War Comes to Taiz

The city of Taiz has historically played a key role in Yemen’s political life. Long considered the cultural capital of Yemen, Taiz has occupied this space for roughly a millennium.¹ Historically, Taiz was described as the “Damascus of Yemen” for its impressive agricultural and academic production. A cosmopolitan urban center in the 1960s, Taiz provided refuge for southerners agitating against British colonial rule and Republican revolutionaries fighting to oust the Zaidi isolationist Imamate, rendering it a strategic urban space for leftist movements to exchange ideas.² Home to much of Yemen’s educated class, Taiz often functioned as the urban fulcrum of opposition to the political elite based in Sanaa, Yemen’s capital. In the 1980s, Taiz played a key role in the advancement of negotiations between the north and south in the lead up to national unification.³ Taiz was also a focal point of Yemen’s 2011 Arab Spring, which resulted in the ouster of longtime President Ali Abdullah Saleh. During the Arab Spring (between 2011 and 2012), Taiz was described as the “heart of the revolution.”⁴

Given its historical importance, foreign powers competed for influence in Taiz prior to the Houthi seizure of Yemen’s capital, with Gulf States in particular funding political parties within the city. Qatar, a major international player in the lead up to the current conflict, provided significant financial backing of Islah (particularly during the 2011 Arab Spring) and continued to back the party after the revolution.⁵ Iran, for its part, launched an influence campaign—albeit largely on the political front—early on, building ties with some Taizis both directly and through Lebanese networks—particularly disaffected leftists—and even (according to interviews conducted for this report) in some cases literally sponsoring trips to Iran.⁶ All the while, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have maintained decades-old ties with Taiz, including through key political figures, business families, and social and political networks.

The Houthi rebel movement, whose political branch is called Ansarullah, seized the Yemeni capital on September 21, 2014. The capture of Sanaa was the culmination of decades of Houthi resentment toward the Yemeni government. Former President Ali Abdullah Saleh fought six wars with the Houthis throughout the 2000s.²⁰ The collective result of these wars was the almost wholesale destruction of Saada, the historic capital of the Houthis’ native region, and the lingering resentment of the Houthis toward the government in Sanaa, which they accuse of withholding resources and targeting them unfairly.²¹ The Houthis largely draw their support from elements of Yemen’s Zaidi community. A branch of Shia Islam, the Zaidi community predominates in north Yemen, representing about one-third of the Yemeni population.

The collective result of these wars was the almost wholesale destruction of Saada and the lingering resentment of the Houthis toward the government in Sanaa.

Upon capturing Sanaa, the Houthis spread outward attempting to conquer the rest of the north, including Taiz.²² They also went south, fighting their way almost into Aden before finally being repelled by the Popular Resistance, a series of militias that organized to resist the Houthi advances. At that time, this resistance was an amorphous collection of armed groups that emerged organically to push back against armed militants flooding into their towns, although the Saudi- and Emirati-backed coalition moved quickly to organize and support groups resistant to the Houthis as they formally intervened in Yemen.²³

The Houthi presence in Taiz, however, predated their takeover of Sanaa. The Houthis first moved to establish an open presence in Taiz during the 2011 Arab Spring-inspired protests, in which men and women across the Middle East took to the streets in mass demonstrations against decades of authoritarian governance.²⁴ The protests, which began in Tunisia and soon embroiled the region, quickly reached Yemen, where demonstrators targeted longtime Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh.²⁵ Calling for expanded rights and services from the government, poverty reduction, and an end to state corruption, protestors also called for Saleh to cede power, which he did, finally, in February 2012.²⁶

The Houthis were active in the Yemeni Arab Spring, initially making themselves known largely through the Steadfast Youth (Shabab Al-sumud), a Houthi-affiliated youth group prominent in protest encampments across the country. During this period, tensions between Houthi-affiliated figures and other political groups occasionally turned violent, mainly in the form of scuffles with those youths who supported Islah and those who supported the Houthis in protest squares across the country.²⁷

There were deeply local aspects to the Houthis early political efforts in Taiz. According to interviews conducted by the authors, several prominent Taizis rose through the ranks of the Houthis’ power structure, most notably, Mahmoud Al-Guneid, a Taizi poet and political activist who eventually served as a Houthi leader. Al-Guneid was appointed as Director of the Presidential Office during the tenure of Saleh al-Samad²⁸ from 2015 through 2018.²⁹ Other figures who aligned with the Houthis include Sultan al-Samei, a socialist member of parliament, Salah al-Dakak, a prominent leftist activist and journalist, Talal Aqlan, who served as the Houthi-affiliated government’s acting prime minister, and Salim Mughalis, a member of the Houthis governing Supreme Political Council in Sanaa and delegate to UN-sponsored peace talks. Many of these figures, who hailed from leftist political streams, framed their alignment with the Houthis as an outgrowth of their frustration with Islah and other traditional power centers. Islah’s dominance over the transitional process that emerged in the wake of the Arab Spring was one reported factor in uniting the Houthis with some on the left, but some Yemeni political activists also suggested that leftist support might have been financially motivated.³⁰

The Houthis took control of parts of the Al-Mokha district in the Taiz governorate as early as March 2015.³¹ In their campaign, the Houthis often joined forces with groups loyal to ousted former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, owing to their mutual aims of pushing back against various figures aligned with the transitional government. On March 22, 2015, a joint Houthi-Saleh army swept into the Taiz governorate capturing military bases and strategic spaces around the city of Taiz, including the town of Al-Turbah, 50 miles southwest of Taiz city and 70 miles east of the port of Mokha on the Red Sea coast. Initially, the Houthis faced little organized military resistance from local Taizis, and the joint Houthi-Saleh forces moved quickly through the governorate, capturing the airport and the local Central Security Forces (CSF) base in the capital city.

Local demonstrations against the Houthi incursion began almost immediately, with protests in Taiz and across Al-Turbah. Anti-Houthi demonstrators were met with violence, and were quickly suppressed where they occurred. On March 24, two days after the Houthis entered the Taiz governorate, six protesters were killed and dozens of others were wounded in Taiz and Al-Turbah.³² In reaction to the deaths, Taizi Governor Shawqi Hayel Saeed, grandson of Hayel Saeed Anam, Taiz’s wealthiest and most successful modern businessman, announced his intention to resign from office in protest against the security forces’ failure to implement his mandate and directives.³³ Saeed was originally selected for this position because of his reputation as a capable technocrat and his family’s long history and influence in Taiz. However, his resignation announcement paved the way for a violent confrontation in the increasingly fractured city, spurring the wider conflagration that continues to embroil Taiz.

In response to Saeed’s resignation announcement, officers and members of the Thirty-Fifth Armored Brigade in Taiz, one of the most powerful military units in the city, declared their support for President Hadi. This announcement was prompted by then-Thirty-Fifth brigade head Major General Mansour Mohsen Mu’ajer’s alliance with the Houthis. General Mu’ajer handed over the Al-Arous air defense base on top of Jabal (mountain) Saber, and sent two battalions from the brigade to reinforce the joint Houthi-Saleh forces in their southern campaigns.³⁴ The brigade camp is located to the west of the city of Taiz; the territory mandated under the control of the brigade radiates outward from the western entrance of Taiz to the port city of Al-Mokha near the Bab Al-Mandab Strait. Demonstrations denouncing the brigade’s anti-Houthi stance occurred at the city’s old airport, which was under the control of the Thirty-Fifth Brigade.

On April 2, 2015, President Hadi appointed General Adnan Al-Hammadi commander of the Thirty-Fifth Brigade.³⁵ Al-Hammadi was later killed in Taiz on December 2, 2019, more than four years after his appointment. On April 9, 2019 President Hadi issued a decree appointing Brig. Gen. Sadiq Ali Sarhan commander of the Twenty-Second Armored Brigade, a move that was rejected by the brigade’s former commander, Hamoud Dahmash, who remained loyal to Saleh.³⁶ On April 11, pro-Houthi and pro-Hadi soldiers dispersed throughout Taiz.³⁷ On April 22, after 20 days of intense fighting, the Houthis captured the Thirty-Fifth Brigade headquarters at the old airport.³⁸

In November 2015, seven months after he announced his intent to do so, Shawqi Hayel stepped down as governor of Taiz.³⁹ This marked a watershed moment for Taiz; the end of technocratic governance and the disintegration of local authority.

Shawqi Hayel’s resignation came only a few months after the official start of the Saudi-led coalition’s Operation Decisive Storm, which began on March 26, 2015.⁴⁰ The war in Yemen became increasingly internationalized when the Saudi-led coalition officially began Operation Decisive Storm. The Saudi-led military operation aimed at ousting the Houthis and restoring Yemen’s internationally-recognized government to power. Decisive Storm was also framed by its proponents as pushing back against what they portrayed as an Iranian-backed threat to their national security. The UAE played a key role in the coalition from the beginning.

In the wake of the Saudi-led coalition’s military intervention in Yemen, the war has often been described as a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia. This narrative takes different forms. Some cast the Houthis as proxies for Iran, while others frame the Yemenis fighting against the Houthis as mercenaries for Saudi Arabia or UAE.

Both narratives are oversimplifications. The Houthis are ultimately a locally-rooted group whose leadership’s decisions largely appear to be driven by Yemen-related concerns.⁴¹ Despite their local roots, the Houthis’ ties to Iran are undeniable. The group derives ideological influence from both the Iranians and Hezbollah, firmly placing itself in the so-called Resistance Axis, a transnational grouping allied with Iran and opposed to the hegemony of U.S. allies in the region.⁴² While the extent of Iran’s role in the war remains largely opaque, Western officials continue to highlight Iran’s deployment of ground advisors to Yemen, while UN expert reports point to Iranian technology transfers to the Houthis, particularly with regards to drone and missile technology.⁴³ The Houthis receive logistical support from Iran, but this does not mean that they are a proxy over which Iran exercises substantial control. Despite shared ideological affinities, there is little evidence of firm Iranian command and control over the Houthis during the earlier rounds of warfare throughout the 2000s, though the relationship between Iran and the Houthis has clearly strengthened since the start of the war.⁴⁴

Saudi Arabia has encouraged the grand proxy war narrative to garner both political and material support for its war efforts. By describing Iran’s involvement in Yemen as an existential threat to Saudi and regional security, Saudi Arabia has successfully persuaded Western governments of the necessity of its Yemen campaign, even in the face of declining international public support for the conflict.⁴⁵ While the United States has scaled back its indirect involvement in the Saudi campaign—most visibly in November 2018, when it halted its mid-air refueling of Saudi military planes—the United States continues to provide weapons and logistical support to both the Saudis and their Emirati partners.⁴⁶ The prevailing framing of the coalition is similarly reductionist. Houthi-aligned media often frames Yemeni soldiers fighting on the coalition’s side as mercenaries or extremists, often going so far as to portray them as traitors to Yemen.⁴⁷

Saudi Arabia has encouraged the grand proxy war narrative to garner both political and material support for its war efforts.

For the Houthis, framing their battle as one against a foreign enemy has allowed the group to mobilize fighters, even as the battles are largely directed against fellow Yemenis. This messaging of the wider conflict as a “Saudi war in Yemen,” particularly in a significant portion of Western discourse, has also served to benefit the Houthis and their sympathizers, who have aimed to capitalize on some Western politicians’ and publics’ antipathy to Saudi Arabia—particularly after the death of Jamal Khashoggi—to generate international sympathy for their cause and opposition to Saudi Arabia’s military efforts.⁴⁸

However, in the eyes of many Yemenis, not just in Taiz but also in areas like Marib and the formerly independent south, the Houthi incursion constituted a virtual invasion, leading them to frame their decision to take up arms in a locally rooted, defensive manner—regardless of whether they eventually linked up with powers outside of the country for financial and military support.⁴⁹

Al-Qaida in turn benefits from both versions of the grand proxy warfare narrative. The group uses its propaganda to portray the war as defined by foreign intrusions, casting the Houthis as Shia tools of Iran and a reflection of a region-wide sectarian threat, while simultaneously mounting criticism of the UAE presence as a foreign tool of the United States.⁵⁰ At the same time, al-Qaida seeks to burnish its ties to local tribes proclaiming its local rootedness, and when it has had success in Yemen, that success has largely come from its deft manipulation of local dynamics amidst the larger war.⁵¹

While a variety of local, national, and international actors invested in Taiz share an interest in battling the Houthis, there are differences at each level over how it should be done and who should be the force behind it.⁵² As the conflict and humanitarian crisis intensified, tensions over tactics and strategy broke out in the open, which in many ways reflected long-standing friction between political factions in Taiz.