Fabian Hinz
The Ansarullah (Houthi) movement in Yemen is digging in for the long term, literally.
The armed group, which controls much of the country and has been harassing shipping in the Red Sea, has undertaken a major expansion of underground military facilities, satellite images reviewed by the International Institute for Strategic Studies reveal. The building boom predates the ongoing United States-led Poseidon Archer military operation that has targeted the Houthis to counter their attacks on cargo and military vessels.
While the Houthis used caves and simple tunnels in their earliest days as an armed group, more recently, they have pursued much larger installations, refurbishing both pre-war Yemeni Army tunnel systems and building entirely new underground facilities.
Building blocks
Some of the first evidence that the Houthis were using underground facilities emerged in 2004, during the first of the so-called Saada Wars between the Yemeni government and what was, at the time, a peripheral northern Yemeni rebel group. In September of that year, the Yemeni army killed the group’s first leader, Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi. According to Houthi sources, Yemeni army forces discovered the cave in which he was hiding and poured gasoline into it before setting it ablaze.
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