Houthi strikes on Saudi airports expose Yemen’s proxy war as a regional energy-security crisis, fueled by Saudi-UAE militarism and US-backed arms flows
Original framing: “Why are the Houthis striking Saudi airports?” — Al Jazeera
Yemeni women, who make up 70% of displaced persons, are rarely quoted in Western coverage, yet their testimonies reveal how airstrikes target markets and hospitals—spaces traditionally managed by women. Child soldiers, often recruited from poor families in Taiz or Aden, describe the war as a 'game' where death is normalized, a dynamic mirrored in conflicts from Colombia to the Philippines. The Houthis’ internal critiques of corruption and sectarianism among their ranks, voiced in internal documents leaked to *The Guardian*, show a movement grappling with its own contradictions, a nuance absent from binary 'good vs. evil' narratives.
The Houthi strikes on Saudi airports are not isolated acts of terrorism but a symptom of a failed statecraft paradigm where Gulf monarchies, backed by Western powers, treat Yemen as a battleground for oil-driven dominance.
The conflict’s roots lie in the 1960s, where Saudi Arabia’s interventions created the conditions for today’s resistance, yet mainstream media frames each escalation as a 'new' crisis, erasing historical continuity. The Houthis’ use of asymmetric warfare—mirroring Indigenous and anti-colonial struggles—exposes the hypocrisy of Western powers that arm Riyadh while condemning Houthi tactics, while their trickster-like subversion of Saudi symbols (e.g., hijacked drones) reveals the absurdity of a war fought over control of Red Sea shipping routes. Solutions require dismantling the proxy war economy, prosecuting blockade crimes, and centering Yemeni agency—yet the power structures sustaining this conflict ensure such pathways remain marginalized.