Houthi leader says US, UK plot targeting Yemen's resources

Houthi leader Abdulmalik al-Houthi accused the UK, the US and Israel of perpetuating military "aggression" against Yemen, while also criticising Saudi Arabia's actions in the country.

The leader of the rebel group made the remarks at an event marking the anniversary of the killing of former Houthi political leader Saleh al-Sammad.

"The injustice against our Yemeni people took the form of an aggression engineered by Zionism, overseen by the United States, Britain, and Israel, and carried out by the coalition led by Saudi Arabia, which bore the greatest share of this enormous burden," al-Houthi said. 

He added: "Had the Americans, British, Saudis, and their allies fully occupied our country, they would have exploited its strategic location for military bases and their ambitions, and looted its vast untapped resources."

The Houthis have controlled Yemen's capital, Sanaa, and much of the country's northwest since 2014.  

Based in Aden, Yemen’s internationally recognised government is made up of a patchwork of factions united largely by their opposition to the Houthis. 

The government, backed by a Saudi-led military coalition, has been at war with the Houthis since 2015, in a conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands of Yemenis and plunged the country into one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. 

Al-Houthi also claimed that Yemen’s oil wealth in Hadramout, Al-Mahra and other regions is a target of American, Israeli, British and Saudi "greed", while arguing that the country’s strategic position overlooking the Bab al-Mandab strait and the Arabian Sea makes it central to "imperial ambitions". 

Referring to al-Sammad’s death in a Saudi-led air strike in Hodeidah in 2018, al-Houthi said: "The targeting of Martyr President Saleh Al-Sammad was American, and Saudi Arabia was directly involved in the crime. Saudi Arabia bears full responsibility as the leader of the aggression."

Al-Sammad was the second most senior figure in the Houthi movement and was appointed head of the Ansar Allah Political Council in 2011 following the uprising against the regime of the late president Ali Abdullah Saleh. 

The Houthis have faced attacks from the United States, the United Kingdom and Israel since 2023, following the outbreak of the war in Gaza, after having previously come under sustained bombardment by the Saudi-led coalition. 

Recent weeks have seen clashes involving Saudi-backed factions and the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC), after the southern separatists took control of the provinces of Hadramout and al-Mahra. The two sides had previously been bound together as members of Yemen's Presidential leadership Council - the executive arm of the internationally recognised government.

The fighting has deepened tensions between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, both major Gulf powers and oil producers, with Abu Dhabi withdrawing its remaining military forces from Yemen at the end of December.