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The qat-chewing, rifle-toting Allahu-akbaring Houthis of Yemen whose attacks on international shipping have forced ships that used to use the Red Sea-Suez Canal route to deliver cargo from Asia to Europe, to instead take a much longer route around the Cape of Good Hope and up the western side of Africa to Europe, are now about to be face a devastating defeat. Although the Shi’a Houthis are only one-third of Yemen’s population, they have been able to dominate the Sunnis.. They have been well-supplied with weapons from Iran in the past, and have continued to remain a threat to shipping, even though they have been subject to attacks by, inter alia, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and most recently, by the United States.
Now comes an announcement that should fill the Houthis, and their ally in Tehran, with dread. Christine Douglass-Williams just wrote about this here, and more on the latest news about the vast army of Yemeni Sunnis that is preparing to launch a huge ground war against the Shia can be found here: “Yemeni gov’t reportedly preparing 80,000 man assault on Houthi-controlled Hodeidah port,” by Yuval Barnea, Jerusalem Post, April 13, 2025:
Yemen’s government is reportedly preparing to launch a massive assault to recapture Hodeidah Port in western Yemen from the Houthis, according to a Friday report in Emirati state media.
If the Houthis lose control of Hodeidah Port, they will be unable to receive the shipments of Iranian weapons on which they have always depended. Deliveries of weapons by air are not a viable alternative; Israel and America have done a good job in damaging the airports under Houthi control, rendering their runways unfit for cargo planes.
Yemen’s internationally recognized government is preparing to mass nearly 80,000 troops for what would be the largest offensive of the civil war, according to statements by Dr. Abdulaziz Sager, chairman of the Gulf Research Center based in Saudi Arabia, on Friday….
The chickens are coming home to roost for the Houthis. They have been making trouble not just for Israel, by using drones to attack Israeli shipping and even targets as far north as Tel Aviv, but have also attacked Western ships, forcing 15% of the world’s shipping that going from Asia to Europe, to be re-routed from the Red Sea-Suez Canal route, and instead taking the route around the Cape of Good Hope and up the west side of Africa to Europe.
Saudi Arabia has a score to settle with the Houthis, who in the past have attacked its oil facilities. Egypt is angry with the Houthis because the re-routing of international shipping has led so far to the country’s loss of $7 billion in Suez Canal revenues. Jordan, too, has seen the shipping that used to deliver goods to the country at its Red Sea port of Aqaba dry up, for the Houthis have been indiscriminate in their attacks on Red Sea shipping.
The Saudis may be delivering weapons to the Yemeni troops from their bulging arsenals just over the border with Yemen. The American planes can provide air cover for the 80,000-strong army that has been formed to deal a final blow to the Houthis. It has been concluded that airstrikes on the Houthis, who have been able to hide in the mountainous region of northern Yemen, are not enough to suppress the group: only a land invasion of Houthi-held territories will finally uproot them.
A previous agreement in 2018 committed the Saudis and the UAE “coalition forces” to end their encirclement of Hodeidah that prevented food and humanitarian aid from reaching all of its inhabitants, innocent civilians as well as Houthi fighters. As part of that agreement, the Houthis promised to remove their forces from the Hodeidah port.
Not only did the Houthis violate the agreement in 2018 to remove its forces from Hodeidah, but they resumed their operations in the port city so as to take over all of it, and to expel all the non-Houthi forces. The Americans, and their Sunni Arab allies in the region, have concluded that the Yemenis themselves will have to take the lead in destroying the Houthis as a military power, and an army 80,000 strong, well-supplied by arms from the Saudis and the Emiratis, and with the promise of American air cover, is right now preparing to sweep through the third of Yemen that is under Houthi control, and to pulverize this last proxy of malevolent Iran.
We should be cheering them on. Pull up a chair. Watch.
