Who Are The Houthis And Why Is Australia Getting Involved?

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If you’ve been following the news, you would have heard the increased mentions of the Houthi rebels.

The Iranian-backed, Yemen-based group are attacking ships in the Red Sea and have threatened to continue in a bid to disrupt ships from delivers goods to and from Israel.

It has prompted the US, UK, and Australia to carry out strikes against the Houthis.

Listen to the episode of The Briefing here:

In this episode of The Briefing, Sacha Barbour Gatt is joined by Middle East expert Sarah Phillips from the University of Sydney to explain who the rebel group is and how the attacks could lead to a wider conflict with the western world.

“They are an ideological movement. They are an anti-imperialist movement and they are a domestic insurgency that is holding territory and claiming that it’s the legitimate government,” Ms Phillips told The Briefing.

“Their goal is to control the north of Yemen and really to seize the oil fields that are just currently out of its reach and to control the ports because it requires access to those economic resources to be able to maintain of economically viable political space.

“They have quite a sophisticated supervisory system of governance whereby they empower people in the governorates and then down to the local community level to essentially monitor the population and to report back on any behaviour that is potentially against the, the rule of the Houthis that is exercised very brutally.”

To hear the full chat with Ms Phillips where she explains further why we’re hearing about the Houthis right now, the significance of the Red Sea and what future attacks could lead to, listen to the episode of The Briefing.