Why southern Yemen's chaos is benefiting the Houthis

The Houthis have not fired a shot in southern Yemen of late. Yet the turmoil spreading through Aden and Hadramawt may be working decisively in their favour.

While Saudi-backed government forces are scrambling to contain internal divisions amid separatist demonstrations in territories under their control, the Iranian-aligned group continues to consolidate power without the costs of direct military engagement.

This dynamic reveals a critical shift in Houthi strategy: rather than pursuing territorial expansion through costly conventional warfare, the group is leveraging the fragmentation of their opponents to advance their strategic position across Yemen.

As analysts noted to The New Arab, the Houthis in recent years have adopted a strategy of patience and manoeuvring rather than rapid territorial expansion, a posture made more effective by the current instability in the south.

Yemen's south in turmoil

Late January saw Aden convulsed by separatist demonstrations calling for southern independence. The Southern Transitional Council (STC), the UAE-backed militant faction that lost de facto control of the city just weeks earlier, mobilised thousands of supporters to raise separatist flags and slogans, despite the nominally pro-government authorities ostensibly controlling the city.

The local governor's decision to permit the protests as an exercise in free expression raised immediate questions about state capacity and intent. It also showed deeper complications facing the new authorities. Officials face a delicate calculation in post-January Aden, where the STC retains organisational capacity and public support even after military defeat.

Analyst Tawfiq al-Hamidi, head of the SAM Organisation for Rights and Freedoms, framed this as pragmatic management. Permitting separatist demonstrations “does not reflect weakness so much as managing a tense situation after January 2026, where Aden experiences a precise equation between 'prestige' and the 'balance of forces on the ground,” he told TNA.

Any direct confrontation with these demonstrations “is not in the interest of the new situation,” making containment a necessity, al-Hamidi added.

Yet this tolerance sends precisely the signals that matter to the Houthis: a governing authority unable or unwilling to impose a coherent political narrative, and a south fractured by rival visions of statehood

Multi-layered Houthi gains without a military cost

Dr Adel al-Shuja, a Yemeni political analyst, identifies several interconnected ways the Houthis benefit from southern instability.

The first is a fragmentation of opponents, as the escalating conflict between the internationally recognised government and the UAE-aligned STC has diverted energy away from confronting the Houthis themselves.

"Divisions and conflicts between anti-Houthi factions in Hadramawt and the south have converted the energy of these parties from confronting the group to internal conflict,” al-Shuja told TNA. “This situation has granted the Houthis an opportunity to reorganise their ranks in the north without real pressure from unified southern fronts."

Secondly, the peace process has continued to stall amid continued tensions in the south, freezing the prospects for a political settlement, which is strategically advantageous for the armed group.

“The continuation of disputes in the south maintains the stagnation of the peace process, which allows the Houthis to present themselves as a party that cannot be bypassed in any future political settlement,” according to al-Shuja.

“Each failure of a ceasefire path weakens their opponents internally and highlights the group as an indispensable influential factor.”

The third benefit for the Houthis is at the regional level, where the group has expanded its strategic footprint and the "scope of the conflict" through attacks on maritime shipping in the Red Sea under the pretext of supporting Gaza, al-Shuja notes.

This behaviour, in his view, has presented the group as a regional actor capable of influencing the security of global shipping lines without being drawn into expensive conventional warfare.

“This approach aligns with the group's strategy in recent years, based on manoeuvring and exhausting opponents, while exploiting any fissure within their camp rather than entering into open confrontation,” al-Shuja said.

Time as a strategic asset

Abdulghani al-Iryan, a senior researcher at the Sana'a Centre for Strategic Studies, offers a similar reading of Houthi positioning. He contends that the group harbours “no intention to expand by force in the near term, because they were seeking to revive an agreement that Saudi Arabia had alluded to before 7 October 2023”.

From this perspective, southern developments could also pose problems as well as advantages, Al-Iryan argues, providing the government with an opportunity to unify its military command.

Beyond the south, the Houthis also face more pressing concerns, as the possibility of a US or Israeli strike on Iran would mean positioning themselves as the “sole line of defence for Tehran” within the 'Axis of Resistance'.

Al-Hamidi, on his part, notes that the group is also suffering from “economic exhaustion and military attrition”, which would make any escalation at this stage an unwelcome prospect.

Yet these pressures need not translate into passivity, according to al-Hamidi, as “Houthi non-escalation becomes a calculated strategic choice” rather than a sign of weakness.

The group has learned to use time strategically, with southern disputes changing the balance of attention in Yemen and granting the Houthis a precious opportunity to rebuild their leadership pyramid after Israeli and US strikes over the past year.

Crucially, the Houthis profit not only from their own strength but from the self-inflicted wounds of their rivals, with internal disputes weakening their opponents’ combat capabilities and damaging the credibility of their project both at home and abroad.

A mirror for Yemen's crisis

The turmoil in the south reflects what al-Shuja calls the fundamental crisis of Yemen's anti-Houthi coalition.

“What is happening in Aden and Hadramawt is not a passing event but an enlarged mirror of the entire Yemeni crisis: a weak state, contradictory alliances, competing local forces, and a Houthi group advancing quietly, benefiting from the disintegration of its opponents,” he told TNA.

While Houthi dominance is not inevitable, the analyst stresses that ongoing political and security fragility and the government’s failure to present an “inclusive governance model” will continue empowering the group.

When asked whether government unification could constrain Houthi manoeuvring room, al-Shuja responded that such a scenario remains “weak in light of the continuation of political divisions and the intertwining of regional loyalties”.

For the Houthis, southern chaos is no longer incidental to their strategy; it has become central to it. The group's strategic advantage depends not only on military victories but on the continued inability of their enemies to unify, govern effectively, and present a coherent alternative to their control.

That failure, currently being demonstrated daily in Aden's streets, is a gift that requires no gunfire to exploit.

Rachid Mohsen is an independent Yemeni journalist based in Sanaa, Yemen

This article is published in collaboration with Egab

Edited by Charlie Hoyle