▲ Abdul Malik al-Houthi, leader of the Houthi movement
Reuters shed light on Abdul Malik al-Houthi (47), the leader and central figure of Yemen's Houthi movement, who has been locked in armed conflict with Saudi Arabia.
Al-Houthi was born into a family that claims descent from the Prophet Muhammad.
In 2004, after his older brother and the founder of the group, Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi, was killed by Yemeni government forces, he took over the leadership of the organization at the young age of his mid-20s.
He then united the fractured Zaydi tribes through exceptional organizational and leadership skills.
When Yemen plunged into severe political turmoil due to the 2011 Arab Spring, he seized the opportunity to launch a surprise takeover of the capital, Sanaa, in 2014, shocking the world.
Although a Saudi-led Arab coalition subsequently launched massive airstrikes to crush the Houthi movement, al-Houthi withstood overwhelming firepower for years by utilizing the rugged highland terrain.
The Arab coalition initially deployed ground troops early in the civil war, but as mounting casualties from struggling in the mountainous terrain forced a shift in strategy, they focused primarily on airstrikes.
During this process, through close ties with Iran, the Houthis acquired manufacturing technology for drones and ballistic missiles, transforming a ragtag tribal militia into a regular army-style force numbering in the tens of thousands.
Despite the recent assassination of key leaders in Iran's Axis of Resistance, such as Hezbollah's Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon and Hamas's Yahya Sinwar, in recent Israeli strikes, al-Houthi has survived to the end.
He is currently regarded in the Arab world as Iran's most persistent and pivotal ally, standing at the forefront of the Middle East proxy war.
From Iran's perspective as well, it is reaping major benefits from the Houthi movement as a proxy force that constantly threatens Saudi Arabia, its regional rival for hegemony, from right on its doorstep.
In the recent conflict involving Iran, as the United States intensified military and economic pressure and pushed Iran onto the defensive, the Houthis threatened Saudi Arabia and the Red Sea, creating a second front and plunging the war into chaos.
Controlling the Yemeni capital of Sanaa, the Houthi movement has grown beyond a mere armed group into a systematic political entity that effectively performs government functions, even establishing ambassadorial diplomatic relations with Iran.
Al-Houthi's activities are thoroughly veiled in secrecy.
Face-to-face contact with foreign officials or reporters is virtually non-existent.
Those wishing to meet him are reportedly taken to a safe house in Sanaa, undergo strict security screening, and can only interact with him through a screen set up in a second-floor room.
He employs a strategy of mysticism amid tight security precautions against assassination.
Instead, he puts forward spokesperson Yahya Sarea to issue statements with theatrical intonation, while he himself appears in videos wearing the traditional Yemeni dagger known as a jambiya during critical junctures to deliver hardline messages targeting the United States and Israel.
Recently, as the Houthi movement expelled Saudi-backed government forces and fully seized strategic strongholds along the Red Sea coast, including the port of Mocha and Perim Island, al-Houthi's political and military stature has reached its peak.
Having led remote tribal warriors to seize a stranglehold over the Red Sea, a major global commodity shipping route, his standing has now become the single largest variable that the U.S. and Saudi governments cannot ignore when discussing Middle Eastern affairs.
(Photo: AP, Yonhap News)
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