthis themselves have so far stopped short of fully entering the fray. There is a pause in their posture, a certain deliberation that suggests calculation rather than hesitation alone.

Part of that calculation lies beyond Yemen. Tehran, too, appears cautious. Having watched several of its regional partners weakened in recent years, it seems reluctant to expend one of the few actors that has proven both durable and strategically useful. The Houthis occupy a particular place in this landscape: resilient, geographically positioned near vital shipping routes, and capable—if they chose to act—of applying pressure where it might be felt far beyond Yemen’s shores - on key maritime chokepoints and regional adversaries.

The Red Sea hangs over all of this like a silent witness. Bab al-Mandeb, narrow and vital, offers a kind of leverage the Houthis—or anyone who controls it—can barely ignore. Even a small disruption, a ripple across the waters, can unsettle global trade and energy flows far beyond Yemen’s borders. But escalation is never a one-sided affair. The Houthis, too, must reckon with their costs. A sustained campaign against Israeli or American targets would almost certainly invite a response far more forceful than anything seen in earlier rounds of confrontation. Following the military losses Houthis have endured, for instance, the killing of some of their cabinet members in an Israeli attack on Sana’a in August 2025, the Houthis understand that the consequences of their escalation could be severe, perhaps devastating.

For now, their posture seems to favour a certain deliberate ambiguity. After years of war, the Houthi armed group has secured a degree of authority at home that they are unlikely to risk lightly. To rush headlong into a broader confrontation could undo those gains, trading the slow consolidation of power inside Yemen for a far more dangerous and unpredictable fight.

Eleven years after the Saudi-led intervention began, Yemen’s war no longer belongs entirely to Yemen; it has attached itself to the wider contest now shaping the Middle East. As long as the country plays host to this sprawling regional chess game, real peace feels like a distant rumor. Yemen’s future will bend and break according to currents it barely controls.

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This is the English translation of the original essay in French, first written for/published on the orient21 website. 

Withdrawal Without Accountability: The UAE's Unanswered Crimes in Yemen

*One of the latest key shifts in Yemen's conflict has been the rupture between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in southern Yemen. The recent development has exposed a power struggle that ended the UAE's military presence in Yemen and highlighted its harmful role — harm that cries out for accountability but remains ignored.

Riyadh and Abu Dhabi have long backed rival factions competing for control of southern Yemen, undermining coalition cohesion. By late 2025, this rivalry erupted into an open political and military confrontation after Saudi Arabia publicly accused the UAE of fueling unrest in the south and east of Yemen and acting beyond coalition coordination. The UAE rejected the accusations, insisting instead on its role in promoting Yemen's security and stability.

For most Yemenis, however, the UAE's overreach has long been visible. Following the commencement of the Saudi-led coalition's military campaign in Yemen in 2015, Abu Dhabi provided military, logistical and political support to armed groups operating outside government control — most prominently the secessionist Southern Transitional Council (STC) and its allied forces across southern and western Yemen. In practice, the Emirates exercised proxy rule, reshaping power structures that later became engines of abuse. In 2017, former Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi bluntly accused the UAE of behaving like an occupier.

Since the start of the war, coercive control and systemic abuse have defined the Emirati role in Yemen. The United Nations panels of experts and other international and local rights organizations have extensively documented these practices for years. As early as 2015, Emirati-backed forces in southern Yemen were implicated in arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance and torture carried out across a network of secret prisons operating beyond judicial oversight. This project targeted journalists, political critics and perceived opponents. Some detainees died under torture or following threats that have been traced directly to Emirati officials. Subsequent U.N. investigations concluded that these violations were not the result of rogue local actors, but unfolded within a command structure shaped by Abu Dhabi's material support, operational direction and, in some cases, direct orders issued by Emirati military commanders on the ground.

Last month, the Internationally Recognized Government of Yemen (IRG) — with Saudi backing — granted international media access to former Emirati-run military sites in southern Yemen, exposing detention facilities linked to the secret prisons. Before the rupture between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia and the Yemeni government were aware of these sites but refrained from public criticism. Their exposure now reflects a recalibration driven less by accountability than by an intensifying media and political dispute between the former partners.

International media outlets have revealed aspects of the UAE-run prisons, including shipping-container cells, isolation units and testimonies of torture, sexual abuse and enforced disappearances attributable to UAE personnel and allied Yemeni forces. Following these revelations, families of detainees — some held for years without charge — publicly demanded information about the fate of their loved ones. Families have diligently spoken out about those prisons for years.
In a recent statement, the Abductees' Mothers Association claimed to possess documented testimonies confirming the existence of secret detention sites across Aden, Hadramout and Socotra, where detainees were arbitrarily held, tortured and forcibly disappeared outside of any legal framework. The association also warned that closing such facilities without independent investigations risks destroying evidence and allowing perpetrators to evade accountability.

A daunting set of questions thus arises: Can the UAE, or any other state, enter Yemen and leave at will, abandoning victims of its wrongdoing? What happens to Abu Dhabi's record of human rights abuses in Yemen? Should it not be held accountable? Do its victims not deserve justice? Most crucially, who has the power to hold it accountable?

It is well established that all warring parties in Yemen have committed grave human rights abuses and war crimes. My reporting for Democracy in Exile since January 2024 — alongside my broader body of work — documents violations by all major actors, including the Houthis, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, the United States, the United Kingdom and others. Focusing on the UAE does not downplay the crimes of other parties, which are ongoing and well documented, but examines one case in depth. The UAE's role in Yemen offers a revealing test case: whether any actor can escape accountability for the harm inflicted on the Yemeni people.

The truth of the matter is clear: The UAE has largely hidden behind the Saudi-led coalition to evade any accountability. From the outset of the war, the coalition provided a convenient legal and political shield that Abu Dhabi utilized to diffuse responsibility for its conduct in Yemen. Coalition operations were marked by opacity, with no clear accounting of which states carried out a particular action in many instances. This ambiguity was not incidental.

Under international law, states are required to investigate alleged violations committed by their forces and to ensure respect for the laws of war by units operating under their direction or control. Instead, the UAE and other coalition members routinely withheld information about their individual roles, deflecting scrutiny onto the coalition as a collective entity.

The international system failed to hold Abu Dhabi accountable despite extensive and credible evidence. That failure became structural in 2021, when the U.N. Group of Eminent Experts on Yemen — the only independent, international and impartial mechanism systematically documenting violations — was terminated following sustained lobbying by coalition members, including the UAE. Since then, no comparable body has been mandated to investigate or document abuses in Yemen, leaving a deliberate accountability vacuum.

International human rights mechanisms have exposed their own limitations elsewhere. If the world failed to act in Gaza, why should anyone believe that these tools can hold the UAE accountable in Yemen amid real questions of political will? There appear to be no remaining, realistic mechanisms available today. While the U.N. Group of Eminent Experts no longer documents abuses, the internationally recognized government's National Commission to Investigate Alleged Violations of Human Rights (NCIAVHR) continues this work.

Yemen can leverage these records to pursue cases against Abu Dhabi, seeking justice and redress for victims. The newly appointed minister of legal affairs, Ishraq al-Maqtary — who led NCIAVHR and has tirelessly documented abuses since the war began — must now spearhead this difficult task. Yemen's future depends on accountability, thorough documentation and ensuring no actor escapes the consequences of their actions — including and particularly the UAE. A future marred by unaddressed injustice and a lack of accountability is, in fact, no future at all for tens of millions of Yemenis deserving of better from the international community.

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*This article was first written for & published by DAWN.org 

From the Special Envoy’s Office to What’s Ahead

I’ve just concluded nearly a year working as a Program Officer at the UN Special Envoy for Yemen office, under the leadership of Hans Grundberg. It was a demanding and formative experience, made richer by working closely with my supervisor, the courageous Libyan human rights defender Zahra Langhi. Grateful for the experience, the colleagues, and the opportunity to contribute during an important period for Yemen.

Since the appointment of the first UN envoy for Yemen in 2012, several envoys have taken on this demanding mandate. As a journalist, I spent years closely covering their work. That perspective deepened in 2018, when I served as a fellow at the UN Security Council—an opportunity to observe firsthand how global decisions are shaped, negotiated, and often diluted behind closed doors.

Working under the leadership of Swedish diplomat Hans Grundberg was a particularly meaningful experience. As a Swedish citizen, I shared a cultural frame of reference that helped me better understand his leadership style, diplomatic instincts, and approach to mediation.

Working at the Special Envoy’s Office during one of the most critical moments for Yemen, I sought each day to translate Yemeni realities into policy language—without dulling their urgency. Above all, I worked to expose the cost of inaction: the price Yemenis continue to pay when diplomacy stalls and accountability fades.

I do not see human rights advocacy, external critique/analysis, and working from within institutions as contradictory paths, but as complementary ones. My journey—from journalism to formal policy spaces—has shown me that while global institutions offer real opportunities to influence decision-making, they must remain closely connected to human realities. Even the most well-intentioned systems risk becoming bureaucratic and detached if they are not continually grounded in people’s lived experiences and reminded of the human cost of silence.

As I look ahead, I’m eager to apply these lessons in new opportunities and roles that value principled analysis and impact. 

Yemen in 2026: Rivalries and Ruptures

ICDI - After more than a decade of war, Yemen stands as an example of a profound failure of strategy and reason by domestic leadership, regional intervention, and international diplomacy. In 2025, Yemen’s war became increasingly entangled with broader Middle East geopolitical recalibrations — especially around Red Sea security and changing Gulf relations — which have posed major challenges for diplomacy.

The end of 2025 marked a decisive rupture in the partnership in Yemen between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), as years of concealed rivalry gave way to open political and military confrontation. Yemen’s conflict pits the Iran-backed Houthi armed group, which controls much of the north after toppling the internationally recognized government, against a fractured, Saudi-supported internationally recognized government located in the south, with both sides fighting for control over the Yemeni state. Complicating this divide, the UAE has long backed the separatist Southern Transitional Council (STC), seeking autonomy or independence for southern Yemen. Saudi Arabia’s direct intervention against the UAE-backed STC in eastern Yemen last December signaled a broader escalation, with Riyadh now actively moving to curb and roll back Emirati influence across the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa. Saudi Arabia now views Abu Dhabi’s proxy-based expansion as a direct threat to its strategic security belt. In parallel, Saudi Arabia has moved to reclaim stewardship over the southern issue, shifting it from an Emirati-managed proxy arena to a Saudi-supervised political track centered on dialogue by Riyadh convening southern leaders. This breakdown of relations between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi is almost certainly going to be a defining factor shaping Yemen’s conflict dynamics in 2026.

Three factors that could shape the conflict in 2026

It is difficult to predict with confidence what Yemen’s trajectory will be in 2026. Still, a few dynamics are likely to weigh more heavily than others: a conflict that remains stuck in a stalemate and fragmentation, deeper regional entanglements, and the humanitarian fallout of both. There is little indication that the war will move beyond this impasse. If anything, division itself now seems to function as the organizing principle of Yemen’s political landscape. With the Houthis firmly entrenched in the north and the anti-Houthi camp increasingly fractured across the south and east, it is hard to see what incentives exist for compromise rather than continued entrenchment.

The second uncertainty lies in regional geopolitics. With Red Sea security concerns, intensifying Gulf rivalries, and the possibility of a United States military strike on Iran, all converging, Yemen risks being treated as a secondary arena in wider strategic contests. Saudi Arabia’s pursuit of de-escalation in Yemen usually fails to translate into diplomatic engagement. At the same time, the proxy forces that the UAE has built in the south will not simply dissolve overnight. In this context, the Houthis may seek to exploit the situation by launching military offensives in areas they aim to expand. Whether they can do so, however, remains an open question, hinging largely on the level of support they continue to receive from Iran — and on Iran’s own fate should a US military confrontation materialize.

The final—and most unsettling—question is how long Yemen’s humanitarian catastrophe can continue to sit on the political sidelines. More than half of the population, an estimated 19.5 million people, now depend on humanitarian assistance, including 4.8 million internally displaced persons and over 61,000 refugees and asylum seekers. Yet even at this scale, the crisis no longer provokes urgency among donors, international institutions, or regional mediators. Aid is increasingly constrained and politicized through funding cuts, obstruction of aid, Houthis’ detentions of civil society and UN agency workers, donor conditionality, and access restrictions, while economic collapse and institutional decay deepen in the background. Ordinary Yemenis pay the price, day after day. And yet, history shows that desperation is rarely passive. One day, the pressure it creates may spill over in ways that no strategy, no negotiation, can contain.

Possible scenarios

These three dynamics create a context in which a range of outcomes is possible. How the conflict unfolds will depend on a number of moving parts: whether the Saudi-UAE rivalry escalates or stabilizes, whether the Houthis decide to push into new territory, and whether the international community steps in—or stays on the sidelines. Seen in this light, Yemen’s path over the coming year could follow two very different directions.

Scenario one: fragmentation vs stabilization

In the most optimistic scenario, Saudi Arabia manages to reassert itself as the dominant external broker in Yemen, reining in rival armed actors and nudging the fractured Presidential Leadership Council (PLC) toward at least a semblance of cohesion—a trajectory Riyadh has already begun to signal through its recent announcement of large-scale financial support for Yemen’s security and development sectors, particularly in southern areas previously dominated by UAE-backed forces.

A reduction in Emirati interference — whether due to shifting priorities or external pressure — would ease southern tensions and allow the council to exercise authority over its previously independent military units. In this scenario, the PLC would not suddenly transform into a fully functioning government, but it could begin to regain credibility, present a united front in negotiations with the Houthis, and establish clearer chains of command that make governance possible rather than purely reactive.

Yet even here, the gains would be fragile. Any stabilization would depend on Riyadh’s continued engagement, the council members’ willingness to subordinate personal ambitions, and the ability to balance external influence without appearing to cede sovereignty. Also, it depends on confronting Israel’s increasing entanglement in Gulf rivalries, aligning quietly with the UAE, and expanding its presence in the Red Sea and Horn of Africa — developments that Riyadh views as a strategic threat and factor in regional competition.

If all goes well, for the first time in years, Yemen could move from a state of pure paralysis to one where decisions are made, priorities set, and the country is at least minimally steered rather than drifting. It would not be a solution to Yemen’s deeper fractures, but a conditional stabilization that offers a space for peace talks.

Scenario two: entrenched fragmentation

The more likely — and more dangerous — scenario is one in which Saudi Arabia cannot fully assert control over southern armed groups, while the UAE quietly backs separatist and local forces in the south and east – a dynamic that risks escalating local violence and undermining the PLC’s authority — a pattern already evident in the large, recurrent pro-STC protests in Aden, which signal persistent popular legitimacy for the separatists despite Saudi-backed military gains.

In this trajectory, competition over territory, resources, and external patronage will intensify, particularly in regions such as Hadramout, where long-standing grievances are increasingly framed in autonomist or separatist terms. Fragmentation will become self-reinforcing, as armed groups resist any political settlement that threatens their economic lifelines or local dominance. National peace talks will likely stall, not only because of the Houthis, but because no unified counterpart exists on the other side. Frustrated by Saudi Arabia’s recent moves, the Houthis could respond with a military push toward areas they intend to advance into, framing Riyadh — not the UAE — as Yemen’s chief adversary. Houthi official, Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, has already accused Saudi Arabia of steering the war for its own strategic and territorial gain, manipulating regional actors, and placing its interests above Yemeni unity. While Houthis remain wary of the UAE and its ties to Israel, the Houthis portray Saudi actions as the greater threat — tools of a broader agenda serving American and Israeli ambitions under the veneer of religion.

In this context, Yemen drifts further toward a Libya- or Somalia-style model: a formally recognized government with shrinking authority, multiple competing power centers, and a conflict that no longer moves toward resolution.

Ultimately, 2026 is unlikely to be a year of resolution for Yemen. The question is not whether the war will end, but whether it will continue to be managed through fragmentation, external bargaining, and humanitarian containment. As regional actors recalibrate their priorities and Yemeni institutions remain hollowed out, Yemen risks slipping further into a conflict that no one is actively trying to win — or end. What happens next will depend less on new peace initiatives than on whether those with power, inside and outside Yemen, are willing to accept the costs of continued division as the status quo.

*This article was first written for and published on ICDI's website on 26 January. Original link is here. 

Women and Peacebuilding in Yemen

The following is a feature by Australia Assists, the Australian Government’s humanitarian civilian deployment program, about my work. The interview was done in June 2025 during my former work with the Office of the UN Special Envoy for Yemen in Amman. The original link to the feature is here. 

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Afrah supports the advancement of women and peacebuilding in Yemen, championing women’s leadership in inclusive peace processes through her Australia Assists deployment.

Growing Up in Sana’a

Growing up in Sana’a, the capital city of Yemen, Afrah became deeply aware of the challenges women faced in her community. As a young child, she had already witnessed the everyday realities of gender-based discrimination.

As a young girl, Afrah witnessed her mother dedicate 5 years of her life to secure a divorce in a system where Yemen’s Personal Status Laws allows men to end a marriage alone, but forces women to seek judicial approval.

‘I gained a deeper understanding of the gender disparities embedded in Yemen’s Personal Status Laws,’ recalled Afrah. ‘My mother’s struggle to secure a divorce illustrated the challenges many Yemeni women encounter in accessing justice.’

This life-changing experience and the realities she faced of gender discrimination sparked her lifelong passion for equality and justice. This passion was further ignited during the Arab Spring and has now led to supporting the United Nations Office of the Special Adviser to the UN Secretary-General on Yemen (OSEGY) deployed through Australia Assists.

From Blogging to Advocacy

In the heat of the Arab Spring, Afrah started sharing her thoughts through her personal blog. As thousands of Yemeni people took to the streets to demand a better Yemen, Afrah’s words found an online audience that resonated within Yemen and across the Middle East. This sparked the moment when her writing became a powerful platform for Yemeni advocacy, where she helped shine a light on the resilience and struggles of Yemeni women.

‘I recognised the responsibility of being an emerging voice for Yemeni women on a global stage,’ said Afrah. ‘It was a unique opportunity that shed light on their resilience, struggles, and contributions… it also deepened my commitment to advocating for gender equality and women’s rights in Yemen.’

After more than a decade of conflict, Yemen remains in a multi-faceted humanitarian crisis, with nearly 20 million people (roughly 60% of the population) requiring urgent humanitarian assistance this year alone. Women and girls are facing the brunt of it. ‘This dire situation is exacerbated by prolonged conflict, economic collapse, and climate-induced disasters… while access to essential services, such as healthcare, education and clean water remains severely limited,’ noted Afrah.

Afrah’s Life Mission

For Afrah, her work is her “life mission”, reflecting a deep and personal commitment to advancing human rights, particularly women’s rights, in Yemen and beyond. Today, as a Programme Officer within the Inclusion Unit at OSEGY, she is helping to advance the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda, where women’s voices are fully integrated into all aspects of the peace process. ‘Every decision I make, both professionally and personally, is aligned with these values, understanding that true peace is built on inclusivity and respect for all.’

In her deployment, she helps design and deliver initiatives that push for women’s participation in the peacebuilding process for Yemen – using her expertise in advocacy, research and partnership building. ‘Each day brings a blend of strategic planning, program oversight, stakeholder engagement and communication efforts,’ explains Afrah.

Women At the Centre of Peacebuilding

Historically, women have been excluded from peacebuilding processes. For Afrah and the broader OSEGY mandate, however, women’s involvement in peacebuilding is not optional – it is essential.

‘Women are essential to the process of building sustainable peace, as they bring unique perspectives and solutions that are critical for addressing the root causes of conflict and fostering long-term stability,’ noted Afrah. ‘Women are central to social cohesion in their communities, and their involvement ensures that peace agreements are more comprehensive, inclusive, and resilient.’

Despite the dire humanitarian situation in Yemen, Afrah remains steadfast.

She draws upon the strength and resilience of the countless activists and Yemeni women who continue to fight for a better future. ‘The strength and determination of Yemeni women, who continue to fight for basic rights in a context of extreme adversity, give me faith that a better future is possible.’

Most importantly, she also draws inspiration from those closest to her. ‘What keeps me going is the deep sense of responsibility I feel towards my mother, cousins, relatives, friends, and relatives of my friends all inside Yemen,’ said Afrah. ‘I feel a deep sense of responsibility towards those on the ground – especially the “forgotten women” of Yemen who bear the brunt of this conflict yet remain unheard.’

‘No matter how difficult this is, it’s worth it – because it holds the potential to create long-lasting impact.’ 

From Yemen to the World. Carrying Yemen's stories with me, always.

My article, “Ten Years After Saudi Arabia's Intervention in Yemen, There Is Only Irreparable Loss,” has been featured among Democracy in Exile’s Most Popular Articles of 2025.

Do you know what it means for a young woman from a humble neighborhood in Sana’a—حارة الرقاص—to see her work stand out alongside articles by Harvard- and Oxford-educated writers? Even now, I am still amazed. More than anything, it reaffirms my belief in the power and necessity of telling Yemen’s stories to the world.

I was inspired to write this piece after a gathering with Yemeni friends, when a mother pointed to her nine-year-old son and said:
“I gave birth to him in a hospital while coalition bombs were falling on the funeral hall. Remember that day? That’s when he was born.”

My heart breaks when I think of Yemen’s collective pain. And as I resist falling into despair, I carry that pain with me—and turn it into words. 

In Love with Writing

I see my life in fragments, scattered like pages torn from a book. I gather them up, read them in no particular order, and the through-line is always there: writing.

I was a child in Sana’a when I first understood that the world would not save me. I watched my mother fight battles she was destined to lose. A woman, wanting a divorce, trapped inside the machinery of Yemeni law—an apparatus built by men, for men, where women are nothing but footnotes. The discriminatory laws against women hindered my mother from having her freedom from her abusive partner. There was no justice for her. We all suffered. There was no escape. So I made my own. I wrote. Writing was my escape.

At fourteen, my journal became my confessional, my shield, my secret doorway into another world. A world where I could name things as they were. A world where I was not powerless. I wrote feverishly, obsessively, as if my life depended on it. Maybe it did.

Later, when it was time for me to go to college, everyone around me tried to make me choose another life. A reasonable life. A job in a bank, a degree in commerce, something stable, something practical. But what they didn’t understand—what they never understood—was that writing was not something I did. Writing was something I was.

I became a journalist. I fought for it. I fought my family. I fought the expectations of my culture. I fought during the 2011 revolution. I wrote when they told me to be silent. I wrote when it meant writing would lead me to a life in exile. I wrote when it meant losing everything I had known.

Even in Sweden, I kept writing. Through war, through pandemic, through solitude so deep it felt like drowning, I wrote. The words carried me forward. They placed me in rooms and panel discussions with

people who had studied at Harvard and Oxford, men and women who had walked smooth, untroubled paths to success, while I was just me, a young lady with a humble background. But none of that mattered. Writing was the great equalizer. Writing was the only passport I ever needed.

They gave me an international award for it once, by the Committee to Protect Journalists in New York. A beautiful, weighty thing. Recognition. Proof that the words I wrote mattered. But awards mean nothing. Not really. People tell me I’m a star. They look at me with admiration, with awe, as if I’ve transcended something.

But Yemen is the star.

I do not write about fashion, about fleeting pleasures, about things meant to dazzle and distract. I write about a people whose suffering is infinite. A people who bleed, who grieve, who endure.

My identity—half Yemeni, half Ethiopian—was supposed to be a liability. Something to be hidden, something to erase. But I wrote it into existence. I turned it into a strength. I wrote about my mother’s cancer, about the pain that lived in my bones, about every truth I was told not to speak.

And in the end, it was always the same: writing was the center. The anchor. The compass.

Everything else changes. Everything else slips through my fingers.

But writing remains.

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*This article was first written for Yemen Platform in February 2025. 

From Revolution to Shadow: How has war redefined the existence of Yemeni women?

4 April - Jeem - The National Dialogue Conference (2012-2014) was a spark of light in the long night of women in Yemen. After the Yemeni revolution in 2011 and the popular movement advocating for the overthrow of President Ali Abdullah Saleh's regime and the establishment of a civil state with equal citizenship, women found themselves, for the first time, in front of an open door, albeit timidly. The 30 percent quota they secured allowed them a chance to sneak into the conference halls and negotiate the country's fate and the constitution with a boldness never before seen in the country.

This women’s quota—guaranteed seats for women—was an unprecedented step to ensure women's participation in the political process after their prominent role in the revolution.

Under the rule of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, the women's quota was symbolically set at 15 percent, but the reality was very different; only two women were elected out of 301 members in parliament, instead of the 45 women that should have been elected according to this percentage. The 30 percent quota at the National Dialogue Conference was not a privilege women received automatically; it came as a result of continuous pressure from the Yemeni feminist movement, with support from the international community.

During the conference, and after intense discussions, a document was produced that included hundreds of recommendations, upon which the draft of the new constitution was based. Unlike previous constitutions, the proposed constitution recognized women's full citizenship and independent legal personality, and it stipulated a 30 percent quota for women in decision-making positions. This achievement would have placed Yemen second only to Tunisia in terms of the legal representation of women in power.

However, as is often the case in the country, not many dreams are allowed. The coup of 2014 came like an arch breaking in a storm, and the Houthis pulled everything into darkness. Politics retreated, rights scattered, and what had been built in months crumbled in an instant, like a house of cards blown away by the wind.

Yemen, a country that has always known nothing but wars, entered another whirlpool: a civil war eating the souls of its people from the inside, and the war of the Arab coalition led by Saudi Arabia tearing apart what remained of its bare flesh. Between all this, there were the women. Women were always there, but now with heavier shadows and more brutal pain.

The war was not just a war; it was another lust for violence, adding more wounds on top of old ones. The men were not content with blood; they wanted more... more control and more power. Women not only lost the rights they were promised, but they also lost their space of existence. They lost the idea that they had a place in public or even in private; violence against them became another part of the chaos, a natural extension of the wreckage.

Here, unavoidable questions arise: Is this just another end to their long story of injustice? Or is it a turning point that will leave deep impacts on their choices, their role in society, and their space in both public and private life? Will they fade into silence? Or will they create a new path from the rubble?

These are fundamental questions about the future of women in Yemen, where revolutions rise from beneath the ruins.

Violence in the War Zones and Private Life

Amid the war, the parties involved in the conflict sought to gain further advantages at the expense of women, striving to suffocate them and impose strict restrictions on their active roles in resistance and in maintaining the social fabric.

Before the conflict, there were laws that acted as holes in the wall, swallowing women one by one. According to the Yemeni Personal Status Law (issued in 1992 and amended several times), women cannot marry without the permission of a male guardian, nor can they divorce without humiliation. They do not have the same rights as men in divorce, and they cannot retain custody of their children unless a man allows it.

Then came the Houthis, the Yemeni government, and the "Southern Transitional Council" supported by the UAE, tightening these restrictions. They decided that women could only move with permission and travel only with a male relative (a "mahram"). A woman needs written consent from her guardian to be allowed to travel—as if she were a commodity permitted to pass from one checkpoint to another. It is worth noting that the requirement for women to travel with or obtain permission from a male guardian was not imposed before the conflict began.

Young girls and minors, who barely understood the meaning of love and the nature of their own bodies, suddenly found themselves in the beds of men much older than them—by twenty, thirty, or even forty years. There is no minimum age for marriage in Yemen, and there never has been. But the war has made child marriages more widespread, more miserable, and more accepted by hungry families. Nothing protects a girl from poverty and famine except the possibility that a man older than her will bear her expenses.

There were threats, smear campaigns, beatings, and retaliatory detention. Yet, all of this was not enough for the parties to the conflict, who went further, ensuring that women were humiliated in prisons, subjected to sexual violence, and accused of prostitution and debauchery in degrading terms that left a social stigma on the victimized women.

As for the migrants from the Horn of Africa traveling to Saudi Arabia, they have another story. They leave countries ravaged by famine only to find another kind of hunger in Yemen—hunger for power and control. They are subjected to rape and torture at the hands of human traffickers. At the heart of this swamp, violence does not stop at the doors of the war zones; it sneaks into homes, bedrooms, and into the corners of kitchens where mothers cook meals for children who may later kill them.

In recent years, news of women being killed by their male relatives has become routine. A woman is burned in Lahj, another is slaughtered in Hodeidah by her ex-husband, a third is stabbed in Aden by her husband, and a fourth is suffocated with a poisoned needle because she said "no," and mothers are killed by their sons' hands. Death repeats itself like a hymn with new faces and names, all sharing the same fate.

We have seen justice take its course in only a few of these crimes. In February of this year, the Court of Appeal in Aden sentenced the accused, Mohsen Ahmed, to death after proving his involvement in the murder of the victim, Fatima Doman, in August 2023 inside a commercial center in Aden. The perpetrator stabbed his victim several times with a white weapon (a dagger), causing severe bleeding that led to her death.

Thus, the violence against women was not confined to the war zones; it also extended to private life. Domestic violence escalated dangerously as economic and social pressures increased, making women more vulnerable to being killed by family members. In light of the collapse of livelihoods, some men resorted to violence as a means of control and venting their frustration—a behavior that no circumstance can justify. Instead of addressing the real causes of the crisis, violence is directed at women, reflecting the entrenchment of a culture of impunity and the use of force to impose control in the midst of chaos and economic collapse.

In an interview with women’s rights defenders inside Yemen, they confirmed that divorce rates are on the rise, along with increased physical violence against women and children, including continuous beatings and harm. Thus, homes, which should be a safe haven, have turned into other arenas of violence and oppression. Despite this, Yemen still lacks a clear law to protect women from domestic violence.

The Legacy of Violence

Despite all of this, women in Yemeni society hold a special place, rooted in traditions and customs that grant them social respect within the family and community, making the contrast between this respect and the oppressive laws and the painful reality of women’s lives more evident. The duality in how women are treated—between social esteem and legal marginalization—stems from a complex intersection of customs, traditions, and legal structures derived from religious and tribal interpretations.

On one hand, women are seen as the backbone of the family, surrounded by respect and care, but this respect is conditional upon their adherence to strictly defined traditional roles. On the other hand, this view is translated into laws that reinforce male control over their lives, seeing this control as part of “protecting” them, rather than diminishing their rights.

The violence that has increased during the war against women is not just a physical blow to their bodies, but a deep crack in the fabric of society. Women have become the focal point of political and military conflict through systemic violence, including killing, detention, torture, and forced marriages as a means of survival amidst economic collapse.

The restrictions on freedom of movement, such as the "mahram" (male guardian) requirement for travel, are not merely regulatory measures but tools to enforce the control of armed groups over both public and private spheres, thereby strengthening traditional masculine authority in an even more repressive context.

Violence against women has not only erased the limited space for their political and social participation but has also turned their mere presence in public spaces into a direct threat. The targeting of activists and human rights defenders—through threats, slander, and assassinations—further isolates them from the public sphere, reinforcing that the repression of women is not merely a consequence of war, but an integral part of control strategies.

The psychological trauma, with the escalation of violence and systemic repression, has transformed into a daily legacy, with women carrying invisible scars in their bodies and memories, scars that are as painful as physical wounds. However, excessive repression often generates reactions that the perpetrators do not anticipate.

For example, many women have had to rearrange their personal priorities, not based on their desires or ambitions, but according to the harsh necessities imposed by the war.

Although there are no precise statistics on women's participation in the labor market, indicators suggest an increase in their involvement in the workforce in recent years. Some women have even started to take on jobs that were once considered reserved for men. For instance, women never drove taxis before the war; this was the exclusive domain of male drivers. However, young Ghadeer Al-Kholani launched the "Mashwari Hawa" app in Sana’a a year and a half ago to enable women to drive taxis for transporting women and children. The app started with five female drivers and has expanded to include 20 drivers today.

It is widely believed that the years of armed conflict have contributed to a relative increase in women’s employment, with many men losing their income sources or dying, being detained, or injured in the war. As a result, women found themselves forced to take on new roles as breadwinners for their families. While this development may be seen as a positive step, it has been driven by necessity, not as part of an economic liberation planned by the women themselves. There is always the danger of economic exploitation, low wages, and increasing risks to their lives accompanying this step.

In the context of war, the available choices for women are no longer built on desires or dreams; they have become constrained by the harsh realities and the ongoing state of emergency. Priorities have shifted to survival and securing the bare minimum of life, rather than achieving personal fulfillment or ambition.

When Will Change Happen?

The current conflict in Yemen did not create discrimination against women, but it has amplified it and given it new legitimacy, whether through restrictive laws or systemic violence. The war not only erased the few gains women had made since 2011, but it has completely redefined their existence—from active participants to marginalized individuals, from political claimants to victims of escalating violence. The war was also a revelation of the extent of injustice, the depth of exclusion, and the ferocity of those who fear that women might have a voice and a place.


Despite all this repression, there are signs that these forced changes may, in the future, create the impetus for a more radical feminist movement, drawing on the harsh experiences women have endured in the war. With the increasing number of women entering the workforce and becoming self-reliant, and with the growing awareness of different forms of oppression, a new feminist consciousness could emerge, one capable of challenging this reality, whether through human rights struggles or by reconstructing social roles after the war ends. History shows that major crises often serve as a precursor to radical transformations. The question here is not whether change will happen, but when, and what its features will look like.

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*This essay was first written in Arabic for Jeem website (source: here). 

Ten Years After Saudi Arabia's Intervention in Yemen, There Is Only Irreparable Loss

DAWN - "Keep Yemen weak," King Abdulaziz Al Saud, the founder of modern Saudi Arabia, is said to have told his sons on his deathbed. Whether those words were apocryphal or not, the sentiment behind them aligns with Saudi Arabia's long-standing geopolitical strategy toward its southern neighbor. Historically, Saudi policy has sought to maintain a balance of power in Yemen—strong enough to prevent total collapse and regional instability but weak enough to prevent it from becoming a powerful, independent state that could challenge Saudi influence. This approach was evident in past Saudi interventions in Yemen, such as its support in the 1960s for Yemeni royalists against republicans backed by Egypt under Gamal Abdel Nasser.

Yet, exactly 10 years ago, just after midnight on March 26, 2015, Saudi Arabia broke with its traditional approach to Yemen when it launched heavy airstrikes on the capital, Sanaa. The Saudi aim, leading a military coalition that included other Gulf states, was to drive Houthi rebels out of Sanaa after they had effectively ousted the Yemeni government of then-President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi. The Saudi-led military intervention, including its aerial bombing campaign that alone killed some 24,000 Yemenis, was not "limited in nature," as the Saudis promised, nor did it "protect the people of Yemen."

Instead, Saudi Arabia's disastrous intervention further fragmented Yemen. Control of the country today is still split between the Houthis, who are much stronger than they were in 2015 and have become the dominant force across northern Yemen; the weak internationally recognized government, mostly confined to Aden; and the separatist Southern Transitional Council (STC) backed by the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia's one-time partner in its military coalition against the Houthis.

Ten years after the airstrikes began, the Saudi-led war against the Houthis has left Yemen in ruins, with no clear winners, only devastation. Every faction involved, from the Houthis to the Saudi-led coalition and their local allies to the coalition's Western backers, has contributed to the suffering. When the Houthis seized Sana'a in 2014, they set the stage for a long, unresolved war that risked drawing in outside powers. In another era, perhaps Saudi Arabia would have been more cautious, but with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman assuming more power under his father, King Salman, the prince pushed for what was widely seen by observers as "his war"—what quickly became "Saudi Arabia's Vietnam."

Every side in Yemen's war has been credibly accused of committing grave human rights violations and war crimes, contributing to the country's descent into hell. The use of starvation as a weapon of war—by both the Houthis and the Saudi-led coalition—further underlined the brutality of this conflict. Every horror of war you can name has been carried out in Yemen. The United Nations estimated in 2020 that nearly a quarter of a million people had died directly or indirectly from the conflict, though most believe the toll is much higher. The warring parties have all failed to uphold even the most basic principles of international humanitarian law.

The Saudi-led intervention in Yemen had one main objective: reversing the Houthi takeover of Sana'a. It unequivocally failed in that mission. Instead, Saudi military adventurism entrenched Yemeni divisions, exacerbated humanitarian suffering across the country and left Yemen broken as a state. The consequences of this failure extend beyond the battlefield, shaping Yemen's political future and regional dynamics in ways that will be difficult to reverse. Saudi Arabia's failure isn't just military or political; it's a failure of logic and reason.

In the early days of the war in 2015, Saudi diplomats claimed to U.S. officials that they could defeat the Houthis in six weeks—a prediction that not only foreshadowed military disaster but political miscalculation. Rather than strengthening the Yemeni government as their intervention claimed to, the UAE, Saudi Arabia's main coalition partner, undermined stated Saudi objectives by backing rival Yemeni militias like the STC, which wants to secede and reestablish an independent South Yemen. This lack of a unified strategy turned the anti-Houthi bloc into competing power centers, weakening the coalition and prolonging the war—turning Yemen into a battleground of fragmented allegiances and an increasingly fractious, multi-front, multi-sided war.

Saudi Arabia's efforts to unify the anti-Houthi camp—through the Riyadh Agreement in 2019 and the Presidential Leadership Council that the Saudis engineered in 2022—faltered due to these deep internal rivalries and conflicting agendas, particularly between Saudi-backed Yemeni factions and UAE-supported forces like the STC. Instead of forging a cohesive front, Saudi machinations deepened existing divisions, with internal clashes persisting within the Riyadh-based Presidential Leadership Council. Competing Saudi and Emirati interests and the absence of any centralized command turned the Presidential Leadership Council into another battleground for power struggles within the anti-Houthi bloc.

But most importantly, on the ground in Yemen, the Saudi-led coalition's military failure was rooted in both strategic miscalculations and structural weaknesses. The initial assumption that air power and military superiority could swiftly defeat the Houthis underestimated their resilience and ability to adapt through asymmetric warfare, including drone strikes and other guerrilla tactics developed through years of insurgency in Yemen's northern highlands. The Houthis exploited every Saudi misstep, expanding their reach in Yemen and then launching sustained attacks deep into Saudi territory.

The Saudi-led coalition's failure to achieve its objectives, despite substantial military expenditures, has exposed deep vulnerabilities in Saudi Arabia's military capabilities, draining resources and raising questions about the kingdom's long-term economic stability. The protracted war has left Saudi Arabia vulnerable, which explains why Riyadh abruptly shifted to diplomacy over the past two years, in what has amounted to a significant retreat. Yemen's fragmentation, in a state of de facto partition, has made any cohesive political resolution increasingly elusive, reinforcing Yemen's instability and underscoring the risks Saudi Arabia created through its military intervention.

Instead of trying to reshape Yemen's political landscape, the Saudis are now focused on smaller issues, like border security. From its 2023 agreement restoring diplomatic ties with Iran, brokered by China, to the surprising visit in April 2023 by the Saudi ambassador to Sanaa, where he met with Houthi leaders, Riyadh has moved into damage-control mode. Saudi officials have been forced to adjust their approach, from bellicose rhetoric about driving the Houthis out of power to more modest aims of containing threats to the kingdom. This about-face reflects a recognition that military intervention alone cannot resolve the stalemate in Yemen.

The Houthi strikes in the Red Sea, targeting international shipping, U.S. naval ships and Israeli targets, in declared solidarity with Gaza, highlight the missteps of the Saudi war, which ended up elevating the Houthis as a regional actor. Once only a tribal insurgency with aims on northern Yemen, the Houthis now have global clout. The fact that both the Biden administration and Trump administration have ordered U.S. airstrikes against them only plays into Houthi narratives that they are leading the armed resistance to both the U.S. and Israel. But the Houthis' survival still ultimately depends on negotiation, not endless war. Despite the failed Saudi intervention, the Houthis have not won the war in Yemen, even if they have emerged stronger.

For Yemenis, the past decade has been a cascade of wasted years, shattered hopes and unimaginable suffering. The youngest generation has known nothing but the horrors of this brutal conflict. In gatherings today, people recount everything they have had to endure. A mother points to her 9-year-old son: "I gave birth to my son in a hospital while coalition bombs fell on the funeral hall. Remember that day? That's when he was born." Another father calmly describes how he lost his teenage son to a bullet fired by a Houthi sniper in Taiz. Yemenis joke darkly that by the time there is any real redress for all the war's destruction, it won't be enough to just rebuild. They would need these lost 10 years given back to them—an impossible demand for an irreparable loss.

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This article was first written for and published on the DAWN website.