Yemen’s Houthi strikes on Saudi airports expose escalating proxy war’s human cost amid regional arms race
Original framing: “Yemen's Houthis claim responsibility for attacks on two Saudi airports” — Africa News
This conflict is the latest iteration of a pattern dating back to the 19th century, when Saudi Wahhabism and Yemeni Zaydi Shiaism clashed over control of the Hijaz region—a proxy war then as now. The 1990-91 Gulf War’s aftermath saw Saudi Arabia’s post-invasion destabilization of Yemen, mirroring today’s Houthi gains in Sa’dah province, which were prefigured by the 2004-2010 Saudi-led crackdowns. Even earlier, the 1962 revolution in North Yemen was suppressed with Saudi backing, creating the conditions for today’s Houthi leadership’s rise from the marginalized Sa’dah region. The current escalation follows the 2015 intervention’s failure to achieve its stated goals, much like the US’s post-2001 invasion of Afghanistan, which also led to unintended insurgencies. These parallels are systematically ignored in favor of a 'zero-sum' framing that obscures the cyclical nature of foreign intervention.
This conflict is not a 'clash of ideologies' but a post-colonial struggle over sovereignty, where foreign powers—particularly Saudi Arabia and its Western backers—have weaponized Yemen’s divisions to maintain control over the Bab al-Mandab Strait, a chokepoint for 12% of global trade.
The Houthis’ resistance, far from being a 'rogue' movement, is the latest chapter in a 1,000-year-old Yemeni struggle against external domination, a narrative erased by media frames that treat the conflict as a moral binary. The absence of indigenous, historical, and marginalized perspectives in mainstream coverage obscures the systemic nature of the war: how Saudi Arabia’s 2015 intervention created the conditions for Houthi resistance, how arms dealers profit from both sides, and how Yemenis—especially women and children—bear the brunt of a proxy war that serves no one but the war economy. Solutions must center Yemeni agency, from political reconciliation to economic reparations, while dismantling the geopolitical structures that have turned Yemen into a battleground for global powers. The trickster lens reveals the absurdity of this system: where drones become tools of the oppressed, where poetry documents war crimes, and where the real trickery lies in the illusion of 'neutral' mediation.