Amid renewed fighting in Yemen between forces loyal to the internationally recognised government and the Iran-backed Houthis, some Syrians are seeing parallels with the rebel offensive which overthrew longtime dictator Bashar al-Assad in December 2024.
The latest fighting in Yemen began with a Houthi offensive to take territory near the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, but government forces have counterattacked on multiple fronts in recent days, seizing the strategic Hays district in Hodeida and launching an offensive in the Al-Jawf area. Dozens of Houthi fighters have reportedly surrendered.
The Houthis captured the Yemeni capital Sana'a and most of northern Yemen in 2014 and have remained in control there despite a Saudi-led coalition of Arab states intervening against them in 2015.
They have close ties to Iran and its allied groups, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah, and are accused of numerous human rights abuses, including arbitrary detention of political opponents, torture, and attacks on civilians.
Many Syrians have compared the Houthis to the regime of Bashar al-Assad, an authoritarian ruler also allied with Iran.
On social media, Syrians expressed their support for the Yemeni government through memes and images, some of them created with AI.
The Syrian Revolution 2011 page, which is associated with the early days of the Syrian uprising and, after 2024, became very supportive of current President Ahmed Al-Sharaa, shared a video of a Syrian fighter taking down a poster of Bashar al-Assad in 2024, accompanied by one of a Yemeni boy taking down a poster of Houthi leader Abdel Malik al-Houthi recently, captioned “from Syria to Yemen, victory is due to those peoples who do not surrender”.
It also shared an image of the well-known Damascene Sword monument in the Syrian capital’s Umayyad Square transformed into a traditional Yemeni dagger, with the news that the internationally recognised Yemeni government’s defence minister had given an order to "liberate Sanaa".
Syrian journalist Hadi Abdullah, who became well known during the uprising and is close to the current government, shared a picture of himself wearing traditional Yemeni dress and a dagger, saying, “Our Hearts are with Happy Yemen and its people”.
Many other Syrian activists and influencers shared similar photos of themselves wearing traditional Yemeni dress, apparently made with AI.
Some Syrians referred to Yemeni government operations against the Houthis as “Deterring Aggression”, the name which Syrian rebels gave to their lightning November-December 2024 offensive which overthrew Bashar al-Assad, although this name hasn’t been used by government forces.
The internationally recognised Yemeni government’s information minister, Muammar Al-Eriani, thanked Syrians for their support, according to Syria’s Halab Today TV.
Halab Today quoted him as saying, “We have followed with great pride and gratitude the popular campaign launched by Syrians on social media platforms, in solidarity with their brothers in Yemen.”
Eriani added that the Syrian social media campaign was “a profound expression of the bond of brotherhood between two peoples who have both tasted the bitterness of repression and the growing influence of Iran’s proxies.”
However, despite the solidarity, there are many differences between the current situation in Yemen and the one in Syria in 2024, with a victory by government forces over the Houthis, who appear much less dependent on external allies than the Assad regime, far from certain.